Scratching My Texanness
Girls who crowd the stage at boy band concerts are defined by certain norms. Whether they are blithering at the feet of Frank Sinatra or Harry Styles, there are: a) tons of said girls, b) they’re not old enough to vote, and c) said weeping ladies have pushed their way to the front row. It’s a rich legacy of hyberbolic teen devotion spanning decades. There is a socially acknowledged formula that determines which girls are supposed to cry at concerts. And I do not fit that description. So why do I keep finding myself sitting in the last rows of a dark theater, quietly sobbing while someone old enough to be a grandfather strums his guitar?
I blame it on my Texanness. It’s the only psychiatric condition that makes sense.
It’s happened twice in the past year. The first time was at Austin City Limits, listening to Willie Nelson and choking down such heaving sobs I wondered which part of me had been obscenely repressed. A surplus of cabernet in my life and a deficit of pinto beans & queso was probably at the root of the problem. Was I terribly homesick and afraid to admit it? Was I just sitting still long enough for the holiday stress to catch up with me? Had a deep loneliness been brewing within, that just now heated to the point of bubbling over? Was this music Just. That. Good? Except for the last one, the answer was no. The only logical conclusion was this: Somewhere deep inside, my Texanness had been scratched. On that day, I blamed Willie Nelson, at Austin City Limits, which of all people, and all places, should have a way of doing that. And I challenge any Texas woman worth her salt to stay dry-eyed if she’s in the same building with Willie while he sings “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain”. It will make you homesick for a Hill Country dirt road even if you’ve never seen one. Lord help those of us who have called one home.
The second time was just a few weeks ago, at Napa’s charmingly restored Uptown Theater. Two of my fellow Texas A&M alum, Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett, booked a show so close to my house that I could walk there. I even jogged by their tour bus in the late afternoon, flattered that they were spending a few extra hours in my second home town. I fantasized that maybe I’d spot one of them mozying into my friends’ tasting room, or maybe buying snuff at the old convenience store. Maybe I could treat one of them to a glass of wine, or a North Bay Bohemian. They’d probably recognize me as kin just by the feel in the air. Two cowpokes who sing about the same stuff everyone else does, except that it’s magically better and in my native tongue, in the land of Priuses and plastic bag bans? They qualify as family, even if they don’t know my name. Better yet, they were practically in my living room! (Except they’d probably be more comfortable in my parents’ living room in San Antonio, with deer heads and a trophy wide-mouth bass and a real nice sunset over the back pasture. But still.)
On that Second Event, I found myself once again gussied up for a night out with husband and friends, only to end up in the back row seats, quietly weeping into my Lagunitas IPA. And not just for one song, either. There was the one about the porch, and the one about coming home, and then the one that isn’t really danceable but that I chose for the first dance at our wedding anyway- I was understandably defenseless against that one. It wasn’t just me, however, eeking out tears in the name of nostalgia and love and truth. One of our closest friends, whose birthday we were celebrating, snuck out before the encore in a wash of tears. I suspect it’s because her Texanness, too, got an unexpected scratching.
I was only born in the one state. The only childhood I know is the one where I invited my whole 4th grade class to Floore’s Country Store for my 10th birthday party. It’s the same place I took all my California friends who came from out of town, the night before my wedding. And I only know the one growing-up, hearing Patsy Cline and Marty Robbins wail their ballads through the static on my parents’ radio. (Willie, Lyle, and REK entered the canon later.) So I don’t know how unique this particular itch might be.
My son and my grandfather, walking on the ranch.
Do North Dakotan expats have someone who makes them crumble to pieces with a simple poetic refrain? Do Rhode Islanders? Dare I ask, do Californians? Or does it have something to do more with dirt and less with state lines? Like me, my friend who cried two rows in front of me at the recent concert grew up familiar with sprawling dry ranch land and cow patties. Like me, she has a dad whose silhouette is marked by a cowboy hat and a rolling farm kid’s gait. Do city kids who grew up in a Texas with suburbs and sidewalks have the same scratchable spot of Texanness hiding underneath their boots? It’s not lost on me that the same wine note we call “barnyard” in Napa is what we sniffed any time the wind blew the smell of horse manure over the mesquite brush that separated my aunt’s house from my parents’- but does this make a Texanness that’s any different from the rest?
Part of the appeal of hearing Texas’ great musical poets play on California turf is the conviction that I’m on to a secret. Knowing the diamond singing in our rough, and such. Ticket sales, however, prove that I can’t claim any special knowledge; both times I’ve heard Robert Earl and Lyle play in the Bay Area, it’s to a sold-out house. And California remains a regular stop on their tour, so apparently the NPR listeners of Marin county and the dust wranglers of Pope Valley hear something they like, too. Maybe if a song is true enough, it feels like home no matter where you’re from. But it’s one thing to be touched by a song, and another for it to be so deeply familiar it feels like gospel.
The LA Times cites demographers who claim I’m not the only Texan who moved West. The Golden State is a popular place to resettle if you’re from the Lone Star State, and vice versa. The call of enchiladas and cheap houses is as strong as the lure of mountains and Pacific sand. There’s no telling how many others have been pining away in the back of music halls with the proverbial tear in their beer. For those who are out there, I offer you this: you’re not lost. You just came from a really good home. And that home left a special itchy spot that wakes up at certain smells and certain sounds. Wear your boots. Remember the good songs. Bring tissues. And give your Texanness a good scratch every once in a while.
