Tag: texas

home at last

Posted on by Bella E. Flynn

Well, it’s been a month. A month that felt like hell and high water was kicking me in the lip the whole damn time. Friday was my last day at work, so finally some pressure will be off for a while and thank hell for that. I tell you. Moving during covid, packing the entire house, training LeDoux as well as working full time — utterly overwhelming. And the whole time i just wanted to sleep and write. I don’t think i’ve written properly for a month. I’ve taken notes and had word prose coming out of my ears — why sure. But i haven’t had a novel thought since Laramie. Laramie which seems so far far away now. It already feels so far in the past but it was less than two weeks ago.

Yellow Texas flowers
Fields of flowers.

I didn’t want to leave Wyoming and it’ll always have a place in my heart, as will the Black Hills and the dead gulch of South Dakota, but i was ready to go back to Texas where i can buy my heart full of land to live on. Not wanting to move or pack boxes anymore or live through old furniture that has eight poor-man generations of farts and ugly seeds living in the lining. A new start in an old place with a clear vision ahead and dead reckoning the rest. It’s good to be back.

Palo Duro Canyon, TX

After all these long years out there in the states living and dreaming — we’re finally home in the Lone Star state. It sure is weird to be back. The place has changed a lot and i almost don’t recognise it. I’ve had job interviews, but selfishly i’ve been hoping it’d take a little while for them to get back to me so i have a chance to catch up on a few things. As i said. Friday was my last day working for my job in Laramie, Wy. Covid at least enabled me to keep my job whilst moving and a little thereafter. Everything was sent in, but no one spoke to me for the last week or two. And no thanks or goodbye. Not that i expected any. Riddance and good and feck away. Im glad to be unburdened by it all.

Dog off leash
LeDoux free running like a boss.

I wanted to restart this post once or twice but theres no real way to express learning for the first time what coming home really feels like. My heart pumps in my chest desperately trying not to wake me from my reverie, but im really here. Out in the fields amongst the horses and june bugs zooming at 80miles a minute into my face. Doux running like freedom could lift him. And on top of it all our apartment is ace with a view of the paddocks and outback of  piney bush n’ wood.

Dog and horse communicatin through fence
One of his new best friends.

Returning to Texas was like being welcomed with opens arms and served a dr.pepper in a glass bottle as soon as the welcome sign flew past the window. All that long time no see bullshit but this time it cut me up and i fell head over boots once more for the Lone Star State. Right now im unemployed and the place is settled enough that i hope i can work on my writing again next week. There are a few other ventures im hoping to dip into while i figure out my next steps. Some acting, stand up prospects and filming ideas. I’ve been considering trying to get an acting agent but i don’t if i want to drown myself down in that rabbit hole. I mean, i want to act but i dont know how it all works. Whether i’d need two separate agents for acting and writing. Meh. Time will tell. For now its crap o’clock and all i got is dreaming to do.

our travelling days

Posted on by Bella E. Flynn

Well, we’re coming to the end of our life in Wyoming. Our travelling days toward a brighter tomorrow are taking one last trek along the American frontier. Down to the deep South where it all began like a midsummer nights dream of lovers and fairytales and foolish fools. With our bundles packed and LeDoux in tow we’re making our way home. To Texas. The God Of All Places. Truly.  I’m sad to see Wyoming go, but i’m proud to say i lived here and that i love the state. Forever i will. 

 But life is too damn short for long winters and 9 months of hermitting beneath blankets by a tiny nordic stove. Besides, I’m ready to settle on down and build a homestead with corals, barns and film sets. Horses galore and rescued burros. Im ready to live writing and making short films for the end of time, rescuing critters and driving around in new trucks. 

I will miss the cactus in the deserted plains of Laramie valley, the antelope prancing on the plains and the wild mustangs — how dear to me they are. Of course. I had hoped that Wyoming would be it, but whenever im away from Texas something is nagging at me. 

 I’ll miss the vistas and remember them fondly. And i shall forever be mad that i missed my chance at getting a good close up photo of a moose and that i never did see those grizzly bastards with the mean dispositions. There are many things i didn’t see that i wanted to, mostly because the winters are so harsh meaning we have only really had a month or two so far that hasn’t been snowing. South Pass city (the one i’m most bummed about not seeing), Jackson hole, the hole in wall, Grand Tetons and Yellowstone are for another time. Another go, maybe another life if thats how it all looks. Thats alright. Im learning to let the world go a little. 

