In the desert, bite or be bitten, sting or be stung.
We used to live here. We lived here nearly four full years. After I lived in the Mojave Desert, I realized I could live anywhere. Our home was at Achii Hanyo Native Fish Facility. RW was a fish biologist for the federal government and was responsible for researching and raising thousands of endangered fish in earthen ponds every year — a job he was miraculously successful at. Our home was in a weird chain link compound, in the middle of the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation. The first time I saw the place, saw where we were moving to, I cried. The house was a single-wide trailer, rat infested and foul. It took buckets of bleach and seven coats of paint throughout to make it mildly livable. The first improvement I made involved rippping the tin foil off all the windows. I think RW’s boss was concerned that I would have a meltdown living there and would force RW to find a different job so that boss-man did everything he could to make and keep me happy. My every request was granted. Bit by bit, we pulled that place up by its bootstraps and transformed it. It truly was a ruin of a place, a broken mess of a project, paired with an inconceivable mosquito infestation (the bogs of Alaska have nothing on this place — I can say that because I have lived in Alaska, and it’s true), pressed up against a desolate outback area with a mountainous escarpment that combed the stars at night.
It. Never. Rained.
I remember hopelessly watching the monsoons slide by in the hot summer months. The humidity and heat of the valley was mind boggling — 110F, 120F, 130F for months and months. Oh…something in me curdles remembering the heat of that place. And when it did rain, it monsooned, and our driveway turned to impassible foot deep gumbo. It was such a slog to drive the miles to town on awful muck that gave way to wretched washboard. And sweating. Always sweating.
We had a herd of javelina visit the ponds on a daily basis, a bobcat living on the end of our half mile long driveway, a wild pack of winsome coyotes, a ten foot long rattlesnake that tried to bite me on three different occasions. We had so very many rattlesnakes. We had a rattlesnake hibernaculum RW dug up with a backhoe while repairing a levy between ponds (he said there were hundreds of rattlers shooting off in every direction, into little holes, ugh, I still shudder at the thought of it). We had a large, circular fish tank used for predation studies with catfish (that I used as a swimming pool when the research was completed). We planted palm trees, cottonwoods and mesquites and the facility began to turn into an oasis in the heart of that scruffy reservation. We had a large aviary filled with Chinese ring necked pheasant, bobwhite quail, California quail and one white winged dove I rescued named Edelweiss. We had Farley, our beautiful desert raised bird dog. We had a marmalade cat named Clementine. We had a dog named Tuba who died by snakebite. I had a lot of flip-flops. I had a beloved 1971 Volkswagen Beetle that had been outfitted into an off-roading rig — a Baja Bug, as they call them. She was cherry red, had a growly old engine and a loud exhaust, a mint condition original interior and I called her June. One of my greatest regrets in life is parting with her. In a wild act of maturity and wisdom, we sold her before we moved North. I still want her back, to this very day.
It was a good life and at times, it was a bloody hard life. When we talk about Arizona, we refer to it as the place where RW became a man and I became a woman. By the time we moved, the heat of the warm months had burned me dry as dust and I was aching for the North, for harder, more defined seasons. But there were times, in the heart of January, February and March, when the desert was the most beautiful place on earth. The daytime temperatures were bearable, the nights were cold. The wildflowers and cacti patches were blooming. I could run and not risk being bitten by a snake. Everything was cool and restful and I flourished.
One of the things I love and hate about Arizona is the strength of the sky. In the summer, it’s unbearable. Everything there feels burned or burning under the heat and directness of the sun. I am a Northerner, by birth, by life, by genealogy. I need my sunlight to come in at a slant, I need it to come in at a mild angle that buffs the edge off the power of the light — it makes daytime more bearable for my eyes and skin. In Arizona, the light seems to pour down like ballistic cosmic flames. It will burn the wings off birds as they fly. If you flip a rock over on the ground, you’ll find it has tan lines. In February, the difference in sun power between the Idaho sky and the Arizona sky is tremendous and lovely. I enjoy it, especially after being under the weak, pale roof of winter for months. The colors and contrast of the vegetation pop perfectly against a bluebird sky. The sunsets are resplendent, mythical and dynamic. Arizona, in the wonderful short month of February, is one of my favorite places to be. That’s the honest truth.
