The old metal circle leans up against my storage barn. Its peeling green paint, almost gone now, a reminder of the life it once lived as part of a truck. Maybe part of a wheel, but I’m not sure. My earliest memory is in that truck with my Grandpa Dit.

His given name was George Henry Wilton. But everybody called him Dit, a name bestowed upon him by his eldest daughter, my Aunt Linda. So, my mom never had a dad. She had a Dit. I don’t know if I could even say his name before he passed. He died when I was a little more than two. So how in the world do I have a memory of him?

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I’ve read that people can make up memories, and I know they can change over time. And maybe that’s what I’ve done. All I know is that I remember him. I distinctly see myself sitting in his lap as he drove us back from town in his old green Ford pickup truck. We had gone to get a can of orange Hi-C, my favorite drink.

That pickup truck sat for years under the lean-to against the granary. The circle and another part from it now reside in my backyard, reminding me of a man I never really knew. I wonder what happened to the rest of it.

My grandma was 60 when he passed. She lived on the farm for 33 more years without him there. Long enough for the truck to rust under its cover. Long enough for the garden to be swallowed by weeds, for the fruit trees to die. Long enough for his hand-built workshop to collapse. Yet there are pieces of him that remain.

There are photographs, and things like his pocket watch and cufflinks.

And stories.

Stories told to me by my parents, but those stories remain shadows, and I get them mixed up and forget parts.

Dit was a pastor and a farmer. He had two daughters for farm hands and did the best he could at turning them into those farm hands. They ran a full farm complete with a garden and orchard, and all the animals you think of being present in a Fisher-Price farm. I love that they all had names. Spot the sow, Meynard the boar, Minerva the milk cow, and Rebel the horse.

Rebel was just your basic, dark brown horse. Aunt Linda picked him out, against Dit’s better judgement, but he let her get him as she earned most of the money to buy him. That horse had his name for a reason. He would nip your shoulder as he walked behind you. He had a mind of his own when it came to stopping and eating clumps of grass along the way that he found yummy, but Mom loved to ride him out through the pasture anyway. His favorite treat was a watermelon rind, and he would eat it one slobbery bite at a time.

They raised chickens, too. Mail-order baby chicks were delivered in a box with air holes, their peeping rising from inside. The mail carrier had to make sure they were home before dropping off this package. Always looking for the next pet, this was an exciting delivery. Mom loved watching these babies as they outgrew their metal cage, were moved into the brooder house, and then eventually moved down to the chicken house.

One of the few pictures we have of our time together is of me sitting on Rebel with Dit leading.

Dit knew all the native plants that grew on the land and would walk the pasture with my mom, teaching her the names of them. She’s forgotten many of them, and I wish I could make her remember. I have an image of them walking through the green field, grasses up to her knees, him stooping over to pick a leaf off a soft lamb’s ear, holding it at mom’s eye level and saying its name, asking her to repeat it, as she ran the silvery velvet leaf through her own fingers. From the stories I’ve heard, it was probably more like, “This is hookweed. We don’t like it. You and your sister get rid of it.” And they would swelter out in the heat of the day with a hoe in their hands cutting up hookweeds.

When it was time to bale hay, Mom and Linda were the ones assigned to the barn loft. Dit would run the bales up the conveyor until, like poor Lucy and Ethel and their chocolates, the bales became too much for the girls to handle. Frustrated, he would run up the belt, throw the bales out of the way enough to clear the jam, then start the process again. The hay was itchy and filled their shirts and shoes. “Don’t pay it no mind,” Dit would say.

He must have had a wicked sense of humor. When his daughters were in college and brought their potential husbands home, he gave them the most dreaded of the farm chores. There was no mention of him sitting on the porch with a rifle awaiting their arrival, but after they got there, they had better watch out.

He made those poor city boys castrate baby pigs, who, of course, in their fear and pain, would have diarrhea that would make its way all over the castrator. They also had to drench sheep. The sheep were driven through the chute to get their shots and medications. The awful-smelling pink medicine must have tasted just as bad as it smelled, and the sheep had no intention of swallowing such a foul liquid. They would spit as much of it out as they could, once again, covering everything and everyone.

Dit would just laugh as they tried to earn his approval.

He died of a heart attack while fencing the back field.

I think of him each time I walk to that fenceline.

Pieces of Dit are still there. His writing desk where he would write his sermons, his Bible, a few horseshoes left over from his workshop. I only have my one memory of him, but I feel him. When I’m there, looking out over the field, I see him in his coveralls, hat on his head, fussing over one thing or another, walking between his workshop and the barn, or coming into the yard with Mom showing him the latest batch of kittens piled in her lap.

I can’t say that for certain—he wasn’t here long enough for me to know him.

But I picture him.

Postscript - This was a piece I’ve had in my drafts for a while now, puzzling over how to get it out. I realized as I was finishing it up on Friday that it was his birthday. He was born August 28, 1903. I guess I needed a little push from him. Thanks, Dit.

The creek is a marvelously mystical, mucky, muddy mess of a place filled with alligator gar and rainbow perch and catfish and giant clams and banks lined with giant oaks with roots exposed to form the rooms of our make believe houses where we prepare our meals of sticks and leaves and berries we know not to eat contained in an empty clam shell or laid on a flat rock of a plate, where we wade up as far as we can go, or slide down a muddy bank over and over until we’re the color of the bank itself.

It is, indeed, a marvelous place.

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The grown-ups are doing their usual robotic inspection of the recently plowed field, slowly walking back and forth in a systematic sweep. Head down, eyes never leaving the ground, occasionally bending over to perform a closer inspection of a possibility. Every once in a while, we hear a “Whoop! Found one!” Another piece of flint, meticulously carved into a point by hands that worked here long before us, brought back to the surface by a metal disc dragged by a machine operated by a farmer to grow the next crop. It’s another remnant left behind by a people forced northward by our history.

I’m captivated by them, the artifacts they find—the sharpness of the arrowheads, the weight of the points. I especially like the scrapers. Those, I can hold in my hand. They fit like a glove. I almost feel the past seeping from that flint into my soul. And the grinding stones. In my childhood imagination I see an Indian sitting along the banks of this creek, grinding…grinding what?...I don’t know…the sticks and leaves and inedible berries we gather? The work that goes into just providing a meal—I can’t wrap my head around it.

The effort that goes into finding these treasures is lost on me. I don’t have the patience to walk the fields in the hot sun. I don’t have the drive to dig deep to find answers to my questions. And so, my day is spent in play. Underneath oaks that have seen more than I ever will.

My cousins, my sister, and I wade in the creek, finding the open clam shells. The pearly pink and purple ones are much more valued than the white ones. But they all work as bowls. We carefully clean them in the muddy waters and bring them to our kitchens. Two trees mean two houses. One for Keri. One for me. Or maybe one for Keri and me, and Steph and Tara can have the other. The rooms are laid out. The roots form steps heading down the bank towards the crossing, and each level makes a perfect room—this one, a bedroom, this one the kitchen, and there was always, with many giggles, a bathroom, which may have been, perhaps, actually used as such somewhere along the way in our childhood games.

We change games to dam building. The crossing is narrow, and it is easy to create a blockade out of sticks and rocks. We find the places where the water seeps around or leaks through and fill them with grass and other debris. We find the perfect leaves for boats and release them above the dam to watch what happens, grabbing them before they reach our barrier, then letting them go again below the dam. We chase them until they inevitably get stuck in a whirlpool or tumble under an overhanging root, forgotten almost immediately.

We wander down to the Roundhole where the banks are steep and spend some time sliding down the bank into the water right before it reaches the Roundhole. This is where our moms learned to swim, but we don’t ever go into the actual Roundhole. It’s over our heads and spooky with the hidden nooks and crannies underneath the eroding banks held together only by the roots of the oak trees.

Who knows what lurks in those waters we can’t see through?

The creek is a marvelously mystical, mucky, muddy mess of a place.

At least, it used to be.

I’m not sure what happened over the years. I know the water needed to reach farther and to reach more people. I know there’s a big, ugly green tank right next to our property that holds water. I suspect that water would have naturally flowed to the creek. I would like to say I am angry about what has happened. That I believe the water should have been left alone. But then I have to consider all the other ways I ask the world around me to give something up for my own comfort.

I like to think that I value our world and the life it supports, but when I really think about it, I find my hypocrisy screaming out like the religious leaders of my youth. I can stand at the back fence and enjoy watching the calves frolic in the field behind the farmhouse. I can drive past the full feed lot and talk about how I could never be a rancher. I think about what has to happen to those babies. To those mamas when their babies are taken away. And yet, I’ll enjoy the burger on my plate next to a pile of French fries and ketchup.

So, I don’t blame the people. I have to admit; I would do the same if it were my family. If it were my town.

Yet it’s my creek they took from.

These days when we go down to the creek, we have an idea of what we’ll find before we head out the door. The weather patterns tell us if there will be any water in it. Our creek has shifted from a reliable water source to a dry creek that ebbs and flows with the rains.

For many years of my children’s youth, I didn’t recognize this. We had regular rains, and they grew up fishing and playing very similarly to me. Their clamshells weren’t quite as big, and their waters sometimes got a little too mucky to play in, but they still waded and built dams. They caught minnows and made homes and dishes.

When the first drought hit, followed by a second, more intense one, I witnessed a landscape that had been a rock in my mind turn into a landslide.

First, the nearly dry creek bed. There were pockets of water in the deeper parts, the fishing holes. Seeing the bottom of the creek that always held such wonder hit me deep. I was somewhat excited by the possibility of a cool find, maybe an artifact or a fossil, but the reality of what losing a steady source of water means to the fish and the wildlife supported by this creek settled in.

Next, the trees started dying. We had a row of five or six giant pecan trees in the creek bottom. They died and fell in order, like a row of dominoes. There’s one that is trying to hold on.

And then the trees next to the creek began to die.

Our houses.

One now completely gone, an angry stump left behind, the other with one branch that does its best to give us a little shade. Our rooms are unrecognizable, although the potty root is still there, funny enough.

Lastly, the floods. During the horror of July 4th, 2025, we were at the farm for our annual trek to the small-town celebration. Instead of celebrating, we caught what little news we could about what was happening to our south, and to the communities surrounding our farm, wondering if we were even going to be able to navigate the washed-out dirt road leading to the highway. And if we got there, were there routes open to get us home?

