from tucson: exits

Doors. So many posters I have seen! Posters of doors. Doors of Madison. Doors of Tuscany. Doors of Yale.

Doors as openings. Doors to historic houses. Adobe buildings of an older Tucson. Doors freeing you to paint them, admire them, photograph them.





Expressing color. Why do doors into homes with a weaker sun over them (in Wisconsin, for example) shun color? Brown doors up north. Colorful doors down south.

Doors to friendship, doors to new interiors, doors to cafés where they serve strawberry lemonade. With a raspberry bar. Eaten outside under a strong sun.



And don't forget about wrought iron gates and fences. Decorative: oh! that is so lovely. Or plain: I plan to paint every last bar of it, the owner tells me.




Doors. Favorite ones:

Doors for visual effect, doors that are functional. Barricades. Gates. Other gates. Boundary gates. So let’s extend a helping hand, across the Rio Grande… Let them out, let them in. Let’s see your card, step this way please.

Gates of entry. Of passage. The flight to St Paul-Minneapolis will be boarding from Gate 10. Weather in Minneapolis? The captain pauses for effect. A balmy 22 degrees.

Closure to the 78 degrees of Arizona. The cabin door is closed, turn off your cell phones. Thank you for flying with us.

Thank you, thank you. Thank you, hosts and friends and hummingbirds and suns setting and warm sunlight the next morning, waking me up even before the dog barks.

from tucson: in the matter of water

My host and I get out of the car at the foot of the Canyon.

Here’s a bottle of water for you.
Thanks. I’ll leave it in the car for later.

That snippet of conversation says it all. I am a desert hiking imbecile.

My host is not: take the water. It’s the desert.















Later:

What’s a watsu?

I ask this after I agree to subject myself to it.

I walk into a garden in the Catalina mountains. Rosemary bushes are in bloom. Humming birds descend for a swig of the sweet stuff. In front of me – a pool.





She tells me to go in. The sun is piercing there over the water. Outside, it is 75. In the pool it is 96.

Floatation devices are wrapped around my shins. She leads me into the middle and forces me into a reclining position. She holds my head above water and moves me around, this way and that. For an hour she prods, pulls and kneads my limbs, my back, my neck. I go limp in the water as she moves me, snake like, across the pool.

It feels like sea weed, doesn’t it?

I want to be sea weed from now on. Forget law school, forget gray drizzly days. Leave me in this pool so that I can watch the humming birds circle the cacti. Hi birds, I’m here, I am the sea weed.

from tucson: african art, carpets and cacti. and sun.

It’s Friday, noon, the plane lands and people start undressing. The burden of toting an extra jacket or sweater is nothing compared to the burden of dealing with bad weather up north.

The pilot, having had his adrenalin pumped, I’m sure, while coping with the Minneapolis snow now says in a resigned way: the weather in Tucson? Sunny. It’s always sunny in Tucson (I swear, a yawn follows).

It is a dry place. The last rain shower came down in mid October.

Three of us arrive from different parts of the country. Our host picks us up. I am itching to shed the long sleeves. Oh, don’t be shy! We’re not modest here. I am not shy, but ripping off my shirt in the airport parking lot seems extreme. I wait until we get in the car.

It is getting hot. We pull up behind a Motel 8. Dust covers my old shoes. Two guys are grilling meats and corn in the corner of a parking lot. My groups is hungry and so we eat.

And suddenly I am in Africa.









shea butter

People are heavily into rocks here in Tucson. It’s the second time I am in this town at the time of the gem exposition. It’s not enough that these stones are a really big deal, but the event spawns side shows, like the one here, behind the Motel 8, of African Art.



carapets and me



lunch


And lo! There is my guy from two years back, with his truck of Afghani carpets. I bought a runner from you! I’ll sell you an area rug for $1200! I don’t have $1200! Make it $200 then. Times are tough in Afghanistan.

Our friend who is hosting this reunion (four women, friends since the first year of Law School now exactly 25 years ago) lives among cacti and palm trees.






valentine's day hearts?

We stroll in the late afternoon, ready for the dessert chill that comes around when the sun goes down. On the back deck, she feeds us Brazilian drinks with lime juice and some potent something. Life is sweet.



cacti and caiparigna coctails at sunset






hairy cacti at sunset