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ISBN: 9781608442539
212 pages
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Chapter 1: A House in the Desert

WHEN BUILT IN 1941, my house was one of very few along a winding dirt road cut through the desert and the usually dry washes, about eight miles north of Tucson, Arizona. Aerial photos show that twelve years later there was little change, but today, in 2008, the area is part of suburban Tucson called the foothills, sprawling up the first slopes of the Santa Catalina Mountains on the north side of town. Houses nestle among the giant saguaros, prickly pears and Palo Verde trees, many in an acre or more of surrounding desert, each with a view up to the mountains north, and down to the city south. The sun rises gently over the rounded distant Rincon Mountains to the east, and sets wildly over the jagged Tucson Mountains to west.

Every window provides a scene that begs for a camera - massive Catalina Mountains and other more distant ranges, stretches of rich desert yellow with blooms in April, a patio with a spreading mesquite tree home to many birds, a courtyard enclosed with adobe bricks and filled with the greens of diverse flowering plants, an open courtyard with ramada and pools of water visited by animals in the mornings and on hot dry summer afternoons; here and there, glimpses of other houses. From any window one may see wild animals of the southwest, the noisy cactus wrens and Gila woodpeckers, packs of coyotes, gatherings of Gambel’s quail, cottontail rabbits, a secret bobcat. With my four acres of pristine desert and the unfenced acres of neighbors, there is a feeling here of a wildlife sanctuary.

To live in such a house is to be an observer of the desert. Who can focus on the life of the mind, when at every turn and from every angle there is a strange cloud formation, a red sunset glow on the mountain, a Harris hawk soaring, a collared lizard pumping up and down on the wall? The scene is ever changing, through the mourning dove days and screech owl nights, and through the five seasons. The blooms and birdsong of spring as the mesquite trees sprout bright green, and then the busy cactus wrens and ground squirrels active even in the searing heat of early summer when white flowers crown the giant cacti. Later comes the leafing out of Palo Verde trees with summer storms, and the purple fruit of prickly pears in warm late summer loved by so many animals. And then fall, the first cool nights, the slow rain, snow on the mountaintops, and quickly coming, that early spring which, if the winter rain was just right, will bring a display of flowers on the desert floor.

The best time of the year is that first summer storm, when the fearful heat is broken by the glory of rain. Winds lift empty seedpods and blow collections of cactus spines against tall saguaros swaying then suddenly on a gust comes ambrosia and creosote air - rain message of memory molecules. How the smells bring back other moments in my life, my legs entwined with a lover on a long beach smelling of brine-fly seaweed, two people apprehended by jasmine in chilly crystal air in English gardens; or two teacups and cut grass scent with the drone and clack of lawn mowers. Rain comes suddenly. Heavy drops scatter circles of dust and trunks of Palo Verde trees darken. Desert pans glisten, gullies gurgle, torrents toss dead leaves and all the desert pieces of a packrat mound. Prickly pear fruits will swell wine red in remembrance of a shattered glass.