We walked down to the creek on roads underwater and watched the red ants swim in balls of life rafts. We noticed the ones that didn’t make it floating in the still waters. It was quiet other than the roar of the usually dry waterfall where water from the slough makes its way to the creek after a heavy rain. We stopped and watched in disbelief at what we saw below us. Brown water full of debris, topped with white foam, raged past us. We called the dogs back from the edge of the bank.

We continued down toward the crossing. The grasses and plants above the creek were folded flat by the water as it rushed toward the creek. A crawdad peeked his head out of a place he should not have been. The crossing, normally so shallow and narrow you could step over with a hop, was over fifty feet wide. A tree trunk sat at the edge, looking like it was waiting for us to come have a seat and dangle our feet in the water. The water quickly flowed over the tops of the bushes and trees I knew were there.

Soon, the waters subsided.

The creek dried.

Today, there’s another fallen tree, creating a dam that we would rather not have. It will take us years to get it out with our little chainsaw and rubber boot operation. If we ever get it out.

Farmer Floyd still has cows on the creek but doesn’t depend on it for a source of water anymore. He had a concrete tank installed next to the road which he can fill with city water.

Briars and scrub elm are trying to take over the woods where the pecans once stood, much to the wild pigs’ delight.

But the dirt is the same shade of brown.

I wonder if my creek will survive. Its next phase may not be the beautiful ending we think of with a metamorphosis. She may remain an unpredictable place. She may continue to erode and fill in. She may completely dry up like the prehistoric seas that covered her millions of years ago.

But this creek will be my creek until I become the color of the bank itself and am buried to become nutrients for an oak that might grow along the banks and shade my great-grandchildren.

The dirt will still be the same shade of brown.

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“Oh. You’re dead,” I said. “No wonder you’re grumbly.”

I realized that I said this out loud, and, by instinct, scanned over my shoulder to see if anyone was listening.

I’m out far enough where it’s one of those ‘nobody is close enough to hear you scream’ scenarios, where every little sound makes you jump, and squirrels are the loudest creatures in the woods, only because the bigger creatures aren’t stirring. The sun is streaming through the trees, and the occasional cardinal becomes a momentary companion.

As much as I think I want to be alone, it’s scary.

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If I’m not careful, I can let myself get really worked up over the noises, but more so over not knowing where I am. This is not a familiar trail, and I have an intrinsic fear of getting Lost. Apparently, I was born with this fear. Mom tells me about when I was little how worried I became whenever I overheard them discussing directions.

“Are we Lost, mama?”

I still get anxious when I’m blindly following my GPS to some destination that I hope I correctly input into my phone. I can get turned around in my own neighborhood, and I constantly look for landmarks as I’m driving anywhere. When I have to be somewhere new at a certain time, I add in time to my drive to be Lost.

Today, I am on an early morning hike on Centennial Mountain. I don’t think ‘mountain’ is an accurate description. I think its height is about 1800 feet. But, mountain it is. The trails are actually mountain bike trails, well-maintained, marked, and the trailhead is only about five blocks from my cousin’s house where I am staying. I was eager to set out early this morning before the heat set in, eager for some time to myself.

Each time I head out on my own, I wonder why I seek solitude. I wonder if it’s because I never lived alone. I went from family to roommates to married. There’s never been a time I’ve actually been by myself for any extended period.

I don’t think I like the idea of living alone, but I do particularly like the idea of wandering alone, of not being interrupted, or on somebody else’s agenda, or feeling rushed when I just want to watch a beetle crawl across the path.

One spring, I accompanied my husband on a work trip to the beach. He was stuck in a conference center all day, leaving me to explore the town and coastline. I spent so much time photographing little crabs as they emerged from their shells. I loved the quiet, but as I got closer to where the marshy grasses meet the briny water, thoughts of alligators launching from the gray-green waters with mouths wide open, exposing shiny white teeth ready to take off my leg or my head invaded my peace, and I found myself wishing someone were with me.

Another spring, another work trip, this time to the desert. Again, he’s cooped up in a conference center and I’m left to explore. I headed to a park, a state park I think - very well known, very populated, but texted my daughter, half joking, “This is where I am in case I don’t come home.” I hiked the trail underneath Superstition Mountain, home to bandits looking for lost treasure, along with rattlesnakes and every thorny plant imaginable and steep cliffs to plummet down. I took some selfies with the sweeping views of Saguaro cacti and mountains and sent them to my kids to prove I could do it.

For today’s Alone Excursion, I asked Chat for some recommendations based on my interests and location. After it spat out the first list I added, “I’ll be alone if that makes a difference.” And sure enough, it did. It guided me to where I am now rather than the secluded state park it had first recommended as the ultimate spot to be.

I zipped my key into my pocket and meandered my way into the park, only saying hello to the man mounting his bike with his pretty little girl running circles around him, clearly excited for her run, tongue already hanging out. I took my time breathing in the new trees and plants, watching the way the sunlight played with the spider webs covering the floor of the woods. The man and his dog were quickly out of sight.

I stayed busy with my cameras. Yes, that’s plural. My phone in one pocket, and my “real” camera hanging from my neck. I’ve confessed my dream of being a photographer when I grow up. Well, this is as close as it’s gonna get for now—my zoom lens and the automatic setting.

As I slowly made my way through the park, very few people crossed my path, and none of them were walking. They were all on bikes. The best encounter happened when I was off to the side photographing a weird-looking fungus growing on the side of a tree and the man didn’t see me. He apologized, and I quickly said, “Not at all, I stepped to the side for you.”

I hadn’t even heard him coming. I was too focused on the green and white pointy things hanging on the side of a tree. My embarrassment at photographing fungus got the best of me, and I tried to play it cool. Sorry David Runyan.

I was better prepared for his partner to ride past me and stood there looking very purposeful in my step off the path, watching her and smiling as she rode past me.

Later on, I paused by a signpost that named trails I wasn’t expecting, and I couldn’t figure out where I was based on the picture of the trail map I’d taken a screenshot of. As I was debating which way to go, the same couple rode by and I stopped them to make sure I was headed in the right direction. It made me feel better when he even had a hard time finding where we were on the map. They reassured me that I was headed in the right direction, saying, “It’s not much farther!” Off they rode.

Alone again.

The feeling of Lost began to rise, and I found myself repeatedly checking my map. I even opened up Maps to see if it could pick up my location. It assured me I was somewhere “within this circle”. I tried to quiet my mind by paying attention to the beauty around me - the dry waterfall runs exposed on the hillside, the varying shades of greens in the moss and lichen growing on the rocks, the way the rocks split and created perfect little fairy landings.

I considered turning around and following the path I’d already taken, but looking at how far I had come with only one bottle of water that was almost empty deterred me from that option. Press on. Finally, I reached another trail post. This one had the name of the trail I was looking for, but it went in both directions.

After consulting my map again, I turned to the right and walked about fifty feet. Something didn’t feel quite right. I reversed course and pulled up my Maps again. This time, after watching myself walk a bit, I could see that I was, indeed, headed back towards the neighborhood. Relief settled and not many steps beyond, I saw the familiar trailhead sign I had stood in front of a couple of hours ago.

There is now a dad unloading with his three kids, all of them on bikes. He’s busy airing tires and the kids stare at me like I’m the alien there, being the one without a bike. We have a short conversation about their upcoming ride and I wish them a great adventure before I get back into my car. I think, “I bet Mom is so excited about her Alone Time.”

I think back to those days, days when just going to the grocery store without a child in tow felt luxurious. The exhaustion, the inability to complete a thought, and the continual questions are core memories of motherhood. Today, at this park, in this state that’s not mine, I am alone again. My baby is moving into her sorority house, and I’m here to help. She’s the youngest. The last to leave. She was The Only for her last four years at home, almost my constant companion.

With my kids mostly gone, I find myself with more and more Alone Time.

Alone Time - Time that I once craved and still seek out.

Alone Time - Time that I think I want until I’m in the middle of it.

Alone Time - Time that I choose, or time that is thrust upon me with my eyes wide open in surprise wondering how this happened.

I’m wrestling with that.

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“I’m helping the shapes escape!”

He laughed and said I sounded psychotic.

I replied, “I am! I just got off work!”

A game of Shape Escape ran beneath my fingers. The objective is to get all of the colored shapes through their coordinating doors, where they are then shredded as they pass through. There might be obstacles or gates to work around, but every level is the same. It’s just a puzzle of moving boxes. I’m now on level 2424. Two thousand, four hundred, twenty-four games played. I wonder how many hours of my life have been spent trying to distract myself from a brain that simply will not turn off. Perhaps Shape Escape will send a nice royalty check for this free plug.

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I put my phone down to have a real-live, face-to-face, conversation with him—asked him about his day, how was work, what are your plans for this evening? Nothing groundbreaking, just the check-in.

I don’t feel like I’m addicted to the vibrating buzz that happens when I get a shape to its designated gate, but as soon as my son wanders into the kitchen to look for something to eat, my phone is back in my hand.

I take it with me when I go to bed. Even though I know the warnings and probably suffer from the blue light exposure before sleep, I like to read on my Kindle app or watch videos of donkeys playing with rubber chickens or pandas rolling off everything imaginable. Then it’s a guaranteed grab for my phone four or five hours later when my brain decides to work overtime and I have to shut it up with more noise.

And it continues.

I get up with it in the morning. My devotional, my Bible app. Then onto the walk with the dog. If I’m alone, it provides a podcast or music, but even when I’m with a friend, it’s there in my pocket just in case.

I feel a poem in there somewhere:

Ode to Phone

You’re with me in the morning

You’re with me through the day

You’re with me in the evening

Won’t you please always stay?

Yeah, maybe not the best poetry. Think I’ll file that one under “Trash”.

The last time I walked with a friend it was two hours of catching up on life that we hadn’t done in far too long. We had parked in front of another friend’s house, and she came out as we were finishing our walk. It was only a few minutes, but it was the same pattern as with my son, just different questions—How’s the family? What’s everybody up to? How’s the knee injury? It’s a highlight reel in spoken form, compressed into 20 minutes on the sidewalk in front of your house.

The conversation naturally turned to kids, and almost obligatorily to their phones and the distraction they bring. One mentioned the kid who won’t stop scrolling, the hours spent watching videos. Another complained how it’s her husband who’s always working on it during family dinners. My mind took my phone another direction.

“Or capturing shots like this!” I interjected.

