Girl Gone Country

Story and photography by Sallie Lewis

Early this year, on a cold, wintry morning in February, I woke up alone in a dove-shaped house. At the start of my yearlong sabbatical in the Texas Hill Country, the oddity of this situation struck me on multiple occasions. The house’s avian-inspired architecture is best seen from a bird’s-eye view, though walking through it, one can sense the curve of the breast in the central living room and the outstretched wings at either end. Doves have been symbols of peace, calm, and renewal for millennia. After a painful divorce, I knew I had come to the right place.

My first few nights at The Paloma—Spanish for dove—were silent and solitary, a stark contrast to my life back home in San Antonio. To ward off the chill, I kept a fire burning in the living room grate and fed myself soup and tamales to nourish my numbness. One evening, I put on a down jacket and walked outside to find a huge orange sky. I watched the sun slip behind the horizon, casting glimmers of gold onto a bed of broken clouds. The fractured light illuminated my own broken heart and kindled something within me that flickers to this day.

As the weeks passed, winter’s frost thawed into spring, turning the countryside a kaleidoscope of colors. I began collecting treasures on my morning walks, like dried turtle shells, fallen feathers, carved flint, and silk moths. In the process, I saw an entire world I’d rarely stopped to appreciate before. There were ladybugs crawling on the thorny undersides of nodding thistle, and striped bees, heavy with nectar, drinking from purple verbena flowers. I watched caterpillars with fur coats morph into butterflies and witnessed bluebonnets and white prickly poppies appear like magic from the soil. I felt my loneliness ease as I considered the thousands of things sharing life in a single moment.

Over time, I came to relish the peculiar style and peaceful spirit of my dove-shaped home. I picnicked outside on its soft front lawn, hung hummingbird feeders from the surrounding trees, and watched as sleek indigo barn swallows with cinnamon bellies skimmed for insects, diving and soaring like tiny trapeze artists. Barn swallows are one of the nation’s most populous bird species, and while there may be nothing particularly rare about them, I’m learning there is extraordinary beauty in ordinary things. An unlikely friendship formed as I watched them build their nests in the eaves of my roof.

Come summer, tiny chicks with bright yellow throats appeared from these nests, and I felt like a child again, awakened to life’s daily miracles. It wasn’t long before I had named the fragile hatchlings—Thistle, Verbena, Primrose, and Lantana—each after a favorite Texas wildflower. In the weeks that followed, their continuous birdsong filled the silence.

While quarantining in the Hill Country, I’ve found the purest pleasure in the simplest things, like smelling the earth after a long rain and watching the ears of a black-tailed jackrabbit blaze hot pink in the fading light.

As the summer slipped by, I slowed into a relaxed rhythm of living. From my hillside perch, I watched thick thunderstorms roll in like the sea and found a soulful communion in Mary Oliver’s poetry. I saw farmers grow their crops and vintners tend their grapes, all hands preparing for the harvest. I bought juicy peaches, homegrown tomatoes, and fresh-baked olive bread at the weekly farmers’ market and foraged for flowers on the summer solstice. Through it all, I learned there is magic in life’s minutiae and gifts at every turn, if only we would stop long enough to appreciate them.

In a year of unprecedented challenge and change, the shifting seasons have been a salve for my spirit. The rolling hills will soon turn crimson, and gold, crackling fires will burn from the hearth in my home. While quarantining in the Hill Country, I’ve found the purest pleasure in the simplest things, like smelling the earth after a long rain and watching the ears of a black-tailed jackrabbit blaze hot pink in the fading light. I’ve risen with the sun, seen the moon wax and wane, and listened to a nightly symphony, orchestrated by bellowing bullfrogs, whistling tree ducks, Canada geese, and cooing doves.

Though the heartache from my divorce is still deeply felt, it has softened with these country days. Mother Nature’s steady presence nurtured my spirit and deepened my faith, restoring an inner strength and resolve. As the end of the year approaches, I’m leaning into her healing harmony and embracing the lessons I’ve learned through stillness, silence, and solitude. A local farmer once told me that wildflowers—the pièce de résistance of springtime in Texas—grow wherever they please. Season after season, their seeds carry with the wind, finding new places to grow. I can relate to this feeling. Living in the country has strengthened my seed and brought me back to bloom. Only time will tell where the wind takes me next.

— V —

---

Sallie Lewis is a Texas-based freelance writer and journalist. She has a master’s degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University and is currently working on her first novel. Visit SallieLewis.co to learn more.