I Love This Place

I hear myself saying that a lot. And then I realize, Wow, I do. I love Tucson, (and Vail), Arizona. It still surprises me that I really live here and that I'm enjoying it so much.

When the kids and I came out here to live with Joel temporarily in the summer of 2010, it was summer in Tucson (think 110 degrees regularly) and it was not permanent. Also, we learned the foibles of apartment living with our bellowing beagle, Daisy: being land-locked, for one. She could never be left alone lest she hear a creek from the neighbor's floor boards and begin her incessant barking binge. Our neighbors informed us pretty quickly about that issue. She's always been a house-dog, un-used to hearing the voices and movements of others in our absence.

So now, we're renting a house in Vail. We have the best of both worlds: small town living at the foot of a mountain, surrounded by cattle range and more mountains, unobstructed by anything but the silhouette of a saguaro or an Italian cypress. We regularly spy the sharply contrasting coal and russet cattle grazing on dry grasses in the endless fields of cacti; and even the occasional coyotes with tawny, dust-colored coats trotting in twos across the sun-baked roads, so much like domestic dogs chiefs of themselves. And then, we listen to the twilight lowing of those longhorns and the timed yip-yap-yowling of our canine neighbors on their nightly hunt for food and fun.

On weekdays, Grace and I head into Tucson. Her school and her new community theater class is right near the heart of the city. Each morning and afternoon we see joggers, runners (think Kenyan speeds), walkers, speed walkers, walkers with babies and baby strollers, and besides all those walkers, are the ubiquitous bikers of Tucson. There are so many cyclists in this city, they have lanes on all the roads exclusively for them. And for all  those walkers? They have special crossing lights in addition to the normal "Walk/Don't Walk" signs; all they have to do is push a button, the traffic lights blink yellow, then turn red for the pedestrian to make their way across safely and conveniently. All public schools, even in the suburbs, have portable 15mph signs posted when school is in the first or last hour of session, and all cars obey the slower speed limits. I love this town!

In Warren, I felt so conspicuous in my Prius--like an alien in a spacecraft, so unusual was my environmentally conscious automotive choice. Here in Tucson, my car has found its people. They come in all colors and dress up in bumper stickers that have sayings like: "Keep Tucson Kind," "Whose Your Farmer?" "Tolerance" (with applicable religious symbols), "Create Art Not War," "Zombie Outbreak Response Team," and "Green Cabs for Blue Skies" (the taxi cabs are little bright green Priuses{I can't call them Prii}).

We moved here to be with Joel. But this place is chock-full of artists, poets, painters, musicians, students (and professors) of the Univerisity of Arizona; I love college towns and college students. I will never stop being a student myself and to have them so near is inspiring and makes me think of Nathan, too. This is the place for me.

In Case of Cattle in the Road Dial 9-1-1

Yay! I figured out how to access my blog again. It's been a long while.

After almost five years of living apart, Gracie and I are finally living in Arizona with Joel. Nathan is up in the U.P. for his first year at Michigan Tech...he graduated first in his class this past June--whoo-hoo, Nathan!--and is now studying civil engineering. He was  torn between whether to go for the engineering at Tech or go to CCS or U of M for art/design...in the end, he fell in love with the great outdoors of Houghton, Michigan. He's still not positive he made the right choice as far as area of study, but at least he's made great friends and loves the life up there. The kid is an artist at heart...and hey, an artistic eye will get him far in designing and building bridge-type structures, too, right? Yeah.

So we've been here since mid-August and I'm loving it. Grace loves it but really misses her friends in Michigan. She just turned ten and started the sixth grade, so it's a tough age for her to have to uproot, and a major school transition, but she's adjusted beautifully.

Yesterday, after dropping her off, I turned onto the road that leads up to our house and saw two  fuzzy young copper-colored cows moseying up the hill, seemingly to find their way back on to the wide-open range on the other side of the wire fencing. My first thought was that I should call 9-1-1, but then it wasn't really an emergency per se. It was a slower paced road, but it was hilly, and people did speed, if a car came at them from below, they might get hit. I didn't have my phone with me anyway. I wondered what the rancher's phone number was or how I would find out. I briefly toyed with the idea of pulling over to herd them toward the opening myself...hya! hya! waving my arms to make them go...no, that would just be too comical and dangerous; how would I get them to move that far without accidentally herding them further into the road?

It was only a minute to our house, I would text Joel to see what the standard procedure was for these matters.

He said to call the Pima County Sheriff. I did, but they told me (and very kindly transferred me) to dial 9-1-1 next time I see a cow in the road. The 9-1-1 operator said she had someone on the way. Whew! Disaster averted.