I proudly showed them my latest and greatest photo. I flashed the zoomed-in shot of a smiling face with big teeth in a red pepper I recently cut. “Oh, wait! Here…this one.” I swiped to a beautiful butterfly shot I only got because of this thing in my pocket.

One laughs at my perceived silliness; the other oohs and aahs. And back into my pocket it goes.

Until the next time I pull it out. I’m missing my kids.

With my phone, I’m able to keep track of my children. I don’t stalk them and look up their location all of the time, but occasionally I’ll pull it up when they’re all out and about and just note how many miles away from me they are. When my youngest was in the dorm, she was 444 miles away from me. I also check their weather. I like to see if it’s raining. I wonder if she’s wearing her rain boots.

Even better than tracking them like a crazy woman, I also get to occasionally see them! Not only can I bug them any time I want through a text with important things like pictures of smiling peppers, but I can use FaceTime and actually see their smiling faces. Well, most of the time smiling. Sometimes there are tears, and I want desperately to be there to give them a proper hug.

We can feel close, even miles apart.

Sometimes, those miles apart can be life-changing.

Two, almost three, Novembers ago, we were at the farm. Husband was down at the creek working on his treehouse, and I was a mile away at the house. He calls.

“Something’s wrong with Mom. Dad’s calling me. All he’s saying is ‘Mom’s not breathing’. I tried to tell him to call 911. He doesn’t understand. I don’t know what to do.”

So, I called 911 while he got back on the phone with his dad.

Did you know that 911 in one county can’t talk to 911 in another county? Nor can they transfer you to another county’s 911.

In the meantime, minutes are passing. So many minutes.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t help you. Someone in Austin will need to call.”

It took my brain too many seconds to think of who I could call. Then it clicked.

I called my dad and quickly tried to give him a summary of the situation and my in-laws’ address. He placed the call to Austin 911.

More minutes of silence.

My phone rings again. It’s Austin 911 calling me to confirm everything as they were en route to my in-laws’ house.

My husband is, by now, back at the house and packing to make the two-hour drive home. I make a few calls—his sister, his uncles, then head for home as well. Still no answers, but we know.

We had no idea how bad his Parkinson’s dementia had become before this moment.

She hid it so well.

And now, with her gone, it was torn open for the world to see.

My father-in-law is in memory care now. He doesn’t even remember that, at one time, he had a thing in his pocket.

I still listen, sometimes, to the last voicemail she left me.

“Nicole, oh Nicole. What am I going to do with this computer? I just can’t get it to work. Can you call me when you get a chance? I’m just lost.”

I wonder if one day, I’ll be that voice that someone can’t delete on the thing in their pocket.

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Mom and I have had many conversations about how the farm is only worth anything if you sell it.

It’s really just a money pit.

A pit full of 136 years of cobwebs and family history.

I don’t know if it’s the spiders within those cobwebs or the family history that keeps me coming back. I keep fighting to keep this place standing. One of those fights now resides in the one bathroom in our 1940s rock house.

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The plumbing has been redone. At least once. Probably more. Problems continue to arise. We keep things on hand for those fixes I can tackle with my self-declared pro-plumber certification. And today’s problem is well within my wheelhouse of plumbing skills, or so I think.

A few visits ago revealed a small leak from underneath the pedestal sink in the bathroom. The small leak has now grown to require a towel placed at its base to absorb the water pouring out if you should happen to turn on the water. As it is the only bathroom, it’s inevitable that you will turn on the water. I can feel where the leak is, but I can’t see it, nor can I reach it. I will have to take the pedestal out—a much bigger project than I’m ready to tackle at the moment. Or I can call The Man. Andy Griffith tells Aunt Bee over and over, “Just call The Man!” She resisted until she couldn’t anymore. I will, too. I don’t want to call The Man.

Summon She-Ra.

I opened my eyes as I released a big sigh, determined to give it one more try. Before I could turn back to the sink, I saw a bug on the bathmat across from me. Nothing unusual, just a little wasp or beetle-type bug. It’s so common to see bugs in the house that I just didn’t give him much of my attention. I did notice the iridescent green shimmering on his black body. “Hmmm,” I thought, “he’s kind of pretty.”

I watched him for a moment more and began to imagine how he felt. He was crawling over the expanse of the bathmat, seemingly lost in a field of sage green fluff. No idea where he was, no idea where he was going. He finally made it to the edge and promptly turned himself over as he navigated the cliff where the bathmat meets the linoleum. I watched him struggle for a moment to upright himself. He did and then crawled right back up onto the bathmat.

I laughed at him. “Stupid bug.”

He must have realized that he didn’t want the same experience of wandering the green field, because he turned around back towards the edge. And, again, he fell. This time I didn’t wait for him to right himself. I set my wrench down and extended a finger. He latched on enough to flip over and off across the floor he went.

“Now what are you gonna do, little bug?”

My plumbing escapades would have to wait. This bug was much more entertaining. He crawled across the tile floor maybe ten inches. Must have felt like a mile to him. When he came to a drop of water, he stopped. A single drop of water.

He drank the entire drop. I couldn’t see his tiny mouthparts moving, just the drop getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared.

He crawled a few steps past where the water had been and began to clean himself like a cat.

I didn’t know I could become so attached to a tiny insect as quickly as I did to that bug. One drop of water. He must have been parched from his unintended explorations. And after he’d survived a march through the wilderness, I couldn’t very well leave him there in the bathroom. So, I decided to take him outside where he could live his life in a green that maybe he knew, a green that is real.

My plumbing job temporarily forgotten, I rose and carefully stepped over him to get a piece of toilet paper.

I coaxed him to crawl onto a single square of toilet paper and carried him through the kitchen and out the back door. When I got him outside, the sunlight brought his colors to life. Turquoise, blue, and green swirling together on what had looked like an ordinary black bug.

I needed a picture. Of course, I needed a picture. So, I carried him back to the bathroom where I left my phone and then back outside. He sat only long enough for me to take his picture and then, so quickly it caught me by surprise, off he flew.

I watched him fly through the branches of the old pear tree, over the fence and off into the field. I lost track of him, but my gaze rested on the far fenceline for a moment.

The wet towel, the wrench, the leak are all still there. Waiting for me.

“Yes,” I think.

“This place is worth it.”

There are twelve other people in this area of the waiting room with me. One person has a book open, one is just sitting staring out the window, her hand resting uneasily on the black bag to her side. Everyone else is continuing the decline in their posture by looking straight down at their phone in their lap.

“At least my phone is closer to straight out in front of me,” I smugly think. I quickly adjust my posture to match my vain thoughts.

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The last time we were here, two years ago, I sat in that corner, over there. The one with the windows on one side and the safety of a plug in the wall on the other.

Today, I choose closer to the double doors. I sit, legs crossed, in a regular-sized chair. My belongings settle into the oversized chair next to me, forming a nice barrier between me and any stranger who might dare to come close. I would gladly ask my stuff to give up its seat if the need arose, but there appears to be plenty of seating.

Everything looks the same: the abstract paintings that look like their only purpose is to evoke calm, the printed framed photographs of wildflowers, the posters proudly promoting the philanthropic views of the hospital.

I could use a little of that philanthropy about right now.

They’ve installed a small coffee bar consisting of a folding table covered with a black tablecloth. There are two carafes, a bowl of creamers, a bowl of real sugar packets, one of fake sugar packets, and stir sticks. There’s also a big sign that reads, “No food or drink before surgery.” It’s in bold red letters. I think they want you to see it. The coffee is bad, but it’s free, and the paper cup does more to warm me than my sweatshirt. Why are hospitals always so cold?

The large windows I’m facing frame a cloudless blue sky and a wall of green trees. I can see my car where the valet parked it. “Good luck with everything and God bless you,” he had said when we dropped it off with him. I imagine he says that to every patient. What a service he provides—knowing that your loved one is going in for surgery and you don’t have to worry about parking. God bless him, Mr. Valet Parking Attendant.

There is a child-sized table and chairs in the middle of the waiting room. Thankfully, it sits empty. Children and waiting rooms don’t pair well together. There’s also an empty magazine rack hanging on the wall. No need for that anymore. They should take it down.

Everything looks the same. Only this time, I’m alone. Two years ago, we ran into old friends, whose daughter was in for an unexpected operation. Catching up with them made the wait much easier.

I turn to look up at the clock next to the screen that shows all of the locations and who’s in what stage of their time here. The clock reads 11:37. I wish it said 5:00. If it said 5:00, then I would probably be sitting on the front porch at the farm.

“Can I share my screen with you?” asks the woman in my corner talking so loudly on her headset that people keep giving her sideways glances. I guess some people have to work while waiting. I’m lucky I can scroll. Or play mind-numbing games. Or pull a book out of my bag that could help distract me from my reality.

Her procedure was supposed to take an hour. It started at 10:30. I look at the clock again. Three minutes have passed. It feels like thirty.

“This is the best solution…” says Headset Lady.

“Oh be quiet!” I think. “Can’t you see everyone around you is deep in thought?”

I catch myself before my dirty look gets far enough for her to see. Back to my phone.

The big double doors to my left open and another name is called. “What’s your first name? How tall are you?” The same two questions asked over and over as the next person goes back to prep for surgery.

The table next to my chair catches my attention. The round wooden tables are scattered around the waiting room. They all have a small hole in them like they wished they were holding beach umbrellas rather than my cup of coffee and my neighbor’s iPad. I wonder how many gum wrappers have been dropped down those holes. I wonder if it’s someone’s job to lift them and check for trash. “What do you do for a living?” “Oh, I’m a table trash checker at the hospital.”

It’s noon now, and the hospital seems to have woken up. Several animated conversations are going on around me. Some people in waiting have struck up conversations with other people in waiting—a way to pass the time—comparing their loved ones’ surgery stories.

Others have turned up the volume on their screens, raising the overall volume of the room. Headset Lady is now contentedly typing away on her laptop.

Finally, I get the call that she’s in recovery.

“So I can come back now?” I ask.

“We’ll give you a call when she’s been moved to a discharge room, and you can see her then.”

I try to argue, saying they told us beforehand that I could be in recovery with her. The nurse stands firm.

This is the first procedure I have not been allowed into recovery, despite them telling us it would be okay. I don’t like it. Even our last one here, at this cold grown-up hospital, they let me be with her. My fingers start nervously drumming. I can’t stop them.

