By Nadia Shah

The sun is burning a hole through my arm. I am distinctly uncomfortable as I cross a large parking lot. Maybe I’m unusual in how much this relentless heat bothers me. I think it’s just me. 

My family has just returned from a six-week stay in Rockville, Maryland. Rockville is an affluent suburb located just outside the nation’s capital. There, gleaming green treetops shade numerous walking paths and bike trails, babbling brooks are full and cool through the summer, temperatures rarely climb above 95 degrees, and the evenings bring a welcome respite from the warm summer sun. 

But I am no longer in Rockville. I am in the DFW suburb of Colleyville, where I have lived intermittently for the past 40 years and continuously for the past 10. It is a blazing summer day on very familiar streets. 

Colleyville was officially founded in 1956, named for community physician and leader Dr. Lilburn Howard Colley. Once a rural town and fixture on the Cotton Belt Route of the rail line, Colleyville boomed in the late 1980s and through the 1990s. In this time, large swathes of grassy farmland and thickets of live oaks were progressively replaced by two-story single family “McMansions,” each bearing a striking resemblance to its neighbors but different from any house outside of DFW I have ever seen.

The roads here are wide and clean. Speed limits are low, and even the police traffic stops are pleasant enough. Neither litter nor potholes are an issue. The visual utopia is disturbed only by the power lines hanging low and loose from decaying old wood poles. Many trees are sadly deformed by the necessity to cut odd branches to clear space for these power lines. 

The main artery of traffic is Colleyville Boulevard, or State Highway 26, which carves a diagonal path across town, in the middle of which is the Town Center. Though it houses a small library and well-used public park, the name Town Center is a misnomer. Very little happens there. It’s a mixed-use development of largely empty or uninviting store fronts and the annual Christmas tree lighting and July 4^th festivities. However, I am not one who enjoys being outside in broiling temperatures, so I shy away from the latter. 

Back to the actual city centers: our neighborhoods. Homes constructed during the late 1980s and 1990s boom were built in a singular style, characterized by proud front entries. Double paned glass doors, flanked on either side by paned glass windows. (Privacy evidently not a concern in the late century.) These doorways are topped by a tall, arched paned glass transom through which imposing chandeliers can be seen. This entryway is covered by a brick arch, in turn supported by two pillars. Sometimes of brick, these pillars are often ill-fated Doric-inspired wooden columns, tempting homes for termites and wood rot. 

A second smaller boom in the late 2000s hailed a darker but equally grandiose Old World style. Towering peaks, tall lightning rods, and stone turrets cap these rooflines. These homes boast dark interiors and, if lucky, a medieval wine cellar. “Cask of Amontillado,” anyone? Except for a few scattered modern constructions and remaining ’60s ranches, it is easy to date Colleyville neighborhoods just by driving by.

Charming gardens are sadly a rarity in our neighborhoods. Landscapes are predictable. Parents in midlife and their children, approximately 60% of the population, are not here to garden. Families favor rows of boxwoods or hollies, interspersed with stalwart natives like nandinas, hybrids like sunshine ligustrum, and the ever-present crape myrtle. Color is added with cyclically planted annuals, which pop into place like clockwork each spring and fall. Circular drives are bordered by lush lawns of green Saint Augustine or Bermuda grass, the dominant foliage in most front yards. 

Occasionally, on walks in cooler months, I may encounter a retiree tending her garden. Largely, however, Colleyville is the domain of an endless stream of lawn services. The streets in our neighborhood are forever congested by the trucks and trailers, and consequently not by children playing or neighbors chatting. What could I say that could be heard over the roar of the leaf blowers anyway? 

Surely, we see each other as we walk the path around our neighborhood pond? As in so many Colleyville neighborhoods, this man-made body is an important feature in mine. Although it receives the runoff from our pools, it is somehow able to provide a habitat for fish, ducks, geese and even the occasional crane. And while it is fed by creek water and culverts, it is too shallow to kayak across and certainly too murky to contemplate swimming in. At this time of year, a muddy island has popped up in the center of our pond, and although shaded, the path around it is also hot, quiet and empty. 

Our neighborhood streets are quiet. Although our time is spent in our houses, our hearts are often elsewhere, not in this dense network of too-similar neighborhoods, but rather in our places of communal congregation, our churches and schools. 

For Colleyville residents, most shopping occurs on the edge of town or in neighboring towns; I need my car to get there. I could bike, but the sidewalks are narrow and irregular, and surely no one wants me pedaling in front of them on a two-lane road. Within Colleyville, if I need a supermarket, a bakery, a restaurant, or a manicure, I can drive to a couple large shopping centers, where I also find luxe pet care shops and banks. A strip of about two miles along Colleyville Boulevard defines our commercial district. It is small, and we like it that way. This was quiet farmland, and although we have replaced the farms with our homes, that quiet is something we are proud of. Hustle-bustle, glitz, and retail commerce are not the heart of our town. 

In these early back-to-school days, it’s easy to see where the heart of Colleyville lies. Our children and our schools are the reasons we are here. Although Texas is perennially rated in the bottom of half of education ratings in the U.S., our schools are anything but dismal. Even amid more recent heated politics, budget cuts, class cancellations and losses of educators in the past few years, nothing can quell our teachers’ dedication and enthusiasm. 

At the local elementary school’s Meet the Teacher Night, our school principal is beaming. Colorful, themed decorations deck each hall emphasizing kindness, respect and hard work. Teachers hug old students and crouch down happily to meet new ones. Down the street, at middle school Curriculum Night, our teachers are visibly filled with the energy and promise of a new year. We the residents want everything for our schools. We happily join our PTAs, donating our time and money to help make our schools everything they can be. Together with our neighbors in Grapevine, we believe in our strong shared school district and even when we disagree about politics and policies, we work together to strengthen GCISD for our kids and those of our present and future neighbors.

Our children and our schools are the anchor and heart of this sleepy suburb, still dotted by vanishing reminders of a rural, agrarian culture of the not-too-distant past, surrounded by our more well-known neighbors: hip, historic Grapevine, flashy and inescapable Southlake, practical Euless, cosmopolitan Dallas and Fort Worth, and nearby DFW Airport, gateway to the world. We remain in Colleyville, an imperfect place yet a perfect home for our Texan dream: the promise of a bright future for our families and children.

Nadia Shah is a radiologist who lives in Colleyville with her husband and three children. She grew up in Colleyville and moved back there 10 years ago. She lives six doors down from her parents.