Last week, I made a last-minute trip to Tucson. My Nana has been in and out of the hospital, and while it was nothing critical, the ongoing nature of her sickness concerned me enough that I felt it warranted a visit.
I got a late start on Wednesday which meant that I was crossing the Arizona state line around 6:00 p.m. I always love this moment of crossing boundary lines, regardless of where I am. I feel like I’m stepping from one world into another. This is especially true when I visit my hometown. To my surprise, I was greeted by the setting sun and fields upon fields of yellow wildflowers. While this is not uncommon in the desert in Spring, it is uncommon to see so many. As I drove past them, I realized just how special it was. (I currently live in Texas and at this time of year, roadside wildflowers are varied and plentiful. Bluebonnets are a protected species for crying out loud! Texans loves their flowers. )
When I arrived to my childhood home and told my mom about the flowers, she said that I should take a drive through Gates Pass, a scenic Tucson drive, to see all of the orange and purple flowers in full bloom. It did not disappoint. I wanted to get pictures of it all, but I was so caught up in the moment, lime Eegee in hand (wait, what’s an eegee?!), that I just enjoyed the scene in front of me instead. It was the first time in weeks that I felt relaxed and at peace.
As I made the long drive back to Texas yesterday, I had some thoughts about the wildflowers and myself:
- I was born in the desert. I never realized how special desert people are until I moved away. Desert dwellers are hardy and adaptable. They can withstand 40 to 50 degree temperature changes between night and day. This was my experience between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Saturday’s temperature reached 83 degrees and the overnight temperature was 36 degrees! They know how to go with the flow and take what comes at them.
- Desert dwellers are resourceful. They make do with what they have (sometimes with very little) and they do it with grace and dignity. They have learned to make the most of what they have…think mesquite flour and prickly pear jam. Nowhere else would someone see a spiny pink orb on a cactus and think it was meant to be eaten The desert has little water for the people, plants and animals it sustains and yet, in those moments of want and need, desert people seem to thrive the most.
- Desert people have mastered the art of appreciating the small things. In the desert, the summer is long and the winter is brief. This is one of the first years in decades that has seen large amounts of winter rain, cold weather and even snow! The unexpected cold, wet winter brought with it a plenitude of spring wildflowers that have painted the desert in yellows, oranges, reds and purples not seen on this scale in years. In spring and summer, the desert is green, alive and in bloom, as if to seduce the monsoon season into blessing her with more rain. The light dances off the mountain ranges with each rising and setting sun. It’s almost as if the sun brings color to the desert that if often missed during times of hardship and drought, when even the hardiest and grateful of desert people stop seeing green and only see the brown of the desert floor.
As I drove back to my Texas home, I realized the depth of my Arizona roots. The blood of the desert flows through my veins like the monsoon rains flow down months-dry river beds. When the summer rains feel like they are months away, I stand tall like the saguaros. And just like the wildflowers across the desert, I, too, will bloom when the time is right.
Do you have wildflower pictures to share? Post them in the comments below!
Oh wait, one last thing…the pretty images you see on this post? Yeah, I added those after I wrote the paragraph above because I couldn’t post without them, so I’m sorry if I got you here because you saw smiles and roses and cute babies. But now that you’re here…
NEVER want either of them to feel like I was belittling their roles or relationships because of me, but here’s the thing…
This afternoon, on a whim, I went to an afternoon viewing of Coco. This was the second time I saw it and I fell even more in love with the story and characters.
Choosing a Word of the Year
My Challenge to You
What do memories really mean for someone with Alzheimer’s?
Several years ago, my family realized that the forgetfulness and memory loss affecting my Tata was more than forgetting a name or misplacing an item. The kind of forgetfulness he was experiencing was uncharacteristic for him. My Tata spent 20 years in the Air Force and could remember the names, dates and places of important information with little more than a moment to think about it. He could recall memories with such clarity and detail that even the slip of a name was surprising. As his frustration grew, we realized it was time to see a doctor. At the beginning of their first appointment, the doctor asked my Nana and Tata a set of ten simple questions. He continued with their conversation and circled back around to the questions at the beginning of the session. My Tata was unable to remember more than a few of the questions. To the doctor, this signified more than just senility, but the onset of Alzheimer’s.
When asked about his military days, my Tata could tell stories for hours. He will tell about his time spent in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. He talks of the bases he’s worked at from California to Arkansas to New York and all the way over to Spain. He will tell you every detail of the planes he’s worked on, but the most important was the plane he worked on the day of May 6th, 1974. When he tells this story, which is often, he starts by speaking of the plane and being in Vietnam when the war ended. “I’ll never forget, we received a memo that said “The war is over. Cease and desist all operations and prepare aircraft for return to McClellan AFB.” His eyes fill with tears and he gets choked up remembering that plane. If you’d like to see the plane, click 
As I was looking at my calendar today, I was completely overwhelmed by my daily schedule…my work, my assignments for the college classes I’m taking, the webinars and seminars that I’m taking, the work trips that my boyfriend is scheduled to take, even the spa appointment that was meant to help me relax and rejuvenate. All of these to-do’s have gotten way out of hand, and I know it. And yet, here I am, justifying why each of them is important and why I can’t cancel them.
As I was listening to Day 1 of this meditation, Deepak said something that connected with me. We make excuses about our time management skills, not because we don’t have the time or ability to be good stewards of it. The question should not be “where did the time go?” but rather, “where did the opportunities go?” I immediately thought about all of my own personal “missed opportunities”, ahem excuses, for why I wasn’t making myself available to the things and people I love most. To my boyfriend asking if I had time to watch our favorite show together or to my friend wanting to meet up for lunch or to myself when I need to take some time for myself…all of these are times when I should have paused, evaluated and asked: is this the opportunity I need to be taking advantage of in this moment? Is this opportunity opening me up to greater patience, relaxation and awareness if I take advantage of it? What does the person I love need at this moment and am I best serving them (and myself) by stopping to enjoy right now? Sometimes, the answer will be no. Sometimes the best course of action is to stay focused and on track with my schedule, but other times, I need to make myself more available to the present moment and the opportunity it’s offering me.
What about you? Do you find that your schedule is packed with activities that are causing you stress instead of bringing you joy? Are you struggling to say no, not because you can’t say no, but because you don’t know what to say yes to? Is the issue bigger than a busy schedule and more connected to your fear of what will happen if you slow down?
him nodding that I got it right. Dad and I always played this sort of game where he would ask who was singing the song that was blaring on the radio. Sometimes, I’d get it right. Many more times, I’d get it wrong.
