Before we begin, I should probably acknowledge something extremely obvious.
Those of you who know me know that I do not sound like a mildly concerned British woman narrating a BBC documentary.
I have a Texas twang.
The kind formed by fifty-seven years of heat, pollen, football, tornado sirens, and women saying, “Well now…” in tones that could either mean I love you dearly or you should probably leave.
And yet this essay — along with several previous ones — is currently being narrated by a woman who sounds like she has strong opinions about historic estates in Sussex.
Partly because a British accent gives the illusion that someone responsible is in charge.
But mostly because I am still learning how to hear my own voice say my own words out loud.
Which feels ironic considering I was raised by Texas women.
So for now, the British lady will be assisting us.
I think you’ll find that she seems emotionally equipped for it.
The Weather Women
I have lived in Texas since I was three years old.
Which means my personality has been thoroughly marinated in heat, pollen, and a deep commitment to barbecue and Tex-Mex.
Technically, I was born in New Mexico, which means my earliest memories involve running around the White Sands Basin Range — the same region where the Trinity atomic bomb was tested.
So if you’ve ever spoken to me and sensed a faint hum of unstable energy, I’d like to remind you that I was essentially raised near a nuclear blast zone.
My eyebrows alone contain enough hair to qualify as a wildlife preserve.
My feet, as I mentioned previously, appear to have been sourced late in the human manufacturing process, possibly after all the premium feet had already been sold.
And my daily uniform is athleisure, which I now pull up to my sternum with the resignation of a woman who has accepted that gravity is no longer a suggestion but an active collaborator.
Add to this a caffeine habit bordering on chemical dependency and a passionate devotion to vintage china — the sort of devotion that leads people to say,
“You know those are just plates, right?”
Which is a fascinating thing to say to someone who has spent twenty-six years building a business out of plates.
But living in Texas for fifty-seven years does something deeper than giving you a tolerance for heat and a suspicious relationship with pollen.
It rearranges your emotional climate.
Because the weather here is not normal weather.
The seasons behave like they were written by someone who lost the plot halfway through the script.
Winter.
Pollen.
Another winter.
Tornado.
So much pollen you briefly question the existence of oxygen.
Summer.
More summer.
Even more summer.
Please, God, let the summer end.
Football.
Tornado.
Fall.
Just kidding — more summer.
Christmas.
Possibly summer again.
And when you grow up inside that kind of climate, you learn something important about Texas women.
We are weather systems.
Warm, generous, welcoming, patient.
And then suddenly — tornado.
And if you’ve ever loved a Texas woman, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.
Maybe not a Texas woman specifically.
Maybe a grandmother.
Maybe an aunt.
Maybe the person in your family who somehow kept everyone alive, fed, clothed, and emotionally functioning while carrying enough stress to power a small city.
Every family has weather.
Which is why Texas families develop what I like to call The Barometric Rage App.
Everyone knows where a particular woman sits on the scale.
Most families become amateur meteorologists.
You learn who runs hot.
Who goes quiet.
Who storms.
Who freezes.
Who starts cleaning aggressively.
Which may just be another form of storm.
Green is mostly theoretical.
Green is like Bigfoot.
People say they’ve seen it, but there’s no reliable evidence.
To be fair, most of the women I come from were not afforded the luxury of Green.
They were too busy raising children, paying bills, nursing relatives, and somehow still getting dinner on the table during emotional catastrophes.
Blue is caution.
The emotional equivalent of a tornado watch.
At this level, a Texas woman may say,
“Bless your heart,”
which has roughly fourteen meanings ranging from sincere sympathy to you sweet little turd, I cannot believe you managed to put pants on today.
But the tone is what matters.
You must listen carefully.
Yellow means grass fits may occur.
A grass fit is when a Texas woman becomes so annoyed that her hands land firmly on her hips and she begins communicating directly with the earth itself.
There may be sighing.
There may be lip pursing.
There may be the phrase:
“Well now, let me just say this.”
This is your opportunity to leave.
Orange is more serious.
This is when stories begin.
Stories about things the Lord Himself had already forgotten.
Now, nobody involved may still be alive.
Or willing to corroborate events.
But the story will be told anyway.
Orange usually begins with:
“Let me tell you something, darlin’.”
Which is less a conversation starter and more a warning siren.
And finally we arrive at Red.
Red is when a tornado has been spotted.
Red is silent.
A Texas woman will simply look at you.
The look contains the emotional DNA of generations.
Women who survived poverty.
Women who buried parents. Children. Husbands.
Women who cooked meals when they were too tired to stand.
Women who held families together with sheer will and stubbornness.
The look carries all of them.
And somewhere inside that moment is the part people misunderstand.
Texas women are not dramatic.
We are seasonal.
We carry warmth and storms because the women before us did.
My mother did.
Jo.
She carried weather too.
She carried it quietly.
Which, if you think about it, may be the most Texas thing of all.
Because the women I come from had a very specific relationship with grief.
They did not always talk about it.
They folded it into pie crust.
They pressed order into chaos with their bare hands.
They carried it in their bodies while still making sure everyone else had enough.
Beauty was never optional.
Beauty was survival.
Fried chicken cooling on the counter.
Fresh sheets on a bed.
A dress made from a newspaper pattern.
A table set as though company might arrive, even if nobody was coming.
They performed tiny daily miracles without audience or applause.
They created small ceremonies of order in the middle of extraordinary suffering.
Beauty was never frivolous.
It was evidence that life would continue.
And that may be why I collect old things.
I come by it honestly.
The women in my family always seemed to understand that beauty wasn’t the opposite of hardship.
It was how they survived it.
Why blue and white china feels less like decoration and more like memory.
Why an antique plate sometimes feels like a time machine.
Because Texas women — the women in my family — understand something about objects.
We know that love leaves residue.
It lives in recipes.
In gardens.
In china pieces.
In the quiet way someone folds a napkin carefully beside a plate of spaghetti on a completely unremarkable Thursday.
We inherit these things whether we mean to or not.
Strength.
Tenderness.
Stubbornness.
And probably a few things we wish we’d inherited a little less of.
Anxiety.
Worry.
The conviction that we can personally solve every problem if we just work hard enough.
Families are funny that way.
Nobody gets only the good china.
We inherit the cracks too.
And yet somehow the beautiful parts keep finding their way forward.
The recipes.
The gardens.
The table settings.
The ways we care for people when life becomes difficult.
I suspect most of us are carrying weather from people we’ve loved.
Sometimes sunshine.
Sometimes storms.
Usually both.
And occasionally the ability to level a room with one look.
Which, if you ask me, is a very efficient emotional system.
It allows us to be generous most of the time.
Stormy when necessary.
And still capable of setting a beautiful table afterward.
Not because life was perfect.
Usually because it wasn’t.
That is the secret architecture of Texas womanhood.
Warmth.
Memory.
And a tornado warning that, thankfully, does not go off every day.
But when it does…
Bless your heart.
Love, Lannie♡