She told me on the way here that the first thing she says when she wakes up is, “Mommy.”

The big double doors open yet again, one swinging in, the other out. I can see down the long hallway—Pod A, Pod B, somewhere down there is my baby girl and they won’t let me be there. I should be stroking her hair back away from her face, crusty orange with Betadine. I should be giving her sips of Sprite or Gatorade and asking her what her pain number is. I should be holding her hand as she drifts in and out of sleep.

Out here I’m helpless. Useless. I can’t do the one thing I came here to do.

The old man in the red plaid shirt who looks like he should be in Vermont in September rather than a hospital waiting room looks worried, too. Everyone here is waiting for someone behind those double doors. Last time I was here, I overheard nurses quietly discussing the patient behind the next curtain. She would be waking up to find out she had pancreatic cancer. I wonder if she survived. It’s a small comfort to know my daughter’s life is not in jeopardy. Not everyone is as fortunate.

At last, one more call. This one from the registration desk, twenty feet away from me. “If you’ll come to the desk, I can let you into the back. She’s in Pod D.”

I’m at her desk before we even hang up. Pod D is the furthest one, and the hallway stretches like one in a horror movie. It only grows longer as the panic grows closer. The worry I’ve held back rises to the edges of my eyes and threatens to overflow, but I keep it in. The rest of the hall is a blur. The only thing I can see is a large letter D, and I can’t get there fast enough.

Headset Lady can stay on her calls. The calming paintings have lost their effect. The tables longing for beach umbrellas are just tables again. Somebody else can have my seat.

My wait is over.

I step over the pile of dirt in the middle of my patio. It’s smaller now than when I swept it up a week ago, but bigger than the last time I swept it up two weeks ago. Perhaps next week will be the one in which I actually pick it up or at least sweep it out into the yard for it to blow back up onto the patio.

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Our patio is a great collector. It has several collections - dirt is the main one, but leaves too. It’s summer now, so I don’t know how this many brown winter leaves still find their way here, but they do. Dried up snail shells, pebbles, and plenty of dog and cat fur also call this place home.

Sometimes I get really ambitious and pull out Brandy’s enemy, the leaf blower. Reach back into your childhood and find the movie, The Secret of Nihm. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. I envision my leaf blower to be like the plow coming across the field.

The leaf blower is missing the long tube that makes it a practical tool, so I have to hover, hunched over, with the motor inches away from my target to make any impact. I also have to keep one hand on the place where the extension cord meets the port. I’m sure a photo of me in this endeavor would make an excellent meme of some kind. Taking submissions in the comments.

The dust and leaves scurry into the sky, screaming, “Noooo!” as they try in vain to cling to their spot under the coils of the hose or behind the potting table.

The patio also holds, probably unwillingly, my projects. My project brain jumps from topic to topic like the rest of my thoughts. All wonderful ideas, most in some state of unfinished. The 4x4s ready to be the base of a grilling station, the antique school desk pieces, simply waiting for one more coat of paint before being reassembled. That required can of paint is almost certainly useless by now since it, too, sits on the patio, instead of in the necessary temperature-controlled environment to make it last through a Texas summer…and fall…and spring…

Many projects sit because I love the idea of them, but then get bored or frustrated midway through. Or I get to the point that, really, they could be called finished, but I refuse.

“It’s not done yet” is a common phrase my family hears.

It’s almost like I have ADHD and leave a trail of destruction behind as I bounce from one thing to another, but I don’t. I know because my husband does have ADHD. And my oldest kid, and the middle one, and the youngest. That makes all of them.

I don’t think the dog does, but Ralph cat is highly suspect.

My youngest says that’s why I can’t be random. Symmetry is important to me. She also says neurodivergent people should rule the world. She’s probably right. Like me, she’s a Leo and, therefore, right just about all of the time. Well, okay, all of the time.

Some projects I’m unsure what to do with when they are finished. I don’t have a place for my antique desk because I’m holding my daughter’s roll-top desk and big blue chair. She just moved to Virginia, so I don’t think she’ll be picking those up anytime soon.

Then there’s the old sewing cabinet that would make the coolest outdoor cooler and serving bar for those summer poolside evenings, if I had a pool or enjoyed entertaining.

Other projects in progress haven’t quite made their way to the patio yet, like the dressers in the kids’ rooms—those dressers that have dovetail joints and weigh 5,000 pounds because they’re made of solid wood. They could be restored so beautifully, but for what? Kids’ dressers?

Or a beautiful piece in my writing office or art studio!

When do kids finally move out?

My ungentrified, 1960s ranch house barely holds the three to four of us who live here, not including the pets, so the patio is like an extra room.

My room.

My sacred space where I can use my power tools and feel like She-Ra, Princess of Power. “She-Ra!”

Sometimes my husband tries to encroach on my space, and he’ll leave out the lawnmower or the badminton racket he uses to play with the wasps.

The wasps did take over my space for a while. They got so bad we had to actually call someone. They found ten nests in various places. Yes, ten. Holy smokes.

Last year we had a nest that wasn’t in our way, and so we just left it. I mean, why kill things if they aren’t bothering you? They certainly took advantage of our hospitality.

Lesson learned.

My husband also likes to line the edge where the tin roof hangs with beautiful yellow buckets from McCoy’s Building Supply to catch rainwater. I tolerate those since they provide a nice place for mosquitoes to grow.

Maybe I do like to entertain.

I should definitely build that pool.

Where’s my shovel?

Disclaimer: I’m tired.

The day began like any other. Zoe started yelling relentlessly outside my door for her breakfast the moment she heard the coffee maker start its automatic drip. I groggily turned off the noise on my phone designed to make me sleep better than I can on my own, tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen, fed the cat enough food to shut her up for a few minutes, and poured myself a cup of ambition to chase away the last of the latest sleepless nights. A few sips later, I sat down with my computer to see what the world did without me.

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Just as I started to read an insightful article on somebody else’s cat’s escapades, I heard a terrible cry from out back. Brandy and I both shot out the back door to more yelping and the neighbor yelling, “Oh my God!” I saw my Ralph cat, so those fears were immediately put to rest. I ran next door to make sure they knew where the nearest emergency vet was since they’re new in town and tried to recover my morning routine.

An hour later, I was at the vet for a regularly scheduled check-up and found out Brandy had the nastiest of nasty ear infections that often don’t heal with the first round of medicine. The vet also discovered a lump on her leg that she, of course, wanted to aspirate for an additional one million dollars.

Once home, I had a few hours to catch up on a week’s worth of chores and projects, so I dove in headfirst to get as much done as possible. We were leaving the next day for a work trip to the farm.

Around dinner time, El and I were having a meaningful conversation about forward rolls into splits, so she showed me she could still do it. But she landed on the thumb she had already hurt a couple of days ago and said, “Mom, I think it’s broken now.” Ice, elevate, brace, and forty-five minutes on the phone to make an appointment. We’ll see what the X-rays show in the morning.

The neighbor stopped by to let me know their dog was ok. It had been a seizure. And then finally, I made it to the backyard to relax and throw the ball for the dog.

“That was quite a day,” I said to El, who was sitting beside me.

With the next toss of the Chuck It, the ball took just the right bounce off the bench near the back of the yard and flew over the fence into the alley. That meant either climbing over the privacy fence or driving around to the alley to retrieve the ball. We can’t just let it go. She’ll look for it forever.

And my dad says I need to be sure to rest. Ha!

The following morning thankfully revealed a bad sprain rather than a break. A quick stop for a yummy drink and a pup cup, then home for meal prep and packing for that trip to the farm.

Three days after returning home from moving my oldest daughter, we arrived at the farm to complete roofing repairs on two of the buildings we’re trying to save. It’s the only time we could squeeze the trip in this summer. After unloading and assessing the scope of the project, we sat down for a moment to discuss next steps.

I plopped down into a chair on the porch of my favorite place in the world, the place I retreat to for restoration, and wondered why I was so tired.

“I think my adrenaline rush wore off today—from the move, from getting back and reorganizing my world,” I wearily told my husband.

The sky did not offer more than an orange ball sinking slowly below the horizon, so it was easy to get to bed early. No temptation to stay up to take 37 photos of another sunset. For once, I sleep until 6:30, late for me.

This morning, there is a cool breeze from the south. I get an early start for Brandy’s walk before the heat hits. The best place to walk her during the summer months is down the road to the creek. It’s not a road traveled by cars, but rather a road between two fields, separated by a cedar post and barbed wire fence, that, thanks to Farmer Floyd, is no longer falling down every other post. One side is usually planted with wheat or oats, and the other side is a hay field. The plowed rows that can bring a sense of order to my chaos are not visible now, just the whimsical paths created by the cows who only know why they zigged this way or that. The fence line is as alive as ever—spiders, field mice, rabbits, and birds make this narrow swath of untouched land their home.

Today there’s a little flock of gray-brown, indistinguishable birds along the fence line. They are trying to stay away from me. I walk closer, and off they go. On up ahead to land again on the fence or the ground below it. They continue to stay just one step ahead.

If only they would stop…

for a moment…

they could rest.

It would be okay. I’ll walk on by.

When we get to the bottom of the field, I turn on my camera as I watch the light play in the trees and on the water in the slough. I snap a shot of the shadows created by the old oaks hovering over the water. Another shot of a plant’s small purple flowers growing at the water’s edge, their delicate blooms making a home for a tiny spider. One more shot of the sunlight spreading across the field just past the oak grove. I feel the release in my shoulders as I stop for a moment. I let my camera fall to my side.

I breathe.

“Yes,” God whispers, “rest.”

“I’m just a girl…in the world…”

El has her iPhone speaker up as loud as it will go as she shows me the video she dug up from the 90s. Gwen Stefani called on JUST THE BOYS to sing those words back to her.

“That’s all that you’ll let meee beeeee!”

Gosh, I hear it now. My ribbed white tank, ripped jeans, and combat boots are screaming at me from their grave. I’m ready to start jumping, fist pumping, hair flying in front of my face. I love that my daughter knows Gwen was a complete badass before Blake Shelton softened her into a nice person.

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It was a pure moment of girl-power bliss. Just the two of us, at the farm. All the wild around us, foraging for our dinner, hacking our way through the overgrown creek banks, pistols slung on our waists, not afraid of anything.

Well, sort of.

We were sitting on the porch, you know the one, well-protected and six feet away from inside.

