Roots
Picture this: we’re sitting around a campfire at a family ranch an hour north of town. Our friend is telling the story of his great grandfather, a gritty man who did well for himself and his family working his land. Rumors of his prosperity grew into tales of hidden riches within the modest farmhouse. And so, one night, a group of bandits descend upon the house, guns drawn, and shoot the old man dead at the door, tie up his wife, and search the home, finding nothing. Recently, a few ranch hands helping to patch up the bunkhouses have reported seeing an old man (viejito!, gringo!) poking around, asking what they’re doing. Upon further inquiry, nobody can account for him otherwise.
I believe in ghosts, do you?
Not the ones that lurk in dark closets or hallways or deep woods and bad dreams. I believe in the ghosts that live in our memories, and the artifacts that keep those memories alive. I believe my Hungarian grandmother watches me (dubiously) as I cook her chicken paprikash. I believe my grandfather wondered how his bolo tie ended up around my neck in the fields of Coachella, then followed me to Texas, surrounded by ranchland much closer to the likes of his own childhood. I believe the abandoned homes on the sides of highways are their own kinds of ghosts, full of stories in their bones, slipping into the earth, hoping for reincarnation.
My childhood home was a tavern built in 1770 by Luther Moore, a revolutionary war 'soldier' (re: civilian) who lived to be 86. I remember that half acre lot like a historical tomb. The rough-hewed stone steps where passengers would disembark from their carriages still sat in the front lawn. A 200-year-old tangle of lilac trees flooded the house with their fragrant scent in the spring. Bullets from 18th century muskets were unearthed from its surrounding stone walls. That house used to speak, mostly at night, not to us, or about us, but through us - to her, we were the 15-year transients. We were the ghosts.
With my parents move to Portland this past year, the vestiges of our family in the Northeast have been uprooted. My sister and her husband are settled in San Diego, and we are here in West Texas. None of my other family calls New England home. We will not travel there for the holidays or revisit my hometown restaurants. We won’t see the high school mural I helped paint or the childhood playground that taught me I could not, in fact, fly. We won’t forgo the designer Balsam Firs of Wilson Farms for the little church parking lot Christmas tree stand. Our childhood ornaments now hang in Oregon.
I already don’t get back there enough, the place I’m supposed to be ‘from,’ and a deep longing has set in. It’s not because Midland doesn’t feel like home (it does). It’s more the reverence that West Texans have for their sense of history and place - the idea of belonging somewhere -
We’re the sixth generation to live on that land.
My father built this house.
Our family is buried out there.
I hear things like this all the time. I believe this is what we simply refer to as ‘roots.’
Roots are, by definition, about origins. But they are also physical and finite. We attach ourselves to the environment around us in ways that feel permanent - a tree that was planted by a distant ancestor. A convenience store behind which we shared a first kiss. Our identities build organically, and exponentially, in the places we grow. And if we go away for an extended period of time, they are there to remind us who we are, in case we forget.
West Texans seem to feel this deep connection to terra firma in their bones. Perhaps it is why they are skeptical of people like me, drifters, who arrive here not by choice but opportunity. They’ve seen plenty of my kind before, and they know we usually take what we came for, and leave. Some of these big city gypsies even wear their ‘outsiderness’ like a badge of honor and chuckle when asked if they’re ‘from’ here. This is ill-advised. For others, like me, we look for things to grab onto, a sense of permanence. We begin to see the opportunity in calling a little part of this place our own - less pirate, more pioneer.
And so you begin to plant seeds. You build a house. You take a retail job to become a familiar face in the community. You pick up tennis to join a league. You pick up golf because, well, you just do. You say ‘yes’ to every committee and every baby shower. You make friends, and then, you make dear friends. You write about your new home with reverence.
Yes, it’s a lot of work to put down roots. Just like that tiny seed of a ranch many moons back now plays home to generations of children, cattle, memories, and ghosts - these things take time. Perhaps the fruits of our labor won’t even be visible until after we’re gone. Then one day, maybe our children, or our children’s children, will tell stories about how a girl from New England and a boy from Newport Beach ended up in West Texas, built this house, saw their baby’s first steps in this room, and if you listen closely, you can sometimes hear them laughing under the glow of a Tall City sky.
What a lovely ghost story it would be.
