Granite Shoals

The incessant, hammering heartbeat of the city drills its unwelcome path through my consciousness branding its sounds and frenetic energy into my marrow. I hate every second. 

In search of lucidity, I enter the backyard stepping on burned patches of genetically engineered turf comprising a thousand postage stamps bleeding together. My feet burn and I skip foot my way further to the edge for relief. But there is none. 

My neighbor looks at me from his own blood and sweat purchased plot of green stamped turf. I jerk my head in his direction hoping to seem like I’m saying hello casually. But secretly, I distaste the idea that I standalone, yet not alone because I need to be alone. 

I close my eyes. The road is close enough that if I allow my thoughts to transcend this moment, I can hear the ocean. 

The waves crash upon me. I no longer feel the scorching flames of grass under my feet. I no longer sense my neighbor staring at me over the two-by-fours we call a fence. I no longer hear the jet planes screeching through the torched air above. 

My neighbor belches. My eyes snap open. I’m here. In the heart of a city. A city so powerful that it seems to generate a pulse that overtakes mine. Should I let it?

I’m driving now. It’s the end of two full days in my car. I have a cooler of snacks in the passenger seat––elixirs for my journey, as I leave one city to enter another. 

Fields whiz by like punctuations in a sentence. Lush emerald trees shepherd my pilgrimage.

The sky. It seems as if the earth took its lid off to reveal its secrets with me, its depth, its translucent blue, its unending beginning and ending. I’m driving toward its beginning. I yawn a huge yawn, and I feel better somehow. 

Checking my rearview mirror, I see nothing but road, dust, the ripples of heat in the past. I yawn again, this time breathing deeply. The car roars on. A teddy bear from my ex fiancé stares at me from the floorboard. I don’t know why I brought it, but it’s there, anyway. 

I’ve almost arrived. The prairies are broad now. The sky is expansive. I’m breathing. My pulse is my own. I feel what I feel and in this moment I am content, at peace like a toddler held by a parent; like a cat contently curled on a pillow. 

I drink in the moment like water after a long journey. It’s been a long journey. 

I see the sign. 5 miles to Granite Shoals. Up ahead is the city's only gas station and I know to take a left after the light. Funny how I have yet to learn the name of the road. If someone ever tore the gas station down, I would be lost. Houses and double-wides slowly freckle the sides of the sun hardened Texas road as I curve around the small town’s only bend. 

I know my grandparents will be waiting for me. Expecting me. I’m the most like my grandmother but we are not blood. I’m her favorite. I know we will spend the day playing cards, eating pie, watching Wheel of Fortune, walking and picking up cans for recycling.

Our walk always leads us to the granite quarry. Grandma and I will walk across it, watching the flecks of stone under our sneakers. Its veins glisten at me in the sunlight, like silvery wave tips stretched across the shore. Thinking how something so hard and muted will one day be mined and buffed and turned into something beautiful. She tells me this is how the town got its name. I wonder how many times we’ve had this conversation.  

We are back at the double-wide. Shoulder to shoulder grandma and me. We aren’t blood, but I’m most like her. I sit on the porch. There is no pounding of traffic. No incessant, hammering heartbeat of the city drilling its unwelcome path through my consciousness branding its sounds and frenetic energy into my marrow. I love it here, every second. 

In search of retreat, I find me. In place of burned patches of engineered turf the grass is freckled with life and movement, ants and butterflies. No neighbor looks at me from his own blood and sweat purchased plot of green stamped turf. I turn my head to the sky hoping to seem like I’m saying hello casually. Because this time––I am.