This was an alternate ending to “Mine,” an essay published in 2022 on Joyland. Today, I’m sharing the standalone piece it became.
When I moved to Colorado for love, Joe Walsh was always on the radio. No matter the station, there was his gratitude: Life’s been good to me so far. The patron saint of Colorado, all these years later, I say, under a wide Texas sky.
Molly Ivins once said that the sky is bigger in Texas because the trees are so small. A raw truth unearthed by loss or less. She said that in the same breath that she said she loved this state.