Since living here, that was actually my third encounter with cattle in the roadways. The other two already had ranchers and police there taking care of the situation. Such a vastly different place than Warren, Michigan.

Maracas in the Sky (Summer Sounds Revised)

I also did a version of this one in July of 2011, but I think I like how this one turned out better. From October 2011, the last installment of the-story-of-my-life-in-one-hundred-words-or-less-assignment:



Maracas in the sky, I call them. They play their music with the whispering of the trees or in the heavy heat of a breeze-less day. Always, there is sun and warmth to accompany their continual concert of hypnotic buzzing and maraca-like harmonics. It is the steady, bewitching song of the cicada that has the power to soothe my soul and transport me back to my childhood summers in Michigan--camping with my grandparents, lazing in the hammock while reading Nancy Drew Mysteries; collapsing onto the cool, fragrant grass with ten other kids after a lively game of freeze-tag; walking home from Warren Pool in quiet contentment with my best friend, the flip-flopping of our shoes in rhythm to those maracas in the sky. It is in these hushed moments that our minds acknowledge the lulling call of the cicada and the renewing sway of their good vibrations.

It Will Only Hurt for a Moment

As I lay on the couch, cocooned under a light blanket, in the throes of shivering feverish shudders, I argued with myself about reaching up from beneath that shelter to grab a heavier blanket. I wanted it so badly; it was draped across the top of the same couch, yet my fear of the intensely painful symptoms resulting from any movement, stopped me. I argued, justified, and taunted until finally, I just did it. New waves of nausea and misery wracked my body...but in a few moments it was over...and I laughed. Many of us do this everyday: afraid to move on from a situation, even though we know we will be better off. We stay--wishing, obsessing, arguing--but in the end, we can only help ourselves (and oftentimes, others involved) and know that the pain it causes to move on will pass. And then we will fly.

Do Your Thing

It is that thing that is closest to love, making you do things you would not ordinarily do. It is a different form of love. It is passion and joy. When you are doing it, you lose all sense of time; you forget to eat and sleep. It is that thing you have done since you were a child. If you have a child, they have told you that you should be doing it. You can't stop thinking about it even if you tried because it keeps coming up in your daily life: in movies, books, conversations, and most amazingly, in the people you meet. It is that thing that makes others secretly think you are crazy for giving up a stable, decently paying job in order to pursue your dream of doing that one thing. For me, it is writing, writers, and butterflies and my life is transformed.

Look Who Else Says to Dance (not Ellen...but we know she does, too)

Literally, within a few hours of deciding to post my old Dancing Upside Down piece last night, I was in bed leafing through a book I had just bought as a gift for Nathan or for all of us as a family--I had not decided--which was why I was looking through it, to see if he would like it. It's called Daily Joy and is a book of 365 photos with inspirational quotes by some of my favorite people. The book was put out by National Geographic, one of Nate's favorite organizations, and the photos are stunning, of course. Each page is dated, and there, right at the start of the book (I opened up to it--it's for January 4), is a quote by Rumi: .

Dance, when you're broken open. 
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you're perfectly free.

Dancing Upside Down

I need to use my own words...

In October of 2011, I did four little writing projects: my life story in 150 words or less. Yesterday, while revising a larger project, I was sifting through some of my old pieces in search of a particular one to assist me with that larger revision. The piece I was looking for was one of those four short projects and was saved with the other three. When I pulled them up, I realized I could use my old words just as I was using other writers' old words. The Dancing Upside Down Snoopy was just what I needed to read, so maybe it's just what someone else might need to read too. (I did blog about this one when it first happened in September 2011, but this version is a bit different, not only for its brevity, but because I wrote it to encompass more of my life.)

I will print one piece each day for the next four days, just...because...they are my words and that is what a blog is supposed to be...


My dad always loved Snoopy. On a particularly dissonant day in September, I placed a dancing Snoopy sticker in my journal to somehow ensure my dad's guiding presence. The next day, I realized I had inadvertently stuck Snoopy upside down...

During my first thirty-three years of life, people doubted and awed as I deftly managed my riotously convulsing father through his daily grand mal seizures. To them it was improbable and precarious. To me it was just life. I danced when others could not hear the melody.

That day to day training taught me to flex and flow and be supple of spirit. My husband lives in Arizona while I raise our kids here in Michigan. Though we chose, we never expected...nearly three years now...but we dance. Even when we look or feel upside down, we find harmony and we dance. Thanks, Dad.