The Story
I showed up in the wrong boots for the mud.
I was a Houston girl familiar with suburbs, traffic, and graphic design. I knew nothing about ranching, South Texas brush country or what it means to tend land that has been in a family longer than the state of Texas has existed. Then, I married into it.
My husband Daniel is a verified Texas First Families descendant of James Power, Irish empresario, founder of Refugio, and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. The name Power has traveled nearly two centuries. Daniel carries it. Now our son Gabriel carries it too. I don't carry that name. Neither does our daughter Evelyn.
But I framed the Texas First Family certificates. I put the 150-year-old rug in our entryway. I coordinated the trips to the ranch so our children would grow up knowing the land that is theirs. I told them, and continue to tell them, the stories before they know to ask.
The name gets passed through blood. The meaning gets passed through me.
I wrote a children's book about it. I wrote songs about it. I'm writing essays about it. Because one day Evelyn will stand at her own threshold and I want her to know — what you give up might be the door to everything. That name on those certificates? It belongs to all of us.
Even us. Even me.
Power in the Land
Power in the Land is a lyrical children’s book about a young girl visiting her family’s ancestral ranch in South Texas, where belonging is learned through land, memory, and the quiet rhythms of family life. Told through a child’s perspective, it explores how legacy is felt before it is fully understood and how it is shaped not only by those born into a name, but by those who learn to carry it forward.
Foreword by Richard B. McCaslin, Ph.D., Texas State Historian.
Also —
Power in the Land
Original song by Ciara Shay
Some things can't be explained. They can only be felt — in the creak of a gate, the weight of a name, the way a father lifts his son so high he can see everything.
This song started as a Father's Day gift. It became something bigger than I expected.
Original song by Ciara Shay
She's a Keeper is a storyteller country song about the woman who chose the legacy instead of inheriting it. It's about what it means to show up for something you weren't born into and to tend it just as faithfully as those who were.
She’s a Keeper
What the Land Keeps
Personal essay
The first thing I ever made for my husband’s family was a banana pudding nobody ate.
Forthcoming — pitched to Texas Monthly