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On this trip, the Mojave held: the excellent company of best friends, sunsets, cholla bone hunts, a handful of great books from the naked bookseller, buckets of turquoise, long conversations that dawdled into the early morning hours, and perhaps, best of all, and most unexpected, a feeling of love for a former home and the surprise of knowing a place, even after time has passed.
There’s a constant need in me, because I have uprooted so many times in my life, to define and delve into what it means to belong, what it means to rest in a place I know and love, with people I know and love. It’s a funny feeling, coming home after a homecoming. I already miss the Mojave in February. It’s like a phantom limb of my heart…that dried up, mummified old place — wind bitten and sun scourged, rain flogged and dirt dusted. It’s a wildly elemental place, bare and brooding, and quaking with life if you can manage to look past the crusty surface of things. I never thought I would say it, perhaps I wasn’t ready to admit it, but I must tell you, I just love those good old Mojave Desert, February times.
I, too, lived under the harsh Arizona sky because of a biologist man who is still my partner. I, too, loved and hated it. What I miss and also hated the most was the persistent struggle for work. The constant hand-to-mouth state we lived in, despite all our hard work and willingness.
I, too, miss it, and am totally jealous of your trip. Maybe I’ll wander back out there this summer.
Maybe it’s a love and hate thing…in any extreme climate? I don’t know. But Arizona was hard for me. I’d rather be sitting in my turnip greens in a snowbank in -40F than standing on a rock in the full sun in 130F. Fact.
I love when you list the places you’ve lived. I was born and raised in the same house, lived there until I went to college. The same house was my permanent address from birth to age 21, when I officially moved into an apartment (I never count dorms, they always felt like camp to me and not a home) and tried living on my own. When we moved out of Illinois, back to the South Carolina city my husband grew up in, I cried because my whole sense of where I belong was so tied to flatland fields and the overturned bowl of the sky, of being able to nearly see the curve of the horizon from the slightest high point, because there were so few of them.
I spent about the first year here being miserably homesick, not just for my family but for the land I knew best. I’ve had to learn to love the mountains (we live in the foothills, only about forty minutes from Table Rock), but once I allowed it, they gripped me tight.
I’ve read a lot about the desert, both as a facet of the history of the peoples who lived there before modern times and as a shaper of modern peoples. It’s always described as an environment that makes or breaks a person; you can’t be soft and live in the desert, because it bakes all the soft out of you.
I think that’s about 80% true, from what I can see. It bakes all the soft out, bu then it gives you those gorgeous cactus flowers and the purple of the sunset.
Oh, it does its baking…it does its baking.
AND…I gasped aloud when I read, “the overturned bowl of the sky…”
Poetry.
Those landscapes are amazing.
It’s hard to imagine how it must feel to actually be there. ( I’ll still give it a go tho, as my imagination loves to run wild!)
I come here every now and then to have a peek on what you’re up to. And you always suprise me ( in a good way!)
Oh, yes, and well greetings from Finland!
it’s funny how time can change our perception of things if we let it. my first year of marriage uprooted me from the monterey bay and dropped me in the high plains of eastern colorado, a remote and desolate place where i knew no one. my deep soul loneliness was matched only by the ferocity of the raw elements of landscape and weather. i made it back to the city and stayed there long enough for the damaged places to heal and to be able to see the truest beauty of nature as being that untouched by the hand of man. with a softer soul i no longer need the city and am content to have inched my way a little closer to those plains with a deep respect for those who eke a living from the land. you have helped to move me along my path, and for that i am grateful.
I am pretty sure that I could not live in the desert but I loved it every time I visited…and I still do. The intensity of it. Perhaps you fit in so well because you lived in the deep cold too. It is so nice to know the extremes and then enjoy the in-betweens. I recommended that my friend move to AZ because I loved it so much and I think she has hated it. I know why…she came from the land of humidity and greenery…none of that there…and I think to her the climate is reflected in the culture too.
Lovely photos…so glad you refurbished that bit of the Indian Res. They have it so tough even now.
Happy Monday dear J
xx
Your photos are pure magic. You should be writing a book 🙂 But maybe you are. I hope so. Your writing is wonderful.
