Somewhere Only We Know
Zac and I at the center of a rock maze that we built with our dad
Zac and I grew up on the edges of the Saguaro National Park, the homelands of the Hohokum, Sobaipuri, Tohono O’odham and Apache people. We were surrounded by one of the most unique landscapes on the planet of palo verde trees, creosote, ocotillo, mesquite trees and one of the most diverse and enormous array of cacti, the most majestic of which is the saguaro. Our home is one of the few places that saguaros grow in the world; they can grow up to 12ft tall, they can live 200 years, some grow arms and some don’t. Birds and other animals burrow into the cacti and make their home and in the late spring/early summer, saguaros produce beautiful white, waxy flowers and red fruits. Along with the saguaro, my other favorite cacti are the fishook barrel and the prickly pear. But to the jumping cholla, I say the world would be a better place without you! Nothing hurt like falling into some jumping cholla. Those tiny little needles would bug you for a week.
The backdrop of our childhood can literally be seen in numerous old western movies and TV shows from the 1940’s-1990’s, which were filmed at Old Tucson Studios on the edge of the Park. Zac and I were not big fans of Old Tucson. Growing up I was extremely sensitive to loud noise and hated fireworks, gun shots, the sound of car backfiring,or a strong thunderbolt. All of it hurt my ears, startled me and made me cringe. So going to the rootin’, tootin’ Old Tucson Studios where most of the attractions involved a lot of dudes shooting guns was a fucking nightmare. I would spend most of the time with my ears covered. Zac would make a lot of Simpsons and Muppets jokes and was clearly bored the whole time.
We were not fans of the movies that had the setting of our childhood, but we loved the desert itself. We would spend long afternoons and evenings running through the creosote and mesquite or riding our bikes on the dirt paths around our house. Our desert was not the barren landscape that most people think of when they imagine the desert. Our desert was lush and full of an enormous variety of plants and animals. The area around our house had several washes or dried tributaries that would fill up with water when the summer monsoon season came. One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to find one and follow the creek bed for awhile. We would stumble across horned toads, Gila monsters, field mice, so many quail, road runners, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, buzzards…the gamut of desert life. My parents were in a constant battle with the javelina that would knock over our trash cans and pack rats that would chew the wiring in our house or the cars. At one point we had an enormous great horned owl that would swoop in and sit on our TV antennae and mess with the signal (yep, we had a huge external metal antennae that ran up the side of our trailer and my dad would step outside to turn the antenna so that we could access either Tucson or Phoenix TV stations).
Last year Zac and I talked a lot about how much we missed the desert and Tucson. We talked about seeing the saguaros and mountains again. Watching the sky deepen into rich orange and gold colors and then the darkest purple as the sun sets. Taking that drive through the Park and seeing the view from the top of the mountain crossing, with the beauty of the Sonoran desert stretched out before you. To feel the crackle of the air right before a summer thunderstorm rolled through and then to feel the desert come alive with the first drops of rain. To feel the power of those storms.
I am crushed I did not have the chance to go home again with Zac. I have been having a lot of dreams and thoughts about home lately. It’s calling me. I need to see the desert again and be with family and tap into those childhood days where we ran wild among the saguaros.
