Phoenix, City of Mystery, of Enchantment and....
Today is the last blog swap with Evelyn @ Hanging by a Silver Lining. For our last we chose a topic near and dear to both of us... Arizona. One of the surprising things about Evelyn and I is that our lives have had parallel paths. We were raised in Idaho and both ended up in Phoenix. After your done with her post, be sure to hop on over to Hanging Silver to read mine. And don't forget to leave some comment love while you're at it!
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Two and a half years ago I crossed the Utah/Arizona border in a moving van that was driving south. My face was wet and aching from crying and trying not to cry. Those efforts were only stunted by the hormones coursing through my pregnant body.
I was trying to be strong. For my husband, for my two small children, for myself. But I failed...miserably. Every mile that brought the Valley of the Sun closer only took me that much farther from my beloveds: family, friends, mountains, trees, green, cold, snow, familiarity.
I tried to think of my pioneer ancestors as my eyes took in Arizona. What did they feel as they relocated into Arizona? Brown, lifeless, barren, dirty, sandy, rocky, prickly, unfeeling Arizona. I was sitting in an air-conditioned vehicle nursing a water-bottle brim-full of ice-cold water. In a few hours I would be checking my email at a hotel to see how my family was doing. When I got to Phoenix there would be housing, food, technology, an established church for me to attend, a Walmart around the corner.
For my pioneer ancestors there would be none of this.
They deserved a good long cry. I did not.
Well, maybe just a little one, but certainly I didn't deserve to keep crying for the next two years I lived in Phoenix.
The first few days after we arrived in the largest city I have ever lived in, we chatted with a realtor about our new city. His words were "It's a dry heat" and "If you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere".
Well...I couldn't make it.
Phoenix was so big, so ugly, so dirty, so strange, so noisy, so foreign, so scary, so violent, so corrupt, so brown, so dang HOT.
But I met people who loved it for all it was. They could see the beauty in the brown, the precious in the prickles, the deliciousness of the "dry" heat. I tried over and over to open my eyes, to see through their rose-colored sunglasses.
I couldn't understand it: Who would actually choose to live here?! For me, Phoenix had become a prison, my own personal inescapable hell. But for some, Phoenix was HOME. Phoenix was lovely and beautiful and inescapable, but for far different reasons.
After "serving" our two-year sentence, our debt to society was repaid and we were released back into the free and GREEN world. An improved economy finally allowed my husband to secure another job and we moved...as far away from Phoenix as we could get. Again, I was pregnant. And now with three little children. Again, I thought of my pioneer ancestors. And wondered if they were a little ashamed of my lack of grace and endurance.
And if I were being totally honest...a little sad to see Phoenix growing ever smaller in my rear-view mirror.
It is a "dry" heat after all.
-----
Two and a half years ago I crossed the Utah/Arizona border in a moving van that was driving south. My face was wet and aching from crying and trying not to cry. Those efforts were only stunted by the hormones coursing through my pregnant body.
I was trying to be strong. For my husband, for my two small children, for myself. But I failed...miserably. Every mile that brought the Valley of the Sun closer only took me that much farther from my beloveds: family, friends, mountains, trees, green, cold, snow, familiarity.
I tried to think of my pioneer ancestors as my eyes took in Arizona. What did they feel as they relocated into Arizona? Brown, lifeless, barren, dirty, sandy, rocky, prickly, unfeeling Arizona. I was sitting in an air-conditioned vehicle nursing a water-bottle brim-full of ice-cold water. In a few hours I would be checking my email at a hotel to see how my family was doing. When I got to Phoenix there would be housing, food, technology, an established church for me to attend, a Walmart around the corner.
For my pioneer ancestors there would be none of this.
They deserved a good long cry. I did not.
Well, maybe just a little one, but certainly I didn't deserve to keep crying for the next two years I lived in Phoenix.
The first few days after we arrived in the largest city I have ever lived in, we chatted with a realtor about our new city. His words were "It's a dry heat" and "If you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere".
Well...I couldn't make it.
Phoenix was so big, so ugly, so dirty, so strange, so noisy, so foreign, so scary, so violent, so corrupt, so brown, so dang HOT.
But I met people who loved it for all it was. They could see the beauty in the brown, the precious in the prickles, the deliciousness of the "dry" heat. I tried over and over to open my eyes, to see through their rose-colored sunglasses.
I couldn't understand it: Who would actually choose to live here?! For me, Phoenix had become a prison, my own personal inescapable hell. But for some, Phoenix was HOME. Phoenix was lovely and beautiful and inescapable, but for far different reasons.
After "serving" our two-year sentence, our debt to society was repaid and we were released back into the free and GREEN world. An improved economy finally allowed my husband to secure another job and we moved...as far away from Phoenix as we could get. Again, I was pregnant. And now with three little children. Again, I thought of my pioneer ancestors. And wondered if they were a little ashamed of my lack of grace and endurance.
And if I were being totally honest...a little sad to see Phoenix growing ever smaller in my rear-view mirror.
It is a "dry" heat after all.
Comments
Thank goodness we were only there for 9 months!
My SIL LOVES Phoenix. I think I trust your assessment more...
Love ya, Evelyn!
And at Sami- I lived in Boise too! For a little over a year, but I was pretty sad to leave it. Now to enter it...different story. But it converted me. :)
Josie still talks about your kiddies with nothing but smiles...and some frowns knowing they aren't in her primary every Sunday. :(