After visiting Meyer, I had the better part of a day to kill so decided to make my way up to the Houston Heights neighborhood to check out Heights Neighborhood Library. A little internet research promised a family friendly, historic neighborhood and they were not kidding around. The second you enter the Heights area, voluptuous trees are spilling their green into the streets and lawns, the houses are classic Cape Cods, Colonials, and Victorians, with gingerbread fixins on every other one, and the streets themselves are teeming with families on bikes, tandems, kids affixed to the front or back or big enough to ride alone, and fast walking elders making use of the many paths and sidewalks. There are generous bike lanes and it is clear this is a much more pedestrian friendly area of the city.
As with any neighborhood that caters to young, hip families, there is an overabundance of twee shops and eateries to choose from, and finding a smutty old gas station was a bit of a challenge. More challenging yet was my attempt to “pay inside” which somehow triggered a malfunction at two different gas stations and doubled my level of crossness, though most of my bad mood was likely due to hunger since it was getting farther and farther from lunchtime and I was getting more and more frustrated with finding not just fuel but a restaurant I could actually park next to and wanted to try in the first place. I know the darling, quaint places are a thing that people like, but they put me off—if your business is pretentious out of the gate, there is almost nothing that will make me go there. I kept passing barbeque smells, which made the hungerage worse, and I finally found a place (Pinkerton’sBarbeque) that seemed normal and served the smell I now not just wanted but needed in my bones.
DAMN IT WAS GOOD. The guy who put together my order was helpful, realizing that I was in one of those tantrum-y, indecisive moods, and he led me down the path to a delicious, melt-in-your-mouth pulled pork sandwich and a side of cole slaw. I was stuffed to the gills by the time I finished, but it hit the exact spot and my mood improved substantially. If you find yourself in Houston, make your way over to Pinkerton’s—the neighborhood is beautiful (think Lawrence, KS, but with even bigger, more impressive foliage), and the barbeque is out-freaking-standing.
I went to the library after lunch, and made sure to walk around the exterior and interior since both had interesting little details to absorb. It stood to reason that the library was not very busy on such an infernally sunny and summery day, and there was a bored staffer posted near the front door whose entire job was to ask each person who entered if there was anything she could help with. She mostly just stood there, alone, exuding misspent energy, until she saw an endcap that needed straightening or a book that was just slightly out of line with the rest. It seemed like an odd misuse of resources, like if Barnes and Noble hired holiday greeters in July. A very nice touch, but wholly unnecessary.
The library itself was a funky mix of classic and modern architecture, with those big colonial windows, interior columns capped with faux Corinthian capitals, and trapezoidal flairs off to the side, with glass walls creating private alcoves at the edges of the stacks. Since I was only staying for a little while (I didn’t have my laptop and took notes by hand instead), I set up shop near the main entrance and its high, impressive ceiling. The library was incredibly quiet with so few people taking advantage of the space on a Saturday afternoon, and I did feel a little conspicuous taking photos, even though I did try to 007 it and make like I was doing something else.
It’s highly dorky, but my favorite part of the library was the poster of David Bowie with “READ” across the top—a classic, and a touchstone of sorts that made me feel more at home. These were my sort of people after all, twee shops and darling food notwithstanding.
When I left the library, I took a walk around the block to capture some more images of the neighborhood itself—those reaching trees (Oaks? I wish I knew—educate me. Googling “trees in Houston” only creates a list, a long list) were everywhere around the city, but it felt like the greenery doubled in Houston Heights.
The Heights also has different signage than the rest of the city (you notice the differences in other parts of Houston, e.g. one neighborhood has red signs instead of the usual green). I think the serif font is a bit much, but only people like me would squint their eyes at something like that (read: production editors). And of course I loved the tiling on the curbs that the library adopted for its main sign out front. That’s the kind of twee I can get behind.
My dark mood—while improved temporarily by pulled pork heaven—has spilled into today, a lazy yet still infernally sunny Sunday, where I’ve set up shop in a northerly Barnes and Noble to update this blog and do some forward planning for the travels ahead. I think visiting the Houston Heights neighborhood, and my struggle to find a gas station that worked and a food station I felt comfortable entering synced perfectly with what was going on in my head, anyway. Though I’ve only been on the road a week, it feels like I’ve been gone for much longer. My homebody personality is currently at odds with the wanderlust alter ego that grew—haphazardly and haltingly—over these past couple of years. I spent years in a rut—a familiar, homey, dank and sad rut—and part of the reason I am doing this is to break that part of me and reprogram myself to be more adventurous, more impulsive, more trusting, and more open to the world in general.
For the terminally awkward, inhabiting any space that is not your own feels alien and uncomfortable. It's part of the reason you sequester yourself in the first place. The only safe space is the one you create and it is harder to extend that safe space to new places when you are used to being burrowed into the same environment for years. I've always struggled with feeling welcome anywhere--my ex could tell you about the time I cried in Dillard's department store because I felt too poor and feral to be there. Most of the time I can put on the facade and power through--but that doesn't stop the emotion that bubbles up and makes me circle the same blocks over and over, willing myself to just stop the car, get out, and walk into an unknowable place. The difference between crying-in-Dillard's me and circling-the-blocks-in-Houston-Heights me is that I care far less what people think of my poor, feral ass invading their space, whatever space that might be (and there are so many! Rich spaces, squalid spaces, hipster spaces, loud music spaces, academic spaces, arty-elite spaces, sports spaces, rich golf pants spaces...). There are just times when the impulse to run and hide overwhelms me...and far from home, there is nowhere to run...well, except my car, which is fast becoming one of my favorite places to be. But that's half because she's fancy and still smells new. You would want to be there, too.
So I am feeling a bit blue and untethered, but that stands to be expected. Tomorrow promises Dallas, then Austin, followed by camping at Big Bend and allow me a tiny prayer here: DEAR GOD, IT’S ME, ERIN. Please make Big Bend bearable and drop the temps like 10-15 degrees, PLEASE. DO ME A SOLID. THANK YOU and You Bless.
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