Worn Ties

By Paige Harriss

Writing 212: The Art of the Essay

I am not sure one ever likes their city. The traffic is too horrible, the stores are too far away, the area is too populated, the mayor too conservative, the state legislature too liberal. Even as a little girl, I distinctly remember complaining to my mother that the suburbia of Dallas, Texas was far too boring, that it would be much more exciting to say I moved from somewhere exotic like Kansas or Wyoming. I wanted life to be sensational; I wanted to have experiences to brag about and travel pictures to share on the playground with my less cultured gang of five-year-old friends. In actuality, I do not think I realized how immensely I detest change until it reared its ugly head and I never stopped experiencing it. Thus, although I am writing this essay with every intention of making it a love letter to Texas, it might as well be a love letter to comfortability, to control, and to things never changing– ever.

As a child I moved only once and that was to the neighborhood across the street. Even our family vacations were rather dull, consisting either of driving two and a half hours south to spend a night by lake Conroe or two and a half hours north for a night of camping in Oklahoma. I distinctly remember having absolutely no opinion of my city; it was neither heaven nor hell but rather, I suppose, the stairway in between. Yet somehow now, when I am afraid I will never make it back there, I find myself idealizing it as if I were a treasure hunter on a quest to find Atlantis.

Suburbia was all about bustle. I always had a sensation that there was something I needed to be doing, whether it be making a trip to the neighborhood Walmart or picking up paint supplies from Michaels or going along with my dad to get our car fixed for the hundredth time. Texas was all work, no play. People were not rude, necessarily, just busy. They did not have time to stop and chat, were not concerned about what you were doing, who you were talking to, what money you were spending, as long as it had nothing to do with them. It was comfortable. I loved walking from my house to Goodyear and my dad hoisting me on top of his shoulders when we reached a busy street because my legs were too little to quickly carry myself. I loved renting so many books from the library I could barely lift them in my arms and sprawling in the dry heat outside to lose myself in the pages. I loved walking home from school in Bermuda shorts, kicking stray pebbles with my hot pink flip-flops. I loved Whataburger and Dickey’s and Blockbuster. I loved driving to downtown Dallas on Christmas Eve at midnight to the chapel where my parents got married and fighting the lull of sleep as I listened to the church choir sing.

I loved the comfort of knowing Dallas. I knew its street corners, the dirty creeks no one ever visited, the graffiti under the highway bridge near the animal shelter; to me, the whole world was encompassed in those sixty square miles. I do not know Atlanta like I knew Dallas. The troubling thing, I’ve found, about not knowing a place is that it can feel as if you do not know yourself.

I suppose I remember nothing more vividly than leaving Texas sophomore year. Ducking behind my hardwood staircase, I remember listening in disbelief as my parents discussed the details of selling our house and when we would move. I experienced the kind of sobs that seem to come from the deepest part of one’s body in a Burger King when I realized I could not be in denial any longer– that I was, in fact, leaving. Eventually, however, I realized I needed to tackle the situation pragmatically, that there must be some kind of guide, some step by step plan, for preserving one’s sanity in the midst of a life upheaval. Watching YouTube videos about “how to be the new girl” that September, I learned that I would most likely have to eat alone in a foreign cafeteria while clawing my way up from social suicide but that everything would eventually be “alright.” That boost of self-confidence was much needed.

Right before we left I was in limbo, not really sure what to do or how to feel because we were living in a hotel and my home was not my home anymore. I remember watching my dad pull out of the driveway as he left for Georgia and wanting to jump in the car with him because Texas was no longer mine to claim. I remember that first night in Georgia, unlocking the door to a cold, dark, and unfamiliar house and sinking to the floor with my head against the wall thinking, “what am I doing here?”

There were little things that were painful. That Christmas we did not hang any decorations or drive to downtown Dallas to the little chapel where my parents got married. There were no familiar faces, no family, no friends. It was almost like an out-of-body experience; I could not, for the life of me, understand little things about the city, like why the cashier at the local Publix always called me “sugar bunches” every time I came by or why people did everything so slowly. Driving was slow, lines were slow, life was slow. Where was the bustle? Why did my life feel like it was moving in reverse?

Now, being in college, my time in Texas feels like the kind of dream that is so vivid I wake up believing it really happened. I know that I have lost touch with many of the friends I once had there, that many new places have been built and many old ones have been torn down. I realize that many others are not even there anymore, that some have gone out of state for college or left because their parents got new jobs or were tired of the heat. I often wonder if Texas is still my home. I say it is; I try desperately to believe it is. Yet when I visit now, I sometimes feel out of place, like I am an alien in a new land and it is painted on my forehead that I do not belong. I tell myself I will end up back there eventually, mostly because I cannot bear the thought that I will not. Perhaps I am afraid that I lost part of myself when I left Texas and that if I do not return I will spend the rest of my life searching for something that no longer exists. I know that home is not a place, that it is family and friends and “where the heart is,” but sometimes I truly believe that I do not have a home anymore– that I left the idea of home behind when I left Texas.

I am comfortable in Atlanta. I have memorized the small two-lane roads I take to get to the store. I know that I make an abrupt left at the bright yellow house on Avery Road to get back to my neighborhood. I know that it takes precisely six minutes and 45 seconds to get to my friend’s house if I drive 63 miles per hour. Sometimes it even slips out of my mouth that I am from Atlanta. I am comfortable. But I am not home .

I am going to college in North Carolina, my family is moving to Florida, and I am clinging onto Texas with all of my might although I recognize that my ties there are becoming worn and thin. I know that home should be where my family is, but the sick feeling I get thinking about unlocking another door into another unfamiliar house makes me believe that home must mean more than that. I am still looking for my home, but until then, I suppose it is romantic to consider myself a wandering gypsy searching for somewhere to pitch my tent.

A word from Paige

I have never considered myself an interesting subject to write about; my life was just never exciting enough. I had never gone paragliding in Peru, rescued someone from a burning building, or backpacked in Europe. However, in writing this essay, I discovered that the beauty in the mundane is that everyone understands it. And in my experience, this mundaneness often conceals something important, something honest, and something a little painful.

The actual process of writing the essay was somewhat challenging. On the one hand, writing about my own experience felt natural, as if I was telling a story to a close friend. Yet the story itself still felt dull. As much as I wished I could turn my experience into the plot of a dramatic film, I knew that the story was what it was. Thus, my goal was to change the way I told the story—to tell a boring story in an interesting way. I tried to focus on what was important within it; the story was not about Texas or Georgia or moving, it was about my struggle with change. That idea grounded me; it led me to write about how I felt about my experience rather than reciting meaningless specifics that no one cares about. I also loved the idea of writing as if I was talking, not attempting to sound like a scholar or a poet or as someone writing about themselves as if they were a character in a novel.

Ultimately, for me, the essay feels like my personal gateway into honest writing. I feel comfortable, like I do not have to don on some new persona each time I write or wait for the most interesting thing in the world to say. My discovery is this: that the story might not always be fascinating or rare or a roller coaster of dramatics but its telling must always be human. 

From Professor Erin Branch