And since my scatterbrained mind couldn’t find the pasta I swear I brought, we had a handful of leftover chicken tenders and cold French fries for dinner.

We did walk the overgrown creek banks, but with our arms stretched above the weeds, high-stepping over the fallen logs, and one eye out for snakes and feral hogs.

We even survived a suspicious snort in the underbrush that sent Brandy and me retreating a little faster than we’d like to admit.

“I’m just a girl…in the world…”

Yeah, I’m tough, alright.

We don’t need no stinkin’ boys.

I don’t actually own a pistol.

El did have her pocketknife.

She fished for a while, and I scavenged for old colored glass chunks, ceramics, and square nails from the original house site.

By evening, we had earned our time on the back porch for one of those Texas sunsets that makes you think you have this country life figured out. We stayed out long enough to watch the Big Dipper emerge, then the Milky Way spread across the moonless sky.

Eventually, we headed to bed.

Half-asleep, I started brushing my teeth and walked to my room—that bright yellow, happy sunshine kid’s room— to turn down my covers. I flipped on the light and noticed a dark spot beside the window AC unit.

“Great,” I think. “A mouse.”

The windowsill seems to be one of their regular routes. But then I realized it didn’t run.

I look closer. There, coiled up on the sill, right by the pillow where my other daughter slept the night before, is a snake. A beautiful, brown and black diamond-shaped pattern covers its back.

“Oh shit! Ella! We’ve got a problem! There’s a snake!”

He wasn’t one of the harmless little grass snakes we scoop up in the backyard before letting them go. This one was about two and a half feet long. Two and a half feet, along with the coloring, is plenty big to make you wonder if you’re looking at a rattlesnake.

We couldn’t see the head to look for the signature triangle shape, but we could see the tail—slender gray, leading to a point—no rattles. Still, it was a quick picture taken and sent to my husband so he could help us ID him before we tried to handle him.

“I’m just a girl…”

I threw my toothbrush into the sink while we talked through a plan. There’s a box in the hall closet. We need a stick. Found one—an extra-long paint stirrer. We’ll put the box under the windowsill, and simply pull the snake down into it. Easy peasy. We decided to call home just in case we needed some more guidance. So, with the husband on speakerphone, we moved in for the capture.

Mr. Snake is a little irritated by our presence and starts to crawl further underneath the AC unit.

“Ella, now! Get him!” The box is in place, but she is too gentle with her stick-grabbing technique and as he falls, only half of him lands in the box. It’s enough for the other half to pull himself out.

Onto the floor.

Where our feet were.

We screamed just like in the sitcoms. Two girls. Two beds. El on the twin. Me on the full. Both of us shrieking, “Where’d he go?!”

We could hear my husband and son cracking up at us over the phone.

“I’m just a girl…” we meekly whined.

The snake made his way under the full-sized bed and lodged himself against the wall.

Try again. We pulled the bed away from the wall, set the box at the end, and regrouped. My husband, now thoroughly entertained, offered no more advice. He just asked us to send a video. It was up to us now. The girls.

Try number three. No luck. By this time, our nerves of steel had returned. We were back in charge, and poor Mr. Snake was now all balled up in defense. I got a longer stick, a yardstick, and was able to pull that ball of muscle towards the box. He opened up and slithered the rest of the way of his own accord. We quickly turned the box upright and made sure to put that last little bit of pointy tail into the box as we closed the flaps.

We carried him outside to the end of the sidewalk, turned it on its side, and by the light of the phone that can sing “I’m just a girl…”, watched him crawl off into the night.

I released a huge sigh as we went back into the house. “Oh yeah, my toothbrush,” I thought.

It is, of course, still in the sink, covered in drying toothpaste, waiting for me to finish the job I’d started twenty minutes earlier.

My heart rate takes a lot longer than that to slow down.

I’m stranded. That’s the most dramatic way I can describe being at the farm without a car for four whole hours. One daughter left in my car so she can get to work tomorrow, and the other will join me this evening. The nearest neighbor is maybe a mile away, and the town of 241 people is four miles beyond that. So for now, it’s just me, the dog, the noises, and the very loud thoughts in my head.

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What if Brandy gets bitten by a rattlesnake? What if I fall and can’t get up? What if I run out of water? What if…?

I make my way to the porch with all of my manufactured entertainment options - the novel I just started, an empty journal and pen, my camera, and of course, my phone, running on a spotty 4G connection.

Why are we drawn to front porches? Is it the view of the passing lives? The anticipated wave from the driver of the trucks checking their cattle, or delivering their hay? Maybe it’s the feeling of ruling over a world that lies two steps beneath our feet. It’s stifling on the porch right now - the humidity is near 90% and the breeze is from the west, so it is not hitting my protected spot. I could easily move my chair to the yard and be much more comfortable, but then I would lose something, and I’m not sure what that something is.

I raise my legs onto the plastic ottoman and open my book. I’ve held onto this one, a gift, for a few months now, waiting until summer break to enjoy it. I start to read the letters that Ms. Sybil Van Antwerp writes to those in her life, and I’m drawn into the lost art of the handwritten word. Maybe I should write a letter. That could fill some of my stranded hours.

But before I can write the heartfelt letter that’s sure to revive the world of handwritten correspondence, a barn swallow swoops in and lights on the farm-find-artifact hanging from the nail that used to hold Grandma’s basket of flowers each spring. He chirps at me, yelling at me, I suppose, for being so close to the nest. His wings flutter as he flies off and lands on the wires above the house. My attention shifts. I lay my book on the table beside my journal, camera, and phone, and begin to watch.

The swallows are at war—or maybe in love. Two birds perch like models on the fence, watching the dogfight in the air above them. Four others take turns swooping past, then meet ten feet overhead, darting at and around one another like fighter jets in Top Gun. Every so often, one of the fence models slips into one of the waiting nests as if trying it on for size.

Then a butterfly joins the battle.

A butterfly.

I watch in amazement as it chases one of the swallows away.

Other sounds take the place of my own thoughts. A large blue dirt dauber is building a nest on the rock wall. Its low, steady buzz changes to a frantic whine as it pats layer after layer of mud into place, its legs working furiously. Another buzz—a bee this time—approaches the wall, and the dirt dauber abandons its work long enough to chase the intruder away.

Brandy pants beside me and I reach down to give her a pat. She glances up at me then snaps at a fly getting too close for her comfort. I hear the wind rustling through the leaves of the pecan tree and extend my reach beyond the show in the yard. “Bob-white!” calls the quail. I hear the rapid-fire twee-twee-twee of some unseen bird and the drawn out twoo-twoo-twoo of another. So many bird calls I don’t know - squeaks, chirps, tweets, caws. I hear them all.

I feel a bug land on my hand and go to swipe it off to discover it’s a spider - an itsy-bitsy spider crawling across my hand, so instead of swiping I watch and wonder how he ended up there. When I raise my hand, he blows off in the breeze and leaves a line of silk behind running across my hand and arm.

My naturalist education is interrupted by the ding of my 21st century phone.

“On my way!”

Only two more hours and I won’t be stranded anymore. Not that I have had any need to go anywhere. Brandy has stayed by my side. I haven’t fallen—I haven’t even left my chair for two hours now. The five jugs of water are still waiting for me in the kitchen.

And I haven’t really felt stranded at all.

Grandma was stranded here for years. She wrecked her car, and that was it. No more driving for Grandma.

I wonder what she did all those hours.

Did she sit on this porch, watching swallows argue over nests and dirt daubers defend their homes? Did she learn the voices of the birds I still can’t name? Did the bugs, the breeze through the pecans, and the bobwhite’s call become enough to fill a summer afternoon?

Or was she simply waiting for someone to come down the driveway?

I pick up my camera and move to the yard to try to catch a swallow.

I did.

He posed for me on the downspout anchor.

I move back to the porch.

And wait.

“Farm Trip # 1380

Tis my last farm trip for a long while as I am moving 23 hours away to Richmond, Virginia.”

And with that, golf-ball-sized tears started pouring. I couldn’t read further.

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Two weeks from now, she and I will drive away from the town where she was born and has called home for 25 years. I grew up moving every three to five years, so I can’t imagine what it feels like to leave the only town you’ve ever fully known. She’s quiet about it. And I don’t quite know how to ask about it. Maybe she doesn’t know what she’s feeling yet either.

She joined me for one more weekend at the farm before her move. We only talked logistics in the car—giving her two-week notice at the preschool where she works. “My families were sad, my co-workers were sad, my managers—not so sad,” she says with a sly smile, and we share a knowing look. This week she’ll rent the cargo van, call to set up electric and WiFi, and continue downsizing her enormous collection of clothes.

She’s always been a fashionista, playing dress-up from a very young age. And she’s amazingly frugal, thrifting almost everything. I wish she inherited her sense of style from me. I’m amazed by what she puts together every time I see her. Seeing her here, at the farm, in cut-offs, a tank top, and Walmart rubber boots is so far from the usual unique.

About a year ago, I started Farm Diary on a whim in a random spiral notebook to chronicle our adventures on each trip. I asked her to write this weekend’s entry. “...moving 23 hours away…”

I told her to go. I told her to spread her wings, to fly, to soar, to discover things about herself she might not know, to see what life is like outside of her safe, familiar bubble. I told her to.

And for the first time in many years, she listened.

We walk far up into the back field. Giant yellow round bales dot the lush green field. The grass sways and hums with the breeze, and we sit underneath the ancient lone pecan tree in the middle of the field, its branches reaching fifty feet into the air above us. This tree looks so small from the house, and I’m struck by its size. Mom used to have to harvest pecans from this tree using a long bamboo pole to knock them to the ground, then pick them up by hand. She, my cousin Keri, and two dogs are with us. The conversation is easy. We learn about the weeping love grass that once grew in the next field up, about how it grew in clumps and created little mazes that you could run between. We look for signs of new pecans growing, discussing the life cycle of a pecan and where the best ones grow on the property. We talk about how nice it is that the stickers aren’t out yet and wonder if we’re sitting in a bunch of chiggers.

On our way back, my daughter walks far ahead. I know she’s just hot and is eager to get back to the air conditioning and a cold glass of water, but to see her walk away, to see her leave, kills me. I want to call her back, to take her hand in mine, and keep walking for a while, or for a few more years. I look back and realize Mom has fallen behind. I wait for her to catch up and watch my daughter put more distance between us.

She never looks back.

