The fall that I was 18 I moved from north Texas to a college campus in Houston.  September in Houston was unbelievably unpleasant.  Every day there was rainfall in the early afternoon followed by temperatures in the upper nineties. Walking to class was like walking in a steam bath.

But around the first week of October the first cold front came in and things started to get better.  By December I was in love with the place.  Temperatures seldom dipped low enough to require more than a flannel shirt or at worst a wind-breaker and the moist air was cool and soft on my skin.  But best of all were the rows of live oaks draped with spanish moss and the grass that stayed green all winter.

When I went home for Christmas break I was unprepared for the bleakness of the north Texas landscape. Though I had lived in it for years, I saw it with new eyes now.  Nothing but brown everywhere.  Bare tree limbs and dead grass that did nothing to break the bitter wind that dried my skin and tensed my shoulders. Further north there is at least snow to hide some of the ugliness.

Now many years later I am once again living in that landscape.

I have learned to like it better. In fact it’s okay as long as you are in the woods.   The ground is covered by a uniform cover of leaves  and there is much more light. It is more open and spacious than  in the greener months.   Even the grassy areas have a certain beauty.  The fields of tall stems blowing in the wind look soft as clouds.

Actually I realize that it is mainly the places where nature butts up against man’s creations that offend me. The ragged tall grass and brush in the fencelines.  The junk and kid’s toys lying around  the houses at the edge of town.  The gash in the earth surrounded by yellow tractors where some new building is going in.  This all seems more tolerable when there is green foliage and flowers to soften the image and distract the eye.