Open My Marfa

“Don’t Blink!” and “Enjoy the moment!” Both clichés I’ve heard time and again when trying to keep an infant alive, stressing out about how I am going to get work done on a snow day, raising a little boy to be as beautiful a human as he can be, and currently, sobbing uncontrollably on his last day of preschool (mainly because I can’t seem to slow down time and go back to that snow day three years ago, or back to cradling that infant five years ago). My work as a journalist and professor always got finished, but I “blinked” too many times.

Isabella Breedlove is taking the week off from her busy life as a 16-year-old. People in the music industry call it “tech week,” because of the countless hours spent on rehearsals and preparation for her big upcoming performance.

In a time when Fort Worth did not have many resources for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (ID/D), the Hill School was there for our family. I have an older brother who suffers greatly with ID/D and has his whole life. For families like mine, Hill School was a building of hope and a comforting place for my brother to thrive while also not being sequestered from other children, a problem that is all too common when approaching the needs of people living with ID/D. He attended Hill School in the ‘80s from first to fifth grade. They did not have a kindergarten program at the time, but that is going to soon change.

She was living on the first floor of her apartment complex in the coastal town Port Arthur when Hurricane Harvey plowed across the Texas coast as a Category Five hurricane that was followed by days of deluge that left haphazard lakes all over southeast Texas.

A medium-sized green, plastic trashcan sits zip-tied to a section of railing on Merrick Street in the Como neighborhood. It reads, “TRASH. Keep Como Clean,” in black Sharpie. On the day I visited, it has a fresh garbage bag inside filled halfway with newly-accumulated soda cans and napkins. A serene lake and wildlife area surrounded by old homes, some restored and some sagging, lie just beyond the trashcan with its plea.

Regardless of your musical preferences, who among you hasn’t caught yourselves tapping your toes to “Take a Chance on Me” or karaoked your hearts out to “Dancing Queen?”

If the world was not already a magical place, the holidays dust even more allure and charm onto everything.