The tears well and spill again as I write, thinking about the random, “Dinner tonight?” text for which I always replied with an immediate and emphatic “Yes!” And which often resulted in a last-minute trip to the store so there would actually be something for dinner, just for the chance of time spent together.

She’ll only be 23 hours away. I have to look up the miles. In Texas, we measure distance by time. I’ve heard other places don’t do that. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds like it could be a Texas thing. 23 hours is 1,487 miles. 1,487 is more than two. That’s how many miles she’s been from me for the last few years. And before that it was zero.

She’s found a town with vibrant music and art scenes, an apartment in an architecturally beautiful building built in 1910. That love she did inherit from me. I can’t wait to see it. I’m glad she’s letting me help her move.

I think about those baby pecans we were looking for. By the time I get back out to that tree, they’ll be brown, having ripened and shed their green husks. Most of them will have been found by the deer and wild hogs, but maybe this year, I’ll pull out that long bamboo pole that still rests in the rafters of the garage and see if I can’t knock a few to the ground. I’ll pick them up by hand and box them up. I bet 1,487 miles away will appreciate some Texas pecans.

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But until that day, I sit in my backyard, beer and phone in my hand watching the dove. They are actually beautiful creatures. If you look closely, you can see a gorgeous blue ring around their eye and bright red feet that contrast with the rest of their body. At first glance, the rest of an Austin dove is just brown. Plain old brown. The color of the dirt they blend in with. I suppose that serves them well. They are not here for my enjoyment, after all.

We do have exotic birds around. Legend says that back in the 60s, a woman released her little colony of Monk’s parakeets, and they found winter refuge in the warmth of stadium lights. We have hundreds of them now; we call them parrots. Same green as a parrot, same call as a parrot, just a little smaller, and I guess a little quieter. They build huge nests in great places, like transformers, billboards, and field lights. I’ve never seen one at the birdbath, although they do like the sunflowers. And since those are growing rampant this year, hopefully I’ll have some good birdwatching once the seeds are ready for consumption.

But for now, it’s dove. And it’s only dove if I’m lucky—if Brandy is in the mood to ignore a bird in her yard. Most of the time, they are not allowed. We sit against an alley, so electrical lines are running high across the back of our yard. The black grackles love to land there and yell at her. She jumps and twists her whole body around and barks ferociously at those birds. I think they laugh at her. I’ve asked her what the threat is, but she never shares how her mind works. And I’ve never seen her catch a bird. I don’t know that she has a plan if she did. Squirrels, helicopters, and airplanes all cause her the same torment. Her objective with all these intruders seems to be just to inform them they are not welcome.

The birdbath leans. There’s actually something structurally wrong with it. It doesn’t matter how many times you level it, how much dirt, or how many rocks you stack underneath that one side, it leans. So, our poor birds never have a full bath. It has one of those nude women statues in the center. She holds a large vase or urn on her shoulder. She’s Naked Lady to us. She has a crack running all the way down the front now. I don’t know how much longer she can hold it together. Some days, I completely relate.

It lives underneath our mulberry tree. It used to belong to Mom. After years of complaining about its leaning, relocating it, and occasionally having me or a grandkid shove more rocks and dirt underneath it, she decided she was done with it. So, of course, that meant giving it to me. When we first brought it home, I proudly showed her that it was her yard that was the problem…until it started to lean. Being under the mulberry tree means it inevitably catches some falling fruit, so the water doesn’t stay fresh for long. When I’m motivated, I scrub it with a copper brush to kill the growing green algae. When I’m not motivated, it just loses its water to evaporation. I always feel bad when a bird tries to light on the empty birdbath, but rarely bad enough to do anything about it at the moment. I’ll see a dove land, look around for a moment before flying off, and then spend the next ten minutes feeling vaguely guilty about not adequately providing for my city wildlife.

The birds don’t seem to mind. In fact, as I look at that bird bath today, Naked Lady has a fresh line of white dripping down her vase, landing on her cheek, and curving around one breast. Maybe that’s the dove’s way of saying thank you for keeping some water in it.

By next week, the streak will probably be gone. Another rainstorm will wash it away, or I'll scrub it off while pretending I'm maintaining the birdbath more regularly than I actually do.

The bath will still lean. Naked Lady will still be cracked. The doves will keep coming, and she'll keep smiling despite the crap on her face.

Some days, I completely relate.

“Stephanie, we need another bug! Go get another one.”

“I don’t wanna!” she whined.

“Then make Tara do it.”

Our bug cemetery needed to be filled.

I don’t remember why we decided to create a bug cemetery. I suppose it started with a squished bug, probably one of the numerous grasshoppers, that we decided to bury. At the farm, bugs provided some of our most interesting pursuits.

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My two cousins, my sister, and I ran feral at the farm. I assume our moms were inside, deep into a game of Scrabble. All I knew was that they didn’t pay much attention to what we were doing as long as we stayed outside and dragged my little sister along with us. I did not like having her around. She was five years younger than me, and I was trying to keep up with my cool older cousin, Keri. Keri’s little sister was just as annoying as mine, even though she was only six months younger than me. So, they became the bug suppliers.

Our cemetery was across the dirt road from the farmhouse. The field was recently plowed, so the soft, red dirt was easy to dig graves in. We chose a spot right inside the wide metal gate - just out of the path of the tractor, we hoped. We lined up our dead insects in careful rows. At least, we tried to. When we realized that our cemetery was not going to be even, we had to adopt more drastic, maybe even barbaric, measures. We didn’t start off with a goal to kill bugs; we just needed even rows. And there were no more dead bugs to be found.

We placed each bug in its hole, covered it, and laid an Indian Blanket or Black-Eyed Susan on top to mark it. No ceremony was held, no prayer for their poor little bug souls, just the act of burial. It was only about the construction.

Just to the west of the house lies a mesquite grove. The huge 100-year-old trees have menacing thorns, so they weren’t good for climbing, although the branches laid out in stepladder form. I really wanted to climb them, and envisioned elaborate tree houses within their canopies. They also had another drawback. They were where the writing spiders lived. Their webs were perfectly woven - each one could replicate the others. The thin strands stretched between the gnarled bark of the thick trunks. The white silk contrasted with the darkness of the bark and made them easy to spot. And each one of them had a female spider in the center. Her elongated black and yellow body and long, striped legs made her look magical to us. Each web displays a scribbled mess that we pretended was a secret message. We liked to give these spiders grasshoppers to eat. If you toss a grasshopper into a writing spider’s web, she will let him wriggle there only long enough to ensure he’s secure. She then quickly snatches him and starts spinning. Around and around, the poor bug is wrapped tightly to await his fate. The bug is left to sit for a while, like marinating a good steak. When she’s ready, the spider will sit quietly with her meal and politely suck out the juices from her gift. She cuts his carcass loose and lets it fall to the ground below. Now that grasshopper is ready for the cemetery.

We knew which bugs deserved our respect and never messed with them, only watched from afar. We were taught to turn things over with sticks, not our hands. Black widows like to hide in dark places. They build very messy webs, nothing like the organized, symmetrical webs of the writing spider. A widow’s web is deep and she likes to sit off to the side. We don’t even feed the widows, just observe them.

The spiders we left alone, almost as if they were sacred. Other bugs did not hold our reverence. The stupid June bugs that crash into the screen door, creating a melody of their own - thwack, thwack, thwack. The grasshoppers that burst up with every step you take and sometimes fly right into your face. These were disposable, so that’s what we assigned Stephanie to find. They were numerous, and she shouldn’t have had any trouble. We sent her off with a bucket while Keri and I dug the graves and added the decorations.

Eventually, Steph returned with her bucket in hand. I remember waiting a while and wondering what was taking her so long. We harvested her collection, evened up our rows, added a rock wall around it, and considered our cemetery complete. We went inside to make a sign for our cemetery. An envelope and a stick marked the spot. I’m told Farmer Floyd laughed at it when he came by.

That sign sits now in a dresser drawer in the kids’ room, that middle room with the warm sunshine-yellow walls. I’ve pulled it out several times over the years. Sometimes to reminisce, other times to share the story with my own children or with visitors. Sorry, Steph. I hope you’ve recovered.

The bugs are gone, the flowers, too, long since returned to the earth. Perhaps Farmer Floyd’s tractor drove right over our cemetery, or maybe the cows trampled it. Maybe it was just the wind that dismantled it. But the sign remains, a reminder of four feral children at the farm.

Me, Stephanie, and Keri. I don’t know where my little sister was. At the time, I probably didn’t care.

It’s been too long. The yard is overgrown and the house looks sad. I think it misses us when we’re gone. The grass reaches over my ankles. Fire ant beds and rattlesnakes immediately come to mind, so I’m extra cautious walking across the yard to the porch. I shake my head as Brandy just runs through the yard with no care, only excitement to be here.

The lock sticks and I have to give my key an extra push. “Hello, house!” I call as I open the door.

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The house is always cold inside when you first arrive, even on warm days. It’s the kind of cold that seeps into your bones and won’t let go. The thick rocks insulate it so well. So, before I unload the car, I open the blinds and let the warm sunshine in. I do a quick walk-through to see that nothing needs immediate attention. Brandy is already on my heels, ready for a walk.

Back on the porch, I check the corners for black widows I need to be mindful of, and look to the barn swallow nests to see if there are babies. Although I can’t see them, the piles on the porch tell me they’re there. That means the parents will be swooping through the arches around the porch this evening, carrying dinner to their little ones.

Unloading the car is a ritual all in itself. First, the cooler. We recently had to get a new fridge for the farm. Apparently, even the old appliances don’t last forever. I think the one we replaced had been there my entire life. This new one works just fine and is covered with the same magnets— the Best Mother-in-Law Ever yellow roses, the little jars of Smucker’s jellies, and the ice cream cones. With every visit, it’s a kid’s job to rearrange the magnets in their preferred way. We also have a calendar on the door—one of those sent as a realtor’s ad. Even before the cooler is opened, the page for the last month is torn off to update the calendar to our current visit. The fridge door is full of condiments you’re never quite sure are still good, but since you didn’t bring any from home…you risk it.

Next, come the water, the food, and the wine. The water here is potable, just not very tasty, so we bring our own. Jugs fill the empty spaces in the fridge, and more is waiting in the closet. Running out of water is always a serious threat. The food is placed in the mouse-proof cabinet or left in their grocery bags. We’ve had enough lessons in how persistent the field mice are to know better than to leave it out anywhere else. The wine is placed on the side table in the dining room, underneath the clock set to 5:00. “It’s 5:00 somewhere” means it is always 5:00 at the farm.

