WEST TEXAS CALLING

OUTSIDE OF ALPINE, JANNA ZEPP

West Texas is calling me.

I grew up in East Texas. It is home, more or less. I wasn't born there. San Marcos, TX is my birthplace. East Texas does not call me. Neither does San Marcos.

I lived with my parents in San Angelo. We were only there briefly. Mom and Dad had planned to move back there someday. He talked about San Angelo often and how he'd like to be back there. But they never made it back.

Driving through West Texas to Marfa with my mother in 2016, I began to feel like it was some place I'd like to be.

I don't know why.

JANNA & FRANK ZEPP AT THE CHINATI FOUNDATION, MARFA

Then, I brought my husband out over the 2018 Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I needed him to see it; to feel it.

It was hard for either of us to come back to Temple.

The pull of the Trans-Pecos is only growing stronger. For both of us.

BELL COUNTY REFUGEES, HOLLAND HOTEL, ALPINE

It's not just Marfa. Alpine drew us in also during the less than three hours we spent in it visiting a friend who is a Bell County refugee himself.

There is something about West Texas. It is more open, more free, and far more relaxed than the rest of Texas. There was a distinct lack of...superfluousness. I don't yet know another word that suffices.

I can't describe what we felt. I am not certain that we even felt the same things. I wonder if it was the pull my father felt all of his life but was never able to satisfy. That inexplicable desire to dump everything and go there to simply be alive.

For now, we are anchored to Bell County. Tethered. But the tether can be untied in less than five years. So we're talking about that pull and what it means to us.

I have no idea what's next, but I am not going to let the call go unanswered my whole life.

Frank's talking about El Paso. He lived there while stationed at Fort Bliss and loved it. There's a way for us to make a living there. Eventually. So I am looking at making a pilgrimage to El Paso soon.

A friend of mine said it well.

"I went to college at Sul Ross University there in Alpine. Was the best part of my college time. You really learn to 'just be' and it opened up my mind to my learning."

Now there are the words I'm looking for when describing the Trans-Pecos: Just be.

PLANET MARFA, JANNA ZEPP

For now, Temple will do. It is central to everything. We will content ourselves with using it as a base from which to see Texas. It really is an ideal place from which to do this. And I'd rather have my toenails pulled than ever move again.

Still, I dream of a night sky filled with stars and a landscape with little civilization. I dream of tiny towns with quirky attractions and people who are glad to see you coming.

It's a dream. But dreams often have a way of coming true.

PUEBLO DE ESPERANZA, MARFA, JANNA ZEPP

In the meantime, Frank and I decided to become artists so we can be cool and live in Marfa. Here's our T-shirt. 

DESIGN BY JANNA ZEPP

Now, we, too, have Marfarted.