to Arizona

Oh, Arizona, what a lifetime ago you seem to be. Is there a way to neatly encapsulate an experience so vast? How do I sum you up in a few tidy paragraphs?

If I’m being honest, I’ve been procrastinating this bit of writing for reasons unknowable to myself. The trip was cut short; the country shut down; nothing about this year has been anything that any of us could have anticipated. I suppose I’ve been waiting for clarity, to be ready for whatever it is I have to say. But one of the lessons I’ve learned this year (and learned it well) is that you can wait forever for a readiness that will never come of its own accord.

The west came after a heartbreak of sorts. I can’t lie and say that at least the first half of my time there wasn’t a surfeit of struggles, bits of darknesses and shadows that would rear up every hour or minute depending on the severity of the day. I’d wake up resentful and angry, pining for a home that I hadn’t appreciated when I was in it but seemed so dear to me now. And then, often reluctantly, I’d recalibrate.

The perfunctory bits became comforting; the importance of a routine was noted. Mere miles from the border to Mexico, I could go on hikes that allowed me to see into a whole other country. And at first I did do this - take off on an afternoon adventures where I hiked nearly all the local trails and got to know the nearby towns and was a little tempted to see if they’d allow me to sign up for a library card.

I woke early to tend to the animals – a llama, a sheep, two large dogs, a brood of hens, a pair of (super mean) roosters, a couple of peacocks, and seven alpacas (the headliners). The alpacas consisted of two adult males, an adolescent male, and four adult females (four expecting ladies, might I add).  

My days took on a comforting yet mundane routine. Feed the animals, weed the… weeds, tend to the plants, rake up alpaca poop to sell for fertilizer, turn the compost, collect eggs. I went with my hostess to book clubs, to farmers’ markets, to church, to interesting lectures at the community college on a variety of subjects (including, but not limited to, an overview of Arizona State parks and a crash course on mariachi music). I tried some local restaurants, and breweries. I went to the little co-op in Sierra Vista, giddy with a sense of belonging.

I had high hopes for my time in Arizona, as far as exploration goes. It’s a big state with a lot to see, surrounded by other big states with a lot to see. The plan was to visit all the national parks, to gallivant far and wide, to absorb the lovely arid healing air, to spread my wings and fly.

And then a pandemic struck. As cities and states and countries began their shutdowns, I was (sometimes literally) paralyzed by indecision whether to stay or to go. For the time being, my life as a vagabond was coming to a halt. I continued my routines with the animals, the plants, and the weeds, but the lectures at the community college, the book clubs, the restaurants, and even the trails… all that stopped.

Instead I watched the sun rise and set from my little porch. I sat in the field with the alpacas while they grazed and I read my books. I wrote and worked on art and got in shape and got a bit of a tan and trained my mind to be in a healthy place (which may have been the most difficult thing of all).

I’ve been a lifelong sufferer of wanderlust, to a degree where it could feel like a physical ache. It was a sort of sickness, that wanting. It was a false belief that I could go somewhere else far away – somewhere beautiful or exotic or just different, and that place would somehow make me beautiful or exotic or different. Somehow I would change just because my physical location has changed.

Haha, no. 

I was in a desert in Arizona, more metaphorically than literally. Physically, I was surrounded by red searing mountains and vast landscapes that left me breathless. But my insides were dried out and lacking. It didn’t matter that I was in a brand new beautiful place; I suffered until I learned how not to suffer.

Turns out, that’s my biggest takeaway from this time, that wherever you are – whether in a jungle or a desert or a mountain or a beach or a foreign land or your homeland – you are yourself, and there’s no escaping that, not in any real capacity. You take yourself with you wherever you go. So be who it is you want to be and like that person. You're the only you you'll ever have. 

Cheers. 

***

P.S. Another lesson learned (not just from the animals on this Arizona ranch, but from all the animals I tended to this year): the Number One Priority of animals is undoubtedly food. Seriously. Name an animal – pigs, horses, chickens, alpacas, dogs, cats – they are all about eating, in an unabashed way that made me feel not a small amount of admiration and solidarity.