A collection of Marci's Mostly True Essays

I have been blessed beyond measure by the love of a good family. My father has been gone for years, yet somehow memories of him are crisper in the fall. In September of 1967, we moved into a small adobe house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, close to downtown and the center of culture and community.

They're everywhere, just waiting like ticking, rattling bombs. Coiled in a live oak treetop, underneath the hood of the red Chevy ranch truck, on the other side of the screened back door,

When our grandmother passed away, we found all sorts of treasures nestled in and around the Texas hill country home she’d shared with our grandfather for decades: blue-eyed beauty marbles, rusted metal toy planes, plastic bead necklaces, and old thick glass bottles placed upside down over the yard fence to turn purple in the sun. 

My grandfather was a crusty rancher whose personality, looks, and charm were a cross between John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn (True Grit) and Jack Palance’s Curly Washburn (City Slickers). He was the descendant of two generations of Texas Rangers and the son of a gentle, story-telling cattleman and his stubborn, hardworking wife. 

What we think about is quickly mirrored in the outside world. You know what I mean: that trip to Maui you decided you were desperate to take and seconds later saw pictured perfectly on a billboard. Or perhaps you daydreamed about meeting Tom Hanks and the next person you saw turned out to be his first cousin.