Longhorn's querencia

Like the Texas Longhorn I am “a home lover” (820). However, unlike the Longhorn, I don’t know where home is.

Is it in the city that houses nineteen years of memories, three of my best friends, and all sorts of comfort elements?

The Houston skyline (especially at night) is probably the only physical thing I loved about the city.

Or is it the city I will live in for the next four years? The one that already has a semester of memories, the one that promises independence and freedom?

I love Austin. It's such a vibrant city, with so much to do. I find myself attached to a lot of things in the city.

According to the vaquero language, “querencia… (is) the place where an animal is born or to which he shows strong attachment” (820). “Many animals…” - including humans I’m sure - “… have strong attachments to their accustomed home.” (820)

Sancho, the homebody Longhorn on the Kerr’s ranch, “stayed at home and drank at the well” when “it rained and other cattle drifted off…” (823). He did this because he loved certain elements of the Mexican Gulf, like “the Mexican peppers on the Esperanza” (825).

Based Sancho’s story Houston should be my home. However, when I visit Houston, I can’t wait to be back in Austin. Perhaps it’s because when I was in Houston, I lived in seven different apartments. My sense of home wasn’t grounded in a physical location- I wasn’t like Sancho who’s “bed ground was near a certain mesquite tree just outside the gate” (823)- it was established in relationships I had built.

These are some of my close friends from high school. My memories of Houston are of time spent with people like them (physical locations hardly ever register).

But if querencia also means a strong attachment to a certain location then perhaps Austin, though I’ve only lived here for four months, will always be my home. So far my time here hasn’t been about the people I’ve met, rather it’s been about personal development- exploring my independence and my limits as a college freshman. When I think of my time in Austin some physical location or memory comes to mind first, and the people involved come as a secondary thought. Perhaps this is the defining element of “home”- missing things, as opposed to people.