I wander down the hall and glance at the framed pictures of relatives. I first look at Great Grandma —she reminds me of Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies, and I can almost hear her barking out commands to keep this place running. I admire the mounted collections of arrowheads found on the property, especially the long blade found by Aunt Linda. No one has topped that find. I glance into the middle room and smile at my mother’s childhood paint-by-number horse, those classic 1950s pastels shining. This room is painted a bright sunshine yellow, and it always looks happy—the perfect room for kids. I check the corners and see the mice have been busy while we were gone.

Then onto Grandma’s room. Grandma lived here by herself for thirty years. Her jewelry box still holds her brooches and an old pair of thick eyeglasses. On her desk sits the rotary phone, unattached from the wall but nevertheless an important part of the farm. Her cane hangs in her closet and the smelly sticker from the 7-11 in town is still on her mirror, right where I put it when I was a child. I set my bags down on the cedar chest at the foot of her bed.

I wander back into the kitchen and fix the dog a bowl of water and myself a plate and a glass of wine.

The last thing to do when you arrive is to put the cushions on the porch chairs. We used to have Grandma’s old green metal chairs that had a lovely bounce to them when you sat. I’m still sad they were stolen off the porch while we were gone. Our replacement aluminum chairs are now covered in cushions Mom sewed. She does such a good job of keeping them protected in bright blues and greens, the colors of the farm in spring. I set them in place and step inside one more time to grab my cup and plate.

And now, it’s finally time. Time to do what I like best—text whoever is not with me, “Guess where I am?” Where I am is sitting on the front porch, looking through the rock arches across the road and over the field at the rows of trees that start at the slough, stretch down to the creek, and cover the gently rising hill beyond. The varying shades of green map each spot in my memory.

I take a sip of cheap red wine, eat a cracker with a chunk of smoked Gouda on top, and exhale.

She kept them in a strawberry box. Her friends.

Took them to her room.

Let them go.

For days afterward, I found them everywhere—on the kitchen counter, gliding across the middle of the TV screen, under my bare foot…

Did you know that sometimes the snail population becomes so dense that they cover your sidewalk, and you can’t take a step without hearing several crunches under your feet?

Oh, wait, sorry. I digressed into my own childhood trauma from living abroad.

Back to Texas.

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I never knew snails could travel so far…or that they would become such an important part of being a mom. It’s funny what facts stick with you from your child’s interests. Like that snails can have up to 12,000 teeth. Gross.

Through everything, the never-ending questions, “Mommy, why?” “Mommy, how?”

“I don’t know, pumpkin. Let’s look it up.”

And so we did.

Our house became a revolving door for her curiosities.

Lightning bugs, grasshoppers, and even tree frogs, made their way through her hands.

Did you know that roly-poly mommies carry their babies on their tummies? Our flower bed is a mecca for roly-polies. Any upturned rock reveals them by the dozen, and they quickly became a favorite pastime when we sat outside in the evenings. El found one once, her belly covered in tiny white dots. She brought her to me. We took her inside and placed her in a butter tub lid on our dining table. El leaned in close, her eyes hovering at the edge of the table to see all of those babies, her fingers gripping the sides of the table in excitement. Apparently, up to 200 young huddle underneath mom for a couple of weeks before venturing out. That poor mama. I bet she would’ve liked a nap. I still sometimes look for mama roly-polies when I’m digging in the dirt. I’ve never found another one.

Backyard critters eventually gave way to ocean predators.

Did you know that Wobbegong sharks can dislocate their jaw to suck in their prey? Or that the thresher shark has a tail so powerful it can decapitate a man? Somewhere between backyard bugs and ocean predators, our searches became shared adventures instead of answers I was expected to have. That one about the thresher shark? That was her favorite. We never had a pet shark. We tried fish once. Five minnows, caught in the creek, one named for each character from Scooby Doo. Those unfortunate fish swam in circles in a bucket of muddy creek water before making the move to our aquarium back home. They didn’t last long, but at least I didn’t find them all over my house.

And then she started asking for a real pet of her own. I tried to tell her she had a dog and a cat, but she wasn’t buying. After much persuasion, I relented. With deep care and consideration, she picked out her first hamster. By then, she no longer needed me to explain the world to her. She presented facts and habitat requirements and strongly held opinions about cage size.

Did you know that Russian Dwarf Hamsters dig tunnels up to 3 feet deep in their native habitat? This discovery led to a three-cage monstrosity taking up half of El’s room, connected by tubes, and an ungodly amount of money spent on hamster bedding each month. Sweet little Abby, and later Buttercup, had the best lives captive hamsters possibly could. Through them, El learned to love and nurture. She made fruit salads, a whole collection of chew toys, and a book with instructions for caring for them when we had a pet sitter.

She learned how to listen to needs not spoken.

She learned how to say goodbye.

She came to me one day, “Mom, Buttercup is starting to slow down.” So we began watching her closely. She would sit calmly in El’s hand and eat a few bites of an apple slice. And then, one day, a couple of weeks later, El came to me once again. “She’s gone,” was all she said. I hugged her close and cried with her. Buttercup died curled up in her little house, surrounded by fresh bedding. We buried her out back.

Even though they’ve grown older, I still send my kids pictures of interesting bugs I see. Most of the time, they politely say, “Cool, mom.” But every once in a while, one of them writes back with another question. I recently saw the smallest praying mantis I’ve ever seen. He was resting on the arm of my turquoise plastic Adirondack chair, his bright green blending nicely with the blue. I watched him watch me until he decided he needed more space and crawled away. And after our latest rain, I saw a giant snail, the kind El liked best. I stopped long enough to watch him crawl across the old, wooden bench before I took his picture. I admired his tight spiral, the way the browns, tans, and ambers bled into one another, making him almost disappear into the weathered wood below him. I noticed the bright, slimy trail left behind, marking his path. I watched his eyes extend and retract, as if, perhaps, looking for a friend.

I’ll send this one to El.

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I think about eating the green-wrapped Hershey’s Kiss I find tucked behind her TV, overlooked from her Christmas stocking. I decide to leave it on her pillow like they do in fancy hotels and wonder what else is hiding in here that should have been cleaned out months ago. I pause at the picture of her and her sister walking the beach, flip flops in hand, then run my rag across the top of her empty jewelry box. She loves that picture. I do, too.

I make my way to her headboard. The old metal letter E, her collection of pilfered Whataburger order numbers, and the remote control for the LED light string that ran around her ceiling are all still there.

Her treasured Abraham Lincoln book and a Bible sit nearby. Her stuffed shark and pink blanket are tucked in the corner under the cabinet where she used to think she hid her alcohol.

I pull back the curtain to her closet and look at what’s still hanging. I wonder what she’ll leave behind this time. I sit on the edge of her bed. This room has held so much. It still does. Her UT sweatshirt and a bath towel are crumpled in her hamper from the last weekend she was home. I pull them out to toss into mine.

I’m being a very good mommy and cleaning her room before she’s home for summer. “Go me!” I tell myself.

She’s nineteen, home from her first year away, and from my first taste of empty.

We’re not true empty nesters yet, I remind myself. Her brother moved home only four months after she left. One out, one in. But that’s a different dynamic…

I sigh, raise myself up, and turn off her light as I leave the room.

Here comes summer.

Summer has always been a time of freedom. A time to play. A time for projects.

“What are we gonna do this summer, Mom? Where’s your list?”

I can look back in journals for years and find those lists, many projects still undone. But the making of the list is always exciting - the dreaming of what could be. I remember the summer I refinished the kitchen cabinets. They were layered with years of color choices, and the only way to do it right was to bring them down to the bare wood. The smell of burning paint from my heat gun became one of her iconic smells of summer. That, and burning cheese from all of the frozen pizzas, because I was too busy with projects to cook.

This year has been different, though. With her gone, I’ve slowed a little. I’ve reconnected with me, pulled out my paints, my sketchbook, my pen and paper. I started my Substack. I’ve had some time and energy to do some projects on the weekends.

So, as much as I’m excited about having her home, I’m also nervous. Will I see her as a disruption to my new normal? The self-imposed guilt weighs on me. She still holds two of my fingers when we walk through parking lots - just a comforting habit that has clung from when it was a matter of safety. Then, only two fingers fit.

The school year started with calls and texts daily. They decreased as she found her place away from home. But the calls have increased this week. “Mom, I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know how to pack.”

I could fall so quickly back into being her everything. But I now know I need me, too.

On our drive home, we’ll listen to Hamilton, just as we did on our drive up. We’ll talk as comfortably as we always have. But, somewhere between the mom with the heat gun and frozen pizzas and the woman with the paints spread across the table, I became someone else, someone who’s been buried for years. I’d like to introduce her to my daughter. I hope she likes her.

We’re boarding now.

I wonder if she’ll eat that Hershey’s kiss when she sees it on her pillow.

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My family often went hiking, and no matter where we were, a game of Pioneer popped up. My sister and I chose our favorite pioneer name, Sarah, Mary, Elizabeth. My mom was always Maw, and my dad, an unwilling participant, rolled his eyes every time we referred to him as our brother, Willy. We faced dangers, found good places for houses, and harvested fabulous food to eat. Wild berries and grass made our salads, picked and arranged onto plates of flat rocks. Her hands showing us the art of presentation.

When we weren’t exploring away from home, our neighborhoods provided our adventures. One of my favorites was cat counting. The optimal time to walk was after dinner, near dusk. We named them all. We befriended those who would allow it. We wondered about them on days we didn’t see them. We took this task so seriously that we made a book to collect our data: date of the walk, how many cats, and special notes. Her hands guiding me in how to pay attention.

We played Beauty Shop. Our hair full of barrettes and ribbons, our bodies adorned with her scarves and jewelry from her younger years. We did fashion shows with each round of play, which later expanded to each time we got a new outfit. The song she sings echoes in my head, and sometimes, I still parade through my living room to an audience of the dog. I hold my hands as she taught me - fingers out, thumb down, slightly away from my body, to add a flair to my walk.

Her imagination didn’t end in our games; it extended into our animals’ lives as well. Our pets had their own voices, provided by my mom. Each was a perfect fit and showed their quirks and fears, even a speech impediment. They gave us a running commentary of their lives, and we frequently engaged in full conversations with our animals.

