I touched a gun

Last Monday I forgot to do a blog. It's the first time that I've forgotten. I didn't realize I hadn't done one last week until yesterday. I think it is a symptom of the semester dragging me down into it's depths where the days no longer exist and the weeks become months in no time at all.

I've decided in the last few weeks that I really like Austin, and I've come to understand Texas in a way that wasn't possible with the giant Californian chip on my shoulder that I arrived here with. I've come to understand that everything that exists wants to be loved. And when you look at something to find it's faults you dishonor it. It is difficult at first to look at something like a redneck driving a monster truck and love it. But it's about focusing on things and giving them the benefit of the doubt. It feels really good to do it, because when you do you begin to look on yourself with love, and that is the best thing you could ever possibly do.

I was intensely irritated by the amount of seemingly gigantic trucks on the roads in Texas. it offended my west coast sensibilities and smacked of southern ignorance about fuel economy and the environment. But last week I saw one of the most amazing plays. It actually wasn't even a play, it was a workshop presentation of the second half of a musical by a company called the rude mechanicals. I love this company. They're young, and they take risks and they make fun interesting theatre. Anyway, their musical is called I've Never Been So Happy, and it's about the western way of life. It's got cowboys, cowgirls, mountain lions with German accents, and dachshunds. There is a song about what the west meant to people who came here to Texas, that it was a kind of freedom, and a symbol for living their life the way that they wanted to.

After the musical you went outside where they've set up different booths where you could interact with "the west". There was an outhouse that you went in and a man popped out from the toilet to scream foul language at you. There was western Karaoke, you could have your picture taken with cut outs of David Karesh and Bonny and Clyde. But my favorite was the "touch my gun" booth. You got to sit in the cab of a pick up truck and there was a man in the drivers seat that had a colt 45. he showed you that the gun wasn't loaded, and then asked if you wanted to hold it. I had never held a gun before, and so I took it from him. It was heavy. He encouraged me to pull the trigger. I was afraid at first, but I thought, when am I ever going to hold a gun again? So I pulled the trigger. I talked with the man about his truck and he said that he and his father had fixed it up, put in new vinyl, and things like that. It was at that moment that I understood about Texas trucks. They were a birthright. Passed down from generation to generation, and it bonded Texans together. It now made sense to me why there were so many, and why Texans love to drive them.

Now I can look at a truck and love it, because i think back to being in that pickup truck, sharing a moment with that man, who is an actor in the company, and doesn't really own a truck, and didn't fix that one up with his Dad, but all the same, I still love the moment I touched his gun.