Lesley Jackson & Matt Mancini

The city of Amarillo, also known as “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” was originally named after the wildflowers that grew in bounty along the countryside. The flowers flirted with the water in Amarillo Lake, turning the soil a cool yellow. Decades later, those open plains grew few and far between and a new nickname developed. Now known as “Bomb City,” Amarillo is home to the largest nuclear weapons assembly plant in the country.

A place romanticized in old country ballads, where all the cowboys longed to be, Amarillo is just like any other paradise, riddled with contradictions, unfulfilled promises, and much too hot to stand still.

Like a cowboy moving towards the sun, we too are profoundly restless, trying to escape wherever it is we find ourselves. We move around, never quite present, or we stay where we are and dream up what’s missing. We look to the past, back to the open plains, when the present seems too frightening.

So if paradise is eternally elsewhere, what are we supposed to do while we’re here?