She instilled in me a healthy fear of cockroaches. But she also gave me a love of watching the giant red ants, which could leave a long-lasting sting and a blister. We would place different foods on their sprawling ranches to study what foods they like best. Just watch your feet for any strays making their way up your shoe. And watch her hands carefully place the latest test close enough to their entrance that it would be easily found.

Her deep southern drawl, with words I sometimes hear in myself, became more pronounced at our family reunions. When she and her cousins were together, the laughter never stopped, and I would watch the four of them with so much admiration, listening to their stories of childhood adventures on the same creek my cousins and I explored, and that my children explored. Her hands often held a glass of sweet, iced tea during those visits.

She’s the last. The other three have gone.

Some of her I resisted from the start, more as I grew older - teaching, faith, eating canned green beans. I was bored by her rounds of Scrabble with her mom. I only sewed because she made me.

But much of that stayed anyway. I am a teacher. I love my God. I refuse to eat canned green beans. I love Scrabble. I wish I could sew like her.

She didn’t just raise me. Somehow, I continue her.

I hope one day, when my kids look down at their hands,

they see some of me,

and some of my mom.

I don’t want to let them go.

If I let them go, then I have to let her go. I’m not ready for that.

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Pale pink petals litter the dining table. More fall as I make my way to the compost bin on the side of our house, leaving a trail like a flower girl. I slowly lift the lid of the bin and start to pull one stem at a time.

Yep, that one’s gone.

Eww, that one is floppy with decay.

This one is nothing but empty buds.

This one still has some life left in it. It can stay.

I whittle my way through the bouquet that marked the sympathy of her death. I pour out the brown water left in the vase onto the brownest spot of nearby grass and bring the salvaged stems inside. Trimming down the few remaining ones, I’m careful to make the diagonal cuts I’ve been taught to do with bouquets.

The yellow-green carnation with browning edges. The small purple flowers, whose name I do not know, still have some happy blooms on them. They stay. And the greenery stays.

I wash and fold up her blanket – the one kept on the back of the loveseat, where she liked to snuggle on cold nights and look out the window during the day. The blanket sits, now, in an unused dining chair. I can’t put it away.

I walk out back and shake off the last of her fur from the cushion on which she slept. Even that is stubborn to let go. The chair wants to cling to her, too.

“You’re not ready yet either, are you, chair?” I say aloud.

I don’t know why I’m brushing it off. Cleaning it doesn’t bring relief. Instead, it brings erasure. We’ve always sat on the fur, so why clean it now?

I look towards the corner flower bed. The ugly flowers, as I’ve dubbed them, are doing their best to be noticed despite being shunned from the patio. Long, spindly, leafless green stems hold the flowers up. Bright pink centers with paler pink petals stand out against the wandering purple hearts behind them.

They look to be begging for one more chance to be cared for, insisting on being seen.

These annuals persisted through our mild Texas winter, refusing to die in either of the two freezes we had. And without me even trying, they continue to live.

Lucky loved flowers.

We are fortunate to have a volunteer crop of larkspurs that made our yard home. Tall stems with beautiful purple or pink blossoms. She would hide in those flowers - spy cat, we called her. We would find her nests within the patches of flowers, leaving her presence of squished down stems.

The first several years of larkspurs made our yard a magnet for bees and butterflies, bringing more life with them. Drought and the chocolate lab’s plowing paws chasing down her ball have made it harder for them to grow, and they’ve declined in number.

We tried to seed them, tried to keep them alive.

It makes me angry how little say we have in the things that stay.

The things I try to save, die.

And those ugly flowers, the ones I ignore, endure.

But I’ll keep looking for larkspurs. There are a few still around. And I’ll find some beauty in the ugly flowers.

Or at least, I won’t pull them yet.

I find him perched on the wire top of the pergola, within easy reach of their house. The blooming cross vines threaded across the wires give him some camouflage, but his white fur gives him away.

“Who, me?” he says with a meow when I holler at him to get down.

Other days, he sits in the iron chair, just below, green eyes wide with excitement, thinking about making that leap up the post. Or he lies casually close by on the porch, pretending not to pay attention. But you can see his ears twitch with each sound they make - always attuned to what they’re doing and where they are.

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I worry about them - the wrens who foolishly built a nest and are trying to raise their babies on the porch patrolled by Ralph Lawrence. Maybe it’s me who’s the stupid one for hanging a birdhouse there. I just thought of it as decoration, never really seeing it as a possible home for someone.

But here we are, in April, in Texas, and the wrens are busy. Their sharp chitter sounds the warning that the cat is near. Despite the danger, they continue their work. Insect after insect arrives in their beaks. And each time, the high-pitched chirps erupt from within the house. Babies eagerly anticipating the morsel mom or dad has brought.

I wonder what’s going on inside that house. Is it anything like mine was with three kids underfoot? All vying in their unique way for attention. I fight the temptation to hold my phone up to the entrance of their house to take their picture. Instead, I think back to the chaos of when the kids were little, trying to feed them all.

Just getting through one meal was tiring. One politely eating almost everything on her plate. The boy, worrying about whether his food was touching, avoiding anything related to cooked vegetables. The little one riding circles around the table on her scooter. One bite in her mouth with each pass of her plate. Doing what was necessary. Some nights, it was just Mac and Cheese for dinner.

“They’ll survive on Mac and Cheese, right?” I weakly tried to reassure myself.

My mama’s instinct to care for and protect still holds for these birds. But I am the one who lets the cat outside. He would make me crazy if I closed the dog door that provides his freedom, provides my peace.

Another round of choosing the hard or soft option. My sanity or their survival?

I inherited this birdhouse. Jane’s backyard was always full of songbirds at her feeders. I wish now I would’ve asked her more questions. The wrens work together, a never-ending routine: hop from the house to the nearby mountain laurel, then off to find a meal.

These low-flying birds are one leap away from death by the claws of The Mighty Hunter Ralph. I figure I owe the Audubon Society at least a million dollars for the destruction he’s caused during his lifetime.

Soon, they return but always land a few stops away from the nest. Daddy wren lights on the cedar branch framing our pergola. He chitters, then flutters to the string light hanging down. Another chitter, a little worm secure in his beak. Finally, he flits to the coiled metal perch just outside the round opening of the small birdhouse.

As the days have gone on, the babies have grown more vocal. Now, they chirp, begging for more, even when mom or dad is not nearby. I can see a big open mouth asking for the bug in mama’s beak. I like to think there are three of them in there, to mirror my own family.

My kids did survive. The boy eats vegetables now, but still holds his own against tomatoes, leaving little red piles on his plate when a dish contains them. Like the wrens, they grew in their voices as well. Sometimes I hear myself in them. Other times, I question where they found the voice that is coming out.

Their launch, however, stretches through years, not weeks.

Ralph seems content enough to leave the nest alone if I’m out here with him. “You’re a good boy,” I tell him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to hunt for us, and that we love him just for being him. He stands in front of me, asking for pets.

“Please be good,” I beg.

The wrens continue their work. I think about the world, about sending my babies into it.

“Please be good,” I beg.

And then, just like that, they’re gone.

“Oh, baby, you’re limping. Hang on”

She stops. I lift her paw and pull out the sticker embedded there. The next paw, two more. Check the back paws; they’re ok.

I stand and look around. We are surrounded by grass burr plants. Long brown stems fallen to the earth, clumps of death at the top - stickers lying in wait for an unsuspecting host to carry them off to propagate more hell.

It hadn’t started this way.

Brandy began staring just after the sun came up. Each morning, it’s the same routine. She follows me into the kitchen for a coffee refill, then back to the living room.

“No, I’m not ready yet. One more cup.”

She continues to sit at my feet and stare, her body perfectly still, her eyes fixed on mine. I pull my legs up in front of me to block her view, trying to enjoy the warm sips and quiet morning. She scoots over until she can make eye contact with me again.

After my empty cup is in the sink, I start to get ready. Her panting and eagerness grow as I move through the house. When I pull on the sneakers she knows and loves, the tail wag and whine intensify. The run to the door and back to me begins.

Finally, I ask the anticipated question, “Do you want to go on a walk?”

Unbridled excitement - jumping and turning - she bolts through the screen door before I can finish opening it.

“Which gate, girl? Where do you want to go?”

Out here, I can let her run off leash, and she chooses the path. She opts for the back gate, so we head into the pasture. Blue skies. A soft breeze. Brandy runs with her nose to the ground. The cows and calves are here now, leaving their scents for her to discover. Up through the oaks to the top of the hill, where my view stretches in every direction, but Brandy’s nose is still to the ground.

Sometimes she looks up at me and smiles.

She crashes through the briars where foxes and rabbits hide, looking for the excitement that her usual city life does not offer. Back through the mesquite grove, flushing up the little gray and brown birds that call the scrub brush their home. Nose still down, trusting we’re headed in the right direction.

And, lastly, across the field, a shortcut home.

Only now, she’s stopped.

I look behind. There’s no way out. How did I not see them before? No matter. We’re in them now. I carefully try to find a path through and have Brandy follow me. She listens the best she can, but there’s only so much I can do for her. Eighty-five pounds can’t be carried, and she soon stops again and looks at me.

“Mama. It hurts.” I see her say with her golden eyes.

This stare holds pain instead of the joy she looked at me with a little while ago.

It becomes its own kind of routine. Lift a paw, pull out the stickers. The next paw, the next. It becomes as familiar as our morning. Some burrs are easy to grab, and I can just flick them away. Some are embedded deeply into or between her pads, and she flinches when I pull. Others find their way into my finger, sharp reminders of her pain. We slowly walk on. She stays close to me, behind me, and I have to remember to glance back to see if she’s stopped again.

After what seems to me an eternity, we finally make it to the edge of the unplowed field where she can run without pain. I make a mental note - don’t go there again.

“Alright, B, I think we’re through it.” She looks at me but still stays close. She trusted me to let her run free. And yet, I led her here.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I say. “We’re good now.”

We’ve made our way back. I’ve pulled the stickers clinging to my laces and the bottom of my tennis shoes. I’ve checked her feet one more time. She’s gotten some water, and now we sit on the porch. She stares at me. Tongue hanging out, happy smile on her face.

“Here’s my ball, mama. Throw the ball, mama?”

As if nothing ever happened. As if I didn’t lead her into danger. Still trusting me anyway.