A Porch of My Own

A Porch of My Own

Saturday, September 9, 2017

In the Land of the Stranger, I Rise or I Fall





"The home I redeem from the savage and wild
The home I have loved as a father, his child
The wife of my bosom, farewell to ye all
In the land of the stranger, I rise or I fall"

I heard Fess Parker sing this on the old Davy Crockett at the Alamo movie a couple of weeks ago. The real Davy Crockett wrote this part of the song, called Farewell, as a poem. It touched me, both the leaving a place you created from nothing and loved part, and the last line. Davy and I are kindred spirits in this, as I'm sure we are in other things.

I found an extended version of Riders in the Sky singing the song and downloaded it. There's a video clip of Fess Parker singing the abbreviated version with the real Davy's words from the movie. Naturally, it will break your heart because not only did Davy die but we know the adorable Fess Parker as Davy is going to die before the movie is over.



I drove back from Denver today where I spent the week with the kids, enjoying their company, learning about Bixby's school days, and doing some shopping. There's a bit of Fall in the air, especially in the mornings, and the aspens in the high places are just beginning to turn. Farmers on the plains of Colorado have bales of hay piled high and irrigation going on a few fields to cut again later. Gus and Woodrow wouldn't believe all the alfalfa in that part of the state! I feel like Fall will be here and gone before I know it and I want to savor every bit of it.



I've come a year's full circle from the beginning of my journey to leave the ranch and move to Colorado. It was the first of October last year when Sarah and I came to Durango to meet with a realtor, a decision that was made in September. The year has gone by quickly. From those first very hard weeks to now, it's been a journey of discovering whether I will rise or fall.

My adopted state has been good to me, both in the people I've met and the land I've found. I feel my roots sinking like those of the trees I've planted this year. I didn't create this home from the ground up like we did the ranch but I'm putting my mark on it and the family is too. To the framed photos that Rickie took of the ranch I've added ones of the family and me and the adventures we've had here. Our story is expanding and our circle of experiences grows.

Sometimes we just have to trust that the decisions we make will lead us to a better place. Not necessarily a better physical place but a better place in our mind. Life is a journey and we're not meant to be stranded in the past, adrift without a sail. That's my belief anyway. We're meant to rise up from whatever befalls us, or to try to anyway.

Davy did, and that's why we're still singing his song almost 200 years later.

Fess Parker Farewell









Sunday, September 3, 2017

The Stuff of Nightmares

The earliest memory of anything I can recall was my dad, wearing his duck hunting waders, carrying me through thigh deep water to take me inside my grandparents' apartment above a garage somewhere in northeast Louisiana. I must have been about 4 years old. I can see Grandma Hattie clear as a picture in my mind leaning over the stair railing, watching him bring me up. He takes me up and goes back to the car for my brother David. 


For over 40 years I had a recurring dream of our family driving along a narrow gravel road with swamp water on each side coming all the way up to the edge of the road. It was a horrifying dream for me. I had it until after I had been married to Rickie for many years. I think it signified fear and insecurity to me. I had it once after Rickie died, the first time in maybe 15 years. 


I've always hated muddy swampy water and the things that lived in it. As a young child, 8 or 9 years old, I begged my dad to let us leave Louisiana and go to Texas where I could be a cowboy and have a ranch. In my mind I pictured the dry hills of California as seen on the Saturday morning cowboy shows of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. The rolling hills and dusty roads, far from swamp water that had encroached the road of my nightmares. 


We did eventually move to Texas when I was 14, searching for a better living. But it was nothing like the Texas I envisioned, the one in my mind that had hills and dusty roads and ranches. Still, our family, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins all settled in there. We grew up and grew old and our parents and grandparents all passed away. Our kids married and had kids of their own who had kids of their own. Houston gave us a living and I call it my hometown rather than the north Louisiana town I was born in. 


Eventually I got my ranch and hills and dusty roads. Rickie got them for me, and they were just as I had imagined them to be. When life changed for me and I moved to Colorado my hills were replaced with mountains and I found my share of dusty roads still. Cattle graze in the green high elevation pastures, surrounded by forests of fir, spruce, and pine. My cabin is half way up a steep hill and I feel comfortable I won't be covered by a swamp. I may fall off a mountain one day or be driven from my home by a wildfire but that's preferable to me. 


This week in Houston has been the stuff of my nightmares but it's been living nightmares for so many. Two of my nephews and their families were flooded and are trying to salvage clothes and memories as I write this. They had no flood insurance and from what I hear even for those who did, funds will be a long time in coming. One nephew and his family had to be rescued in the night and were lucky to escape with their lives. The stories and suffering are never ending. 


And I sit halfway up my steep hill surrounded by mountains. The skies are a clear blue and the air has a promise of Fall. The aspen leaves are thinking about turning a brilliant yellow soon. I saw my first mule deer fawns last evening, a set of twins, eating on the hill behind the house along with their mother. I've been working on an outside project for a couple of days and every time I stop and look around me I feel grateful for the life I've had. And grateful to be where I am. And somewhat guilty to be living this life when my Houston family is suffering so. My hope for them is to one day feel safe and not afraid as they put their children to bed at night. 


Below are links to help my nephews and their families. Please read their stories if you have time. Keep them in your thoughts and hearts and send them your strength as you all sent me yours when I lost Rickie. Thank you and I hope if any of y'all were affected by Harvey you made it through safely. 


Esther and Paul.        https://www.gofundme.com/please-help-rebuild-flooded-house


Brandy and David      https://www.gofundme.com/n5j64d-a-family-in-need