I am here at Dallas Love Field, heading back to LA after a weekend visit to Texas. I do this a lot since my husband and I are renovating a Queen Anne Victorian just north of Dallas, in the town of Sherman. This is home turf for me, having grown up just 25 miles from Sherman in the little town of Bonham, population 7,000. Home turf. Yes, very much so.

I have lived in LA for 17 years now, and I love LA. Most people who live in my part of that city – the Westside – will say they love their city. Perfect weather is the primary reason given, nothing wrong with 70 degrees in February, but also the liberal attitude that prevails there, plus the whole California casual aspect, which goes far beyond clothing. I do love LA, but home is Texas.

My feelings run deep. The minute I get off the plane upon arriving here, I look out at that wide-open sky and feel a sense of relief. As I travel north out of the city, the open fields are there to greet me, along with trees that are thick along creek banks. This is familiar landscape, and it takes me back to my childhood and riding with my daddy in a pickup truck in fields just like the ones I’m seeing, my father with his cowboy hat and boots, his pink complexion and silver hair, and fingernails that are domed rather than flat, just like mine.

Los Angeles is a gem of a city. The Pacific laps along its shores, water blue and glistening. The mountains are the opposite boundary, often white capped in winter. The desert is two hours away for those who love an arid climate and there is San Diego down south and San Francisco up north and that gorgeous central coast in between along Highway1, featuring one of the most spectacular drives in the country. I love the ocean. I can breathe when I see the ocean, much the same way I love the big Texas sky.

A big difference for me in Texas is that small town charm that feels so familiar. For example, when I went the other day into the drug store looking for a thermometer for my ailing husband, the check out girl said, “Oh, honey, I hope he’s not as bad as mine when he gets sick. What a baby.” Or when I returned for a second time to the Dollar Store to buy more Christmas lights, the cashier smiled and said, “Ah, you’re back. Job security!” Or when I talked to our neighbor, who told me his breaker box had been “humming” since the last electrical storm and now he was on the lookout for a “used” replacement for the air conditioning and heater breaker because “new ones were just so high.” While I usually find nice people in stores or in our neighborhood in LA – unlike many who complain of rudeness – nobody is telling me details about their husband, job, or personal finances. It’s a different mentality, altogether, based on the concept of get in/get out as fast as possible.

My friends in both CA and Texas are not much different. They tend to be solid people with good senses of humor who have a quirk or two. I tend to like quirky people, so I find them wherever I go. It’s funny. I might have more quirky Texas friends than Californians. That is a surprise that I hadn’t expected.

In California, there is no family besides my husband and our three daughters. That is a strange aspect of being there. Holidays consist of traveling to Texas or hosting our Utah relatives in CA, but this year, even they can’t come, a true loss for us since we are alone there in LaLa Land. We will invite friends over for Thanksgiving, along with our children’s friends, but even after this many years living there, we still either depend on our out-of-state relatives to come to us, or else, we go to them. That will change, of course, as our children get married and have children. We’ll have more and more family there. Still, it’s not the “old” family ties, but rather the new ones to come that we’ll share.

Our house in Texas is beautiful. Our home in California is pleasant. We have close friends in both places, though Texas trumps on this as well. The primary pull of CA is the weather, that more liberal sensibility, and the fact that now our children see themselves more as Californians than Texans. We are a blended family, not due to remarriage, but rather from relocation. It is an odd experience.

My plane is about to load and off I go westward again. I am sorry to leave my home state; happy to get back home to my kids and work and dog. I am a woman divided by a whole level of sensibilities. I am also happy that for now I can maintain this duel life. It will be tough if I ever have to choose.