Finding Holiness Beyond Houston’s Scores of Sacred Spaces
We’d made a connection across tables, generations, tongues, our own tiny blip of transcendence. Holiness in the noodle bar.
This is Bayou Diaries, a column by Bryan Washington on his life and history in diverse, expansive Houston.
When I said I didn’t have dressy clothes, he told me that didn’t matter. When I said I hadn’t been to church in ages, he said this was the time to start. When I said it’d be at least a little bit strange, wouldn’t it, bringing your literally shunned boyfriend to your literal family’s literal congregation, my ex told me he wasn’t an idiot, of course he understood, but here he was making a genuine effort. And also he’d pay for breakfast.
Bryan Washington is the author of Lot, with fiction and essays appearing in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, BuzzFeed, Vulture, The Paris Review, Boston Review, Tin House, One Story, Bon Appétit, MUNCHIES, American Short Fiction, GQ, FADER, The Awl, Hazlitt, and Catapult. He’s the recipient of an O. Henry Award, and he lives in Houston.
Enter your email address to receive notifications for author Bryan Washington
Success!
Confirmation link sent to your email to add you to notification list for author Bryan Washington
More by this author
What It Means to Live in Houston
In a city made up of many cities, spread out, like tiny countries, ascribing their influence is a lot like trekking through a tiny country of your own.
The Case Against Making a City “Beautiful”
On finding beauty in Houston amidst the ugliness, and what the city stands to lose from increasing gentrification.
Montrose, the Neighborhood That Gave Us Everything
Montrose was unofficially codified as the nexus of queer life in Houston. If you held a map to the wall, I could tell you how we came to be on those streets.
More in this series
We Go to the Park to Go Somewhere Else: On Houston’s Green Havens
You’re in the city, but you aren’t. You don’t have to spend any money. No one’s asking about your documentation. You don’t have to do much at all except for exist, and open your eyes.
In Houston’s Diverse Culinary Landscape, Who Cooks, Who Eats, and Who Gets to Stay?
On a fast-growing city, food as culture, and why you can’t talk about Houston’s cuisine without talking about race.
What an American City Sounds Like
It’s a space where language is manipulated and contorted and pulled and borrowed. It sounds like everywhere and anywhere else.