Many years ago I attended a teachers’ conference in Minnesota. People came from all over the United States to hear experts describe their methods for educating our nation’s children. One featured speaker included a field trip to a model school in his presentation. Since I was eager to see how the folks in the midwest were doing things I signed up for the day long adventure. 

We drove away from the city and into a suburban area that seemed to be floating on a golden plain. I almost expected to see Laura Ingles Wilder emerging from the swaying foliage on that cold November day. I don’t remember much about the model school but I was enchanted by the loveliness of the prairie grasses. It had never occurred to me that a place so flat might be so beautiful. I have carried that image in my mind for decades and when I draw on it from time to time I feel relaxed and somehow in tune with nature at its finest. 

I’ve traveled all over the United States and seen such wondrous places. I have been touched to the point of tears by a rainbow that reached from one mountain peak to another in Glacier National Park, Montana. I have stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon and know that no words will ever adequately describe that breathtaking site, especially when the sun is setting at the end of a glorious day. I’ve driven along the Pacific Coast marveling at the power and beauty of the ocean. I’ve traveled through the forests of Maine and walked through the caverns of New Mexico. I’ve seen sunrises and sunsets in the most beautiful places imaginable. I’ve celebrated the dawn of a New Year in a quaint mountain village in Austria. I have hiked to the top of mountain trials in Colorado and spent nights under a starry sky. 

To choose my favorite place would be almost impossible. I am after all a woman who has spent her life in the Houston Metropolitan area where the landscape is dominated by concrete roads littered with potholes, murky bayous, strip malls and buildings that seem to crop up over night. I have watched my town grow into a city, the fourth largest in the nation. I have endured it’s heat, it’s hurricanes, it’s floods, but I have also known it’s heart. 

It has not been the beauty of Houston that has kept me from moving away, but the people who live here who have made me reluctant to consider relocating to a place with more panoramic views. Time and again the citizens of Houston come together whether to celebrate, to aide one another or to mourn. Like any large city we have our bad guys, but on the whole the people here are kind and compassionate. They work hard and mostly allow people to live whatever kind of lives they wish to enjoy. Houston is famously diverse and yet most of the time the people look beyond the many physical hues of our neighbors and see only the hearts and souls. People come here to work and they do that quite well. There are opportunities here that can’t be found in such abundance anywhere else. We treasure our universities and our world class Medical Center. We love our Texans and Rockets and Astros whether they win or lose. We are proud of the NASA Space Center and love knowing that many of our relatives and neighbors were instrumental in getting humans to the moon.

If I want to see something beautiful I can go to the Houston Zoo or walk around Bayou Bend. It’s only an hour’s drive to the Gulf of Mexico in Galveston. The beaches may be small and the water muddy but it’s our happy place nonetheless. We know the stories of pirates and native Americans who once lived there. We have heard about the hurricanes and the ingenuity of the people who built a ship channel to make Houston, a landlocked city, one of the largest ports in the United States. 

It takes me hours to drive to the most beautiful places in the country, but only minutes to be surrounded by the best people anyone would ever hope to know. That’s why when people ask where my favorite place in the world is located I have to say Houston. I know that my city will never win a beauty contest. I realize that when people visit here they often leave thinking that the place is butt ugly. Those of us who know better just shrug because if someone is down and out Houston is the place to be. There will be someone who can mend a broken heart or one that needs a new bypass. Goodness seems to be in the DNA of this city.

I can’t imagine living anywhere else than Houston but I know that sometimes things change and so I never say never. At least for the moment I can assert without hesitation that I love my Houston with its warts and all because when the going gets tough I will always find good people here. In the meantime I will drive or fly away to see nature’s beauty and then always come back home.