Blue
Putting a city girl in a little town in the middle of nowhere does a lot more harm than good. No one tells you that your cell service is almost nonexistent or that beef is considered a substantial meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s a culture shock like no other, especially for someone who always had a Starbucks within a half mile radius.
I had the absolute pleasure of spending my summer in Abilene, Texas, a tiny city in West Texas that feels more like a village than a city. I have justifiable reason to believe Abilene is small, as I am originally from big-town Philadelphia. Just for comparison purposes, if you picked up the entirety of downtown Abilene and put it in Center City Philadelphia, it would be roughly the size of the Liberty Bell.
Abilene is the epitome of country lifestyle. I’m not saying people are walking their horses down the dirt road of Main Street or anything like that, but if you think of everything that reminds you of the Wild West, that’s Abilene. Boots with spurs, cowboy hats, dirt roads, tumbleweeds – it’s all there. Naturally, it’s a culture shock.
Coming from a city that never sleeps, I was astounded to see that Tiny Texas Town went to bed… at 8 o’clock at night. Not one shop, restaurant or anything else was open past 8pm on any night of the week. On the rare occasion that a restaurant was open late, the entire population of Tiny Texas Town was there, and sure enough, everyone knew each other.
It’s definitely a sight to see when you’re driving through the residential part of town and you see cows in someone’s yard. I always thought dogs and cats were considered “normal” pets but in Abilene Village cows seem to be the mainstream house pet.
Speaking of cows, there’s a term that Texans like to call each other: heifers. The term literally means a female cow, but it’s used sort of as a term of endearment. To me it seems a little weird that you’d go around calling your friends cows (and I’d probably think twice about who my friends were if I didn’t know it was supposed to be a good thing). In the northeast, calling your friend a cow would be considered the biggest act of treachery and you’d probably be exiled to a faraway place, but I guess they do things a little differently in the Wild West.
Another wild thing about Texas is that it’s apparently legal to purchase liquor at a drive thru. It’s like a beer distributor, but instead it’s like going through the Burger King drive thru and ordering any sort of liquor slushie you can imagine. Here’s the catch: they give it to you in a bag, and that somehow makes the whole ordeal legal.
I met an extremely boisterous group of ladies in Abilene Village. Like seriously, a wild group of people. They really showed me the ropes of what life is like in West Texas. First, they took me to lunch. Nothing special, just wings (typical Texan food, I suppose), but it was still quite an experience listening to them talk about hanging animal heads on the walls of their homes. Next, they took me line dancing. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that real line dancing was with country music. This apparently is not the case. If I had known that tequila bar line dancing is doing the Cupid Shuffle three times in a row and dancing to a bad remix of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, I wouldn’t have been so nervous about it.
So, there I sat, throwing back tequila shots with these ladies who clearly knew the ropes, hoping that this was the correct way to embrace the Texan culture. It wasn’t. Two Advil and a terrible morning later, it was proved that my youth did nothing to save me against the tequila bars of the wild west, but the other ladies were in worse shape than I was. This was clearly not the Texas way.
So, what is typical Texas? Liquor drive thru’s and excessively dancing to the Cupid Shuffle? Talking about your neighbor’s cattle? Being in bed at 9pm every night because you simply run out of things to do?
I found typical Texas as I drove down the interstate one day. The sky was the brightest shade of blue I have ever seen it. I had a sudden appreciation for the landscape, despite the dryness of the land. I realized then that there was absolutely no reason for me to dislike West Texas. The way the green cactuses and brown dirt looked against the blue sky was a sight that photos couldn’t do justice.
Culture shock means nothing when you have people that make you feel comfortable and at home. Life is simple, and life is good. There’s nothing else to it. When you put a city girl in the middle of the Wild West it’s going to be a culture shock, but all you need is the eyes to see that people are the same no matter where you go.
The city is a busy place; there’s traffic and lots of noise, but there’s also the feeling of needing to be just like everyone else. The way you dress, the way you speak – it all becomes artificial. The wild, wild west is simple; they live comfortably and never take anything for granted. You learn to appreciate everything you have, and for me to have learned that lesson has changed my life.
The little village of Abilene, Texas will forever hold a special place in my heart. Thank you to the people who showed me such kindness and generosity, and helped me see the charm and beautiful of a simpler lifestyle. The dirt, the cactuses, the smell of cows in the morning – it just might be worth it when you experience how beautiful the simple life is.