It’s a long drive from Texas to North Carolina — so long I had a wound heal on it. Part of that is due to the rural route I insisted we drive. My idea was to drive the Mississippi Blues Trail. I’ve thought about the place since I was in high school and first heard Robert Johnson’s haunted voice and ethereal slide guitar. I think my kids are old enough to start remembering stuff. Hopefully they won’t hold this against me. We could have driven along the Gulf Coast and stopped at a beach. So for better or worse, I picked a few sites in northwestern Mississippi that drew me in. They all happened to be either birthplaces or graves.
BB King’s birthplace off of Bear Creek. Cerys: “Where’s the little BB baby, dad?”
Charley Patton’s grave in Holly Ridge. Harlan: “Daaaaaad why are we out here in all this corn? Are we LOST?”
Robert Johnson’s grave outside Greenwood. “Dad, what’s in a grave? PEOPLE??? How do they get out? What happens if YOU get in a grave?” I started driving very carefully.
In a larger sense, what a journey this last year has been. It was a massive effort to pivot from a law practice to being a full-time dad. Now that I am on the other side of it, let me tell you, it was a privilege. I learned who my kids are. I learned who I am. I learned that we are always changing. The growth chart on the wall is the best visualization. They grew inches while we were in Texas.
I learned that if a 5-year-old licks the table at McDonalds, he’s likely to get sick. Two days later. Just as my paranoid google search — “Siri, how long is the incubation period for the flu?” — predicted.
I learned a lot of songs from cartoons that will likely require years of therapy and meditation to exorcise from my brain. Bubble Guppies, anyone?
I learned the best thing and the worse thing about having kids — kids. At some point your little baby turns into a jerk. It’s true. You think it and you feel guilty for having thought it. But when your son throws his macaroni and cheese on the floor because he wanted “the kind that wasn’t already made,” he is being a jerk. I also learned that if you stay calm, they come back around and ingratiate themselves to you. He smiles at me and I forget that anything else in the world exists but for that little ray of pure happiness pointing straight at me.
I learned that the Guadalupe bass on the San Marcos River start biting when the temperature goes over a hundred degrees and the cicadas start buzzing.
I learned Bastrop is pronounced “Bass Drop.” And that Manchaca is pronounced “Man Chack.” Gruene is “Green.” And Humble is “Umm Bull.”
As prevalent as the concept of TEXAS was wherever we looked a week ago, our reality is completely devoid of Texas at this point. I see no Texas flags. No longhorns emblazoned on every bumper. No Texas palms. No Texas live oaks. No crystal-clear, aquifer-fed streams. No white dirt and rocks.
Except our stay in Texas changed us. Texas is still with us. I walk differently than I did eight months ago and it’s only partially because of the back pain from picking Harlan and Cerys up thirty times a day. I walk with the sense that these two wondrous little creatures are beside me and part of me at all times. As a dad, I did not feel the connection to our newborns. I don’t know if other dads felt this and I feel guilty for saying it. But I didn’t carry the kids for 12 months or however long the whole gestation thing was. (Thanks, Karla, you’re the best, by the way.) I didn’t have all that time of having the little human kicking inside me to get to feel its existence in a psychic sense. After spending the entire last eight months with them 24/7 I feel more than an observer. I’m a participant in their lives. Messy as that can be. (Sorry about all the puking and nosebleeds in your house this week, Chad and Lindsay, but you’re real troopers for giving us a place to stay.)
So here we are again. Our little family. Back in a place and surrounded by people we love. It just so happens that what could have been a real catastrophe turned into a flow of positivity. Thank you to everyone who has participated in this journey with us. We’re just getting started so watch out!
jbrettdavis 