Category Archives: southwest

fun in the sun in the lovely south west of the u.s.

expectations

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The interesting thing about expectations is that if you change them, your whole attitude shifts as well.

I was talking with a friend today about Phoenix. We both know people who complain that it is a ‘pit’ and an ugly, hot, annoying place. My first thought when people start to ramble on about this is “if you don’t like it so much, why don’t you move?” But if I ask them that, there are inevitable a million excuses: job, house, friends, blah blah blah. Maybe it ain’t so bad after all?

I like it here. Sure, it’s ridiculously hot, but whenever I start to think about complaining, I remember Chicago and I forget all my complaints. I remember perspective and adjust my expectations. Chicago is bitterly cold in the winter, has narrow, claustrophobic streets with double parkers, dangerous potholes and lunatic drivers. It’s a major hassle to go anywhere pretty much anytime of the day or night. I love it here with the wide, breathable streets and predictable and not terribly treacherous rush hours. As well, it’s a quick ride to escape the city into the beautiful desert and get away from any annoyances.

I suppose I could have adjusted my expectations more while living in Chicago to make it likable to me. I tried that for a while and we had a decent relationship, but ultimately, I wasn’t happy there. I had adjusted as much as I could and it still wasn’t working for me.  I could have sucked it up and stayed. I had a good job and a beautiful house. On paper my life was decent. But too often it was frustrating and ultimately, it wasn’t satisfying. I know life can be better than just ‘decent’. And that’s when it was time to leave.

Maybe this isn’t a very good example of my opening sentence. But it wasn’t meant to be a blanket statement. Sometimes simply adjusting your expectations does do the trick. For example: you are preparing for a work party and assume it’ll be boring. Well, if you go into it with that attitude, it probably will be. There is a level of self-fulfilling prophecy here. If you get ready for the party and expect that you will have some interesting conversations, you might end the evening on a pleasant note after having had some enjoyable discussions with coworkers.

I don’t know. It’s 1:14 in the morning and I just got home from a party.
I didn’t know what to expect and I had a really good time.

summer storms

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We had a huge dust storm yesterday here in Phoenix-land. It was phenomenal. I took my dog out for a walk and it was light, with a wall of dark in the distance. There was an eerie stillness, like what I remember tornado-weather was in my childhood. My dog and I went inside, I got his leash off and went to the window. In those few minutes it took me to do those simple tasks, the sky had gone black with storm and the wind was whipping through the trees. As I sat in my apartment with a candle lit and flashlight next to me, I learned from local friends that this natural chaos is a “haboob” (which is not only an intense storm, but also a fun word to say!)

Yesterday’s haboob was a wall of dust, 5000 feet tall and 50 miles wide.

I love big, passionate weather. We have some intense weather here, but it happens so infrequently, we mostly forget about the storms.

In the Midwest there are storms aplenty. Tornado weather with the ominous calm-before-the-storm asparagus green skies always frightened me. I loved the fall rains and the winter ice storms that left glittering layers of ice encasing every leafless tree branch. But my favorites were the hot summer night thunder and lightning storms.

My grandparent’s house, where I grew up, had a large back porch with the roof overhanging almost the whole thing. We would sit up there in lounge chairs during thunderstorms and watch the lightning show, count the thunderclaps to figure out how far away the storm was, and listen to the rain cascade off the roof. It was wonderful sitting outside smelling the sweet summer storm, and at the same time be mostly protected from the elements.

twilight

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Twilight is the in-between time when anything is possible. Mountains are silhouetted and their mysteries are shrouded in shadow. The sky is subtle in its muted and multi-hued beauty.

I am on a road bordered by Joshua trees, saguaro, brush, acacia trees, and desert wildlife. It unfolds in front of me into the yellows and pinks and blues. There is no bright sun glaring in my eyes, and night hasn’t yet enveloped me with only a bubble of highway lights and headlamp to ride into.

This time of night has a magical quality to it – an rift in the sky in which other paths, other possibilities are visible for those few moments before the color fades and darkness falls.

“… the moment of twilight … the crack in the universe between daylight and dark into a world not merely other than our own, but of an entirely different order of reality.” *

I ride through this moment of twilight and sometimes wonder if I’ve entered a different order of reality.

 

 

 

* Walter Goldschmidt, from the Foreword of The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda