The Legend of Texas Deb

When I was young, very young I lived in East Texas.  My parents moved our family there when I was just a baby from Plano.  We lived in Gilmer, East Mountain and then in Hallsville.  We lived amongst the tall, dark mysterious pines in a small Texas town with a school mascot applicable preschool through twelfth grade. 

I loved it there.  I still do.  There’s just something about those rolling hills and their rich, dark forests that always welcome me back and hold me to them as if I’m hugging the neck of a dear friend I haven’t seen in years. 

We moved when I was seven to Albuquerque, where my parents had roots and my Dad had another, better job but not until after the Texas Sesquicentennial. 

When I was in kindergarten we celebrated the 150th birthday of our great State of Texas.  An event only complete with all the fanfare a small-town community had to offer.  There was a big show at the High School football stadium and if I recall correctly all school aged kids were involved.   I got to be a part of it, my singing, 6-gun shooting, boot wearing five-year-old self.  I remember even now the feel of that heavy metal toy gun and my plastic holster against my hip and the feel of a Texas night on my face under the stars; smiling as I hammed it up to anyone in the stands. 

I also remember a play date when my mother went to run errands and my older sister wandering too far into the woods with a friend.  I followed her, scrambling in my rainbow sandals atop sunny hay bales covered in ants.  It was at the time frustrating, to straggle behind my sister in earnest but now it is something that runs through my dreams, that sunny hay beneath my feet.

That place and my State wove itself into me like tiny thread, repeatedly until I was just as much a part of it as it was of me, delicate sutures that have healed with ease and gentleness.

Maybe that will help you to understand why I was absolutely heart broken when we moved.  There were benefits, of course.  I was closer to both sides of grandmothers, eager to love on me and my siblings.  I learned that I loved the smell of juniper, the feel of winter rolling in and banking off the mountains in that adobe and stucco covered city.  I wondered at “real Indians” that sold beautiful jewelry on their blankets along the sidewalk in old town and it was nice to go to church and have everyone know who I was because they grew up with my parents or knew my grandparents. 

It was home because it was where my family was but as an adult, I know that the place that is most conducive to who God made me to be will always be Texas, preferably East. 

I remember when we moved being terrified and heartbroken.  Mostly because I feared if I lived in New Mexico I would no longer be a Texan, a thought I had found profoundly horrifying.  I was born there, so the title “Texan” no one will take away from me, but I didn’t understand that at the time and I could never foresee that we would move back.  After five other moves before I was twelve years old finally, North Texas would be the place in which I would graduate from High School, marry and then get around to getting that Nursing Degree. 

At the time we left East Texas, 1987?, I was sad.  The thought of being all things Texas, the pride, the character, the toughness, the grit, the story… being a part of that is and was huge.  It has always made my imagination run wild with rolling hills and horses, longhorn cattle and blue bonnets, with difficult decisions and hard-fought love, with beautiful sunsets and rich hope for tomorrow.  I was worried I was done with all of that and I might have to, at some point, turn my back on those things and let the thirsty New Mexico dirt suck me into it eventually and regretfully assimilate.  That sounds silly to any one not from Texas, I understand but bear with me.   

Of course, I didn’t assimilate but that move changed the course of my life. 

Everyone seemed to know that I didn’t want to leave Texas.  Even my more eccentric grandmother I can clearly remember commented on the fact that I was a Texan.

Occasionally my parents would go out for whatever reason, leaving us in the care of my brother seven years my senior.  I’m not sure when it all occurred, or by what motivation.  At some point, while he was given the task of babysitting his sisters, my older brother started making adventures for us. 

A creative and thoughtful guy, he would make us maps.  He’d grab scraps of paper and make us an adventure and we’d travel about the house as if we were exploring the great old West.  We’d ride our gallant horses across the rough terrain and meet Apaches or Commanches to trade with or make peace, or we’d sidle up to the saloon counter and grab a shot of cold milk in a bright colored Tupperware cup. 

I was given the name Texas Deb which was almost the same thing as pinning a shining star to my chest and declaring that what she was is all that is right and true in God’s world; that she/I was a fighter, was diligent, fair, honorable, noble and foresaw and bore all the things that came to the gritty heroes of all the John Wayne movies I’d ever watched only she was just as feminine as she was tough and resolute.

My brother made it a place for my imagination to roam free, where my little seven-year-old heart imagined I’d be and what I’d be doing if we still resided in Hallsville; if my little heart and imagination was still living on such fertile soil and so far beyond.  It was permission to dream and to dream big.  To think about who I wanted to be and why. 

