My first visit to Dallas, TX was larger than life. 

I ignored the fact that voter suppression and anti-choice misogynistic laws have recently been enacted in that state. Instead, I focused on the excitement and joy I felt knowing that my beloved was performing at the Windspear Opera House with six other women from the 2020-21 cohort of the Hart Institute. 

Plus, I had the pleasure of spending time with Vincent Van Gogh—as presented by exceptionally talented curators and scholars at the Van Gogh and the Olive Groves exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art. The interpretive text next to one of these paintings reminded me that, although he was lonely, Vincent’s work was a conversation with Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard. The Olive Trees “followed this friends’ development of a new style called Synthetism. Rather than faithfully capturing objective appearance, Synthetism emphasized the role of memory, imagination, and personal expression through exaggerated color, form, and line.” 

The filthy stench of the oil industry and the American love affair with all things automobile was somehow less fetid when I experienced Pegasus’ charm at Mobil Oil’s former headquarters, which is now the Magnolia Hotel. I had to grin while witnessing an old-red-Cadillac-as-holiday-decor going up at Thanksgiving Square.