We’ll return to Wyoming one day and what i did experience i am grateful for. I don’t believe i would’ve ever finished my novel in New England, and when i lived in Texas i was in a much younger mindset than i am today. That girl up there is still a dumb toddler but now she’s a little more devilish and easy. I found the place i gotta go, and now im going. For good. Thank you for the memories Wyoming, and im sorry to cut our little love affair short. But when the Lone Star State calls — you gotta go. 

jlit

memories riding me west

Posted on by Bella E. Flynn
Pointing to the West

I’m sick at home with the flu. It’s been trying to catch up with me for weeks but i’ve been dodging it like an son of a bitch. But i could only run for so long. And so here we are. I’m investing some well earned time into my blog today and i’ve been digging into my dark pit of old photographs. Boy, it sure is easy to lose yourself in the past.

When i was little i didn’t play all that much with other children. I was busy playing cowboys and Indians at Mormor & Morfars house. Morfar, as long as i can remember, has always been John Wayne to me. I also thought Mormor was secretly a witch because she had a very questionable broom stick in the garage, but Morfar was Big John Wayne with the personality of an angry buffalo. He was the Duke because he folded the ends of his jeans the same way. My jeans were always too long for me because i was so small — so he’d fold mine too because theres no need to ruin the end of your cowboy jeans if it can be avoided. In Denmark thats what we called Jeans “Cowboy trousers.” Morfar is taller than the mast on a rigger — he also has a burly step to his walk.
He still has/does all these things. It’s one of the many things that early on in my life pointed to something bringing me west. I used to have a small belt buckle with three rope rings on it and in the rope rings was a conestoga wagon, a team of 8 horses and two people riding to a new homestead in the west. Jack and i probably. All this time i carried us on my belt. Until it didn’t fit and i grew woman hips. In England i would make bows and arrows out of sticks and string. And that i could fire a crossbow better than the man who owned it.  Even in nursery i remember sitting in a random tube in a hole in the ground wearing big black cowboy boots that didn’t fit (sorry mor — i lied so you’d buy them for me). But i wanted them and i wore them, they must have made a difference considering i live my everyday in cowboy boots. There are many little things in my life that seemed to nudge me towards what was going to happen.

Morfar and his folded Jeans, with me on his shoulders and Steph hiding behind him.

I wanted to share some of my photographs from that life on this blog. I don’t know why i didn’t blog back then. I tried a couple of times but life was getting pretty complicated and i could barely keep up. Surprisingly i also don’t have that many photographs from Texas, but that was because i was so busy living. I’d found life so god damn hard up until that point — but now there was a reason to try harder. To be better. To be a new person and a greater version of me — the me i recognise. And i look at her every day in the mirror now. Though somedays i might not like her face i so appreciate her for what she’s done for me and got me through. I can look at her in the eye and tell her she did the work of a woman who could fly. A person who believed she could so she did.

I’m sure some of you question whether i had anything that stopped me wanting to move to Texas. Yes, i had a few small things in the back of my mind that concerned me but i’ve never been one to listen that well. And i went anyway. Before i met Jack i never wanted to go to America, and i felt terrible for everything the First nations were put through. I wanted no part of that which is why i never wanted to step foot on that land. I didn’t want to move further away from my family either and i so wanted to grow old in Denmark. Sometimes i still do. But i know i’m not meant for that life. I’ve lived so long away from home — that home is anywhere now. If i returned home i would never belong again and it would feel like everything was a dream. The absolute hardest part of moving was giving up my sailing life and it’s still a wound that i scratch at once in a while, but i’m also aware enough to know that that part of my life was supposed to bring me to something better than where i’d been. Sailing was the last beautiful gift England gave me after the harsh years i had where i was. And i got my best friend for life, but i had to leave and move on to find where i was supposed to be. So yes these things can still get on my mind and i still have to work to figure them out but for now I bring to you — Texas as seen through my eyes.

