Dear Houston,
You’re not the kind of love that announces itself with flash and glitter—though your skyline at sunset, reflected off the Buffalo Bayou, certainly knows how to dazzle. No, you're the kind of love that unfolds slowly, layered like your humidity: thick, all-encompassing, impossible to ignore, and strangely comforting once you surrender to it.
You are a city that embraces contradiction. The fourth-largest city in the U.S., and yet—so many forget you’re here, quietly pulsing with life. Oil and innovation. NASA and rodeo. Beyoncé and Bun B. Your roots go deep into the Gulf soil, but your spirit shoots straight up like a rocket from Johnson Space Center. You don’t ask for approval. You just are.
And I love you for that.
I love your generosity. When the floods come—and they always do—you don’t retreat. You rise, knee-deep in muddy water, neighbors helping neighbors with an instinctive grace. There’s something deeply human about you, Houston: tough, hospitable, imperfect, and trying. You never pretend to be something you’re not.
You’re a city of cultures, and your food proves it—Vietnamese crawfish, Nigerian jollof, Salvadoran pupusas, kolaches from Czech bakeries, smoked brisket so good it should be its own religion. I’ve walked your neighborhoods and tasted the world.
You’re resilient. Your storms have names—Harvey, Ike, Allison—but so do your heroes. They are nurses in the Medical Center, engineers in the Energy Corridor, artists in the Third Ward, chefs in Montrose, teachers in Alief. And they all believe in you. I believe in you.
You aren’t always easy to love. Your traffic tests my patience, your summers melt my resolve, and your sprawl defies logic. But love isn’t supposed to be simple—it’s supposed to be real. And you, Houston, are as real as it gets.
Thank you for holding me. Thank you for surprising me. Thank you for teaching me that home isn’t always a place you’re from—sometimes it’s a place that takes you in and never lets you go.
With all my heart,
Yours.
HoustonJeeves