I think that feeling of nostalgia and wistfulness can come from either a hard place, or hard times. Even in the hard times, there is beauty, but it is often not seen until much later, looking back.
RW and I always say that the worst experiences make the BEST stories. 🙂
Oh, dear Plume, thank you for those gorgeous pictures and your wonderful stories. I lived in AR (Tempe) when I was young and don’t really remember much about it except for when we would have flash floods and all the kids would play in the water out in the street– the best for a kid! Our clothes would be dry by the time we had hung them out on the clothes line, and all our neighbors were very kind. I wasn’t in the ‘outback of AR’ by any means, but have nice memories of the desert— couldn’t beat the thunderstorms there. Thanks again for your poetic pictures and words. (you have created my very, favorite site)
Gosh.
Bless you.
Sunset. Moonrise. The desert uniting the two. All so beautiful, as are your words which bring so much life to that which seems to exist in the in-between. (I think my green bones would whither there, too.)
xxx
I find the desert beautiful at night. I would love to visit it in the winter, when it is bearable. I adore, indeed I feel I need, the change of seasons. There’s a rightness to feeling the shift of one season changing into another. Cycles.
Hope you are very well, chickadee.
Oh how I have been soaking up the sun and the warmth in these last posts (and in your work)
How wonderful to have visited and lived in so many interesting places.
I have not travelled very much or very far – so I have relished these (for me) exotic tales from you!
I feel like I should say THANK YOU!!
(Oh and do please somebody – offer this woman a book contract!!!)
xx
YES! PLEASE!!! SOMEONE OFFER ME A BOOK CONTRACT!!! 🙂 With a big advance. So I can take a full year to write write WRITE!
gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous……write on, babeeeeeee! xxx
You brought me in to your former home and the land you lived on… and it heartens me to know there are beautiful months out in the desert worth reveling in. I imagine every place has at least a month where everything works for it. 🙂 Gorgeous photos!
love
always
magic
love and light
ps…love the sweater!
So gorgeous. Thank you for sharing this, Plume. xo
You described the burning Arizona sun to a ‘T’ having lived in this burning land since the age of five, i long to spread my wings and fly, somewhere, anywhere. Maybe a place thats green and cold, a place i can grow a garden, a place to have a farm. pretty much anywhere but where i am. As much as i want to leave, i know the desert will always be my home.
These last few weeks the weather is turning, i always want the cold to stay as long as possible, but there is something in the air, right around february and march, when i can have my doors swung open, the crisp air permeating every corner. the birds are singing, and i am feeling alive.
You crazy girl! Rob and I had a thriving garden when we lived at Achii! We had a winter and summer garden with different kinds of plants for each season. You can do it!
Egads! Look at you in that sweater, cowboy boots, stepping into that day glow yellow sunset!
And that ocotillo, too. Pure liquid sunshine, all of it.
Your description of life in all the harshness, scorch, rattlers…that unforgiving but glorious land. Even though it was trying and even though you hated it at times, something tells me, you wouldn’t want it any other way.
“RW and I always say that the worst experiences make the BEST stories.”
This has to be one of my favorite stories this year. XXOO
Oh my desert goodness! I have lived in the desert my whole life! 2 places, Bullhead City and Tucson for four years of college, Bear Down Arizona! Oh boy can I relate to that heat you describe, and how true and right-on are you that February is one of the most beautiful months to live here. I am enjoying the March wildflowers right now. The wildflowers this year are simply beautiful beyond explaining. I think my heaven is thousands of wildflowers and little puppies. The best way to survive summer here in the BHC is to grab a tube, a big hat, sunscreen, and a frosty beer and catch a ride down the ice cold Colorado River. By the time you get out, you are dry! HAHA
Beyond amazing.. the photos and the work you are doing. I wish I could gift everyone I know with one of your rings or necklaces!!
Of course, I’m so glad you wrote this, as I distinctly remember hearing it from your own lips. Of course, I’m so glad you went. Of course, you wore a CANADA sweater in Arizona.
The bloomiest of writings thus far…thank you…
Thank you so much for sharing your stories, they are absolutely wonderful! You bring such a lovely, dreamy joy to my morning coffee 🙂
Hey everyone! I just want to tell you THANK YOU for reading this post, sharing your thoughts, and for being so kind.
X