It’s strange because that was a true gift.  It was an unappreciated gift to a child then.  Now it is what blesses me with determination and strength.  I put on the hope, strength and character of Texas Deb and all is right in my world.  I clothe myself with the moniker when I am distressed, when I know I need to work hard, when I know only the best will suffice.  She has become a symbol of all that I want to be.

I’ve taken lovely little memories and tidbits from the imperfect, but Grace given people in my life along the other thirty some odd years I’ve neglected to mention that divide me and the original Texas Deb.  I add these attributes to my character, Texas Deb’s character. 

Now, I fall short and often.  Texas Deb, however, is what I’ve always wanted to be. 

My mother could sew the most magnificent, intricate wedding gown.  She could also cook the most comprehensively tasty meal you could imagine.  She could simply decide one day she wanted to make a kitchen table and benches and commission herself and my brother to do just that with a simple trip to the lumber store.  She was lady like intricacies meets… woodworking?  What kind of superhero is that??  Of course, Texas Deb ignores the flaws of others and offers Grace.

My great grandmother, Pearlie, though I’d never had the privilege to know her, apparently made yarn and subsequent socks for her babies’ feet from the leftover cotton that her and her husband harvested in Mississippi.  She also gracefully stood up for what she thought was right in God’s eyes in the way of worship and leading her family, despite resistance from her husband.  She won, by the way and said husband ended up an Elder in the Church of Christ.

My maternal grandmother showed me that you can be quirky and strong.  She always told me that she was a “pioneer”.  I always believed it and wanted to be a pioneer too.  I do to this day!  I remember years ago, driving by the New Mexico homestead of her family and will always have a respect and love for the stories of those who carved their way into a new home and wilderness while much of the rest of the world was heading to the nearest city to participate with necessity in the industrial revolution.  She was unabashedly herself. Her spunky (later diagnosed as really, medically crazy but so profound!) spirit always dared me to do and go; to glean the information of the “now” and to live and do. 

My fraternal grandmother taught me that there is beauty and strength in poise, in rising to the challenge of an well kept home but also to contributing whatever one can to the welfare of her children, whether that be additional income or the like.  She taught me that a lasting impression of order might someday be relied upon as a solstice for someone in disorder, or someone in need of uncomplicated hospitality, clean, orderly, simple. 

I have a sister who is honest and funny and poised; strong as a whale boned corset sometimes.  Smart, clever, witty and profoundly stubborn, we share the stubbornness I'm proud to say. She’s a huge part of Texas Deb as well. 

I have a mother in law who has strength and diligence and simultaneously a realness that I have never known.  She has loved me as her own when I have surely thought no one would want to.  She has made me laugh and reminded me who I am.  She has cried with me and talked straight with me when I needed it.  Yet another super hero, storybook character. 

Recently, God has sent friends. 

Some have sent me a message of toughness through their enduring battle with their children over the exact same struggles I have.  As we lean on each other, encourage one another I simply carve more stripes in Texas Deb’s big gun belt; add more to her depth and character.  I

I have beautiful friends that speak truth into my life, that whisper gentleness and healing into my ears and they are part of her too. Friends that snap me out of a funk and remind me I'm a lot stronger than what I think.  Friends that love my children like they’re their own, well, they’re carved into her heart just like a soft rolling green hill or the smell of mesquite smoke on a campfire. 

The truth is, Texas Deb isn’t and will never be a real person.  She is what I hold in my heart.  She’s who I strive to be.  When I have times I really need to think about what I want in this life, what God has planned for me, how I must be strong on this journey, I must be Texas Deb.  I must be a collection of all those beautiful attributes that I have collected and admired over the years as I ride out over the prairies on my spunky palomino; resolute, steadfast, mindful.

I hope we all have that as women in an age we forget that it's special to be a woman.  I hope we have persona that we understand we can never get right all the time, but that we strive for because of the love, kindness and profound strength God has poured into us through the other women in our lives.  I hope we all have that in a way that isn’t guilt ridden or intimidating.

Often, we compare and come up short.  So many times, I get caught up in the comparison game, “she does this better than me” “I do this better than her”.  Truth is, when I see each wonderful woman in my life past or present as a God given inspiration, I only want to glean strength, understanding and wisdom and hopefully offer some of the same. 

Texas Deb is strong, brave, graceful, practical, sensible, reliable, steadfast, full of grit, feminine, dependable, loving… and she wears a hat like a boss and rides a horse.  Aside from the hat and the horse I suppose she’s a lot like that Proverbs 31 lady.  When I think of it like that it takes something huge and makes it more attainable, bit by bit, encouraging word by encouraging word, step by step, mile by mile. 

Now if someone might offer me low cost riding lessons.....