The brazos river. One of my favourite places in Texas so far and in almost every western you’ll ever read. Ain’t she pretty?
The sunset in Texas is out of this world. Its where the earth meets the stars. And the mule smiles. So — that tells you how damn rare it is to see a sky like this anywhere else.
You wont find a town in Texas that doesn’t have old secrets of whores, railroads or just beautiful architecture.
The most handsome man any which way from the Mississippi.
A backend rail road haunted by the corpse of a dead’n gone dog the size of a car. You think i’m lying, but it’s true. I thought about sharing the picture but it still breaks my heart to see. As i’ve said before — Texas isn’t always pretty. It’s harsh living and you see a little of it every day. Folk from Texas are made of something different.
Home-decor inspiration.
Barrel racin’ !
Huntsville Rodeo.
I’ll always remember the Alamo. I remember her like an old friend. When i saw her from behind the trees i wept. I’d heard about her from Morfars stories and the old westerns on Tv. Right in front of me she was, and she was perfect.
A friend gave me an old hat — you don’t give a hat to a man you dislike.
Farm country.
An old abandon town with an old abandoned buck board.
An old gas station.
I never had the issue of snakes coming into my living room when i lived in England, funny that. But this garter was a cutie.
I want one. A Texas longhorn.
Lizards, lizards everywhere! I even showered with one. Im still not entirely sure which one of us was more traumatised.
Fields of a hundred prison ponies, and they’re all the sweetest and easiest going horses i’ve met in my life. And i met a lot of horses and a lot of horse people.
Strong and beautiful culture with dances that sing like the wind.
The old buckboard is open to homesteaders wanting to go back on the Oregon Trail.
My first shot was barely a cm from the bullseye. When we get our own land — i’ll be the next Annie Oakley, just not quiet as sophisticated.
Praying mantis — i’d only ever seen these creatures on tv. Now this guy was living on my porch.
The most beautiful butterfly i’ve seen in my entire life. Again — on my porch.
A Texan worth moving 4000miles for.
Probably the strangest visitor we’ve had… but still. I dont mind letting these guys sleep outside the door.
When he knew i was leaving. And i didn’t see him for 8 months. When we all already belonged to eachother, and the harder times were still to come.
Wide open spaces and beauty at every roadside. Even if its just another gate to another field, in another town.
In the dying sunlight the babies will piss off their mothers and start to play.
Out in the middle of bum fuck Egypt nowhere Texas, where the wind was high but sun was higher. We stopped the car for a few minutes just to take it in. The view. The air. The sky.
The longest and most incredible road i ever saw.
A folk festival and Jacks big hat.
Our boy on our first walk in a park as the three musketeers.
The herd at the farm we worked at a while.
I’ve never met a horse or a donkey that didn’t love Jack.
Angel had a lot of opinions that day, but it was a fantastic ride with great company.
Probably one of my favourite pictures i’ve ever taken, because this is a picture of utter happiness. Of a dream lived and realised. Of hard work. Breaking barriers. Living. And you know what else? Folded jean bottoms.
Texas was hard and circumstances arose so we tried something new, but to me — this is what Texas was to me. Everything right in this picture. So, im glad we tried leaving but i’ll be a lot happier to get back to an old porch where my boots can clomp on the boards. Where the hot sun is dying and Jack is grilling something. And Basil, though he’s not here anymore — he’s in every damn plan i’ll ever make.

[I’d like to clarify that Jack would not be grilling Basil, i just noticed how that last quote sounded.]
♡

my out of budget ultimate wishlist, my Danish-Texan dream

Posted on by Bella E. Flynn

Christmas shouldn’t be about presents or greed, that it’s so often laced with.
It should be about being with those that bring you joy, dreaming and being grateful. Being thankful for those who  sacrificed their lives so that we may have Christmas with our families at home, and not be knee deep in a trench with water sodden by corpses.
Having said that today i’m sharing with you my Danish Texan dream.
A ranch house with a breeze way, out in the backend of somewhere Texas. Surrounded by miles of land.

Where your washing is dry before it ever gets put on the line.

An old smithy like this to shoe my retired herd of horses that i’ll be adopting out of my favourite New Mexico
horse sanctuary. There’ll probably be some of crazy chickens hopping around entertaining me to no end too. 
A long horn or two called Duke & Woodrow

And to create this type of fencing because it’s magnificent.

To have a rooster with a magnificent head of hair.

For this to be my office every day. Old wagon, long horns, happy horses, psychotic chickens, a handsome husband, couple of cats and dogs running around. Just being grateful to be alive and to have blood pumping through my veins.
 (NOT MY IMAGE) A big beautiful Jutland draft horse, so i wont be the only Danish soul on the ranch.

(NOT MY IMAGE)  A nice comfy old truck with a spare pair of boots under the bench seat.

What would be on your ultimate wishlist?
Let me know in the comment section below !
❀