“What matters is not wealth, or status, or power or fame, but how well we have loved.”

~President Obama

10 Things I Love About Tucson

I love our diversity

We are black, brown, white, red, blue… and every hue in between. We are academics, artists, craftspeople, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, laborers, researchers and so much more. We are bisexual, gay, lesbian, straight and transgender. We are Agnostic, Atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Wiccan. We are human. We are more alike than different, but savor difference.

I love our respect and appreciation for the environment

Surrounded by natural beauty, we embrace and access the wonders of the outdoor world and the uniqueness of our harsh desert climate; and we try hard to preserve these gifts and bounties.

I love our commitment to helping the less fortunate

Just a few examples: Angel Charity for Children, Assistance League, Big Brothers / Big Sisters, Casa de los Niño’s, Community Food Bank, Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, Conquistadores, Gospel Rescue Mission, Habitat for Humanity, Ronald McDonald House, Wingspan, Worldcare. 

I love our appreciation of the arts.

We teach the arts in our schools. We boast a number of well-supported amphitheaters, galleries, museums, theater companies, theaters. We have a world-renowned center of photography, a poetry center, frequent art walks, open studios, the street fair. The list goes on.

I love our investment to research and technology.

We boast industry leading businesses and facilities in the fields of, among others, bio-diversity, business administration, cancer research, engineering, integrative medicine, optics, and water resource conservation.

I love our healthy lifestyle

We are amongst the fittest, healthiest people in the country. We have a great respect for our own personal vehicle ~ the human body.

I love our work hard ~ play hard ethics

From early childhood through the senior years, Tucsonans can participate in sports and athletics at all levels of competition. We host the headquarters for the National Handball Association. Numerous Olympians hail from and/or train here. We send large contingents to The Senior Olympics and have dozens of running clubs and training groups. Hundreds of thousands flock to our soccer fields and bicycle routes ever year. And we adore our Arizona Wildcats.

I love our relationship with wildlife and domestic animals

We know how to live in harmony with bears, mountain lions, bobcats, javelina, coyotes, rattlesnakes and others.  We teach our pets to live in harmony, too. We are home to a number of animal sanctuaries including Casa de Los Gatos, Forever Wild, Heart of Tucson Horse Rescue, Hope Animal Shelter, Ironwood Pig Sanctuary and the Tucson Wildlife Center.

I love our small town atmosphere

It’s cliché, but it’s true. Tucson is the country’s biggest small town. It seems that everybody knows everybody in Tucson. And we care about each other.

 I love our desire to do better. ~ And we will.

Pliny The Elder, the noted Roman writer and natural philosopher, said “Figs are restorative. They increase the strength of young people, preserve the elderly in better health and make them look younger with fewer wrinkles.”

Bring on the figs!

Figs symbolize abundance, fertility, sweetness. Like a ripe and ready, fecund woman. The most mentioned fruits in the bible, figs also played key roles in ancient tales of love and seduction. Not surprising. Figs are sexy. Consider the words used to describe figs… Fleshy, Luscious, Rosy, Satiny, Smooth, Succulent. You get the picture.

Figs. I love them. Have I made you think twice? If so, take a look at some of mine:

Inspiration:

The Fig

by Gabriela Mistral, as translated from the Spanish by Maria Jacketti

Touch me: it is softness of good satin, and when you open me, what an unexpected rose! Do you not remember some king’s black cloak under which a redness burned?

I bloom inside myself to enjoy myself with an inward gaze, scarcely for a week.

Afterward, the satin opens generously in a great fold of Congolese laughter.

Poets have not know the color of night, nor the figs of Palestine. We are both the most ancient blue, a passionate blue, richly concentrating itself because of its ardor.

I spill my pressed flowers into your hand. I create a deaf meadow for your pleasure. I shower you with the meadow’s bouquet until covering your feet. No. I keep the flowers tied – they make me itch; the resting rose also knows this sensation.

I am also the pulp of the Rose-of-Sharon, bruised.

Allow my praise to be made: I nourished the Greeks, and they have praised me less than Juno, who gave them nothing.

Love.

One of my favorite topics.

I’m big on it.

I’ve been in various stages and ages of love with the same man for nearly 34 years. I loved him intensely way back when. I love him intensely now. We met in high school, went to nearby colleges, and married when barely in our twenties. We had a mortgage at age twenty-five and three babies before I was thirty.

It was those babies, as they grew, developed and became the people they are now, who taught me about the greatness, the hugeness, of love. With each one, I wondered “Could I possibly love another person to the degree that I love this one?” And as each one came into being, I experienced the expanding nature of love.  If one is open to the possibility, love is never-ending, unlimited, and I think, eternal. It grows and it grows and it grows, if you let it.

Through some challenging times as the matriarch of a family, I learned, among other valuable lessons, the wonder and truth of unconditional love.  I learned that people aren’t necessarily their actions or their choices; and that it’s my duty, indeed my blessing, to love them regardless of the path they walk in the world. This wasn’t an easy lesson. It took staring into the chasm of near-death to soften my heart and my soul. How lucky I am that they did. Selah.

As my children bring others into their lives and into our shared world, my love is extended. How can I not love someone who so clearly loves my child? Or someone my child so deeply loves? It grows this way, love. It extends to others and surprises us with its intensity. The world, I’ve learned, is filled with people I do love, could love, would love.

As I age,  I realize and recognize a love that always is, a love that encompasses my essential self. I feel deeply for people I’ve long-known, as well as some I’ve newly met. I feel connected to others in a way that makes me wonder about life here and now, and life in the past and in the future. I consider the possibilities that I knew and loved in another way, in another time and place, in another life and realm. I thrill at the ongoing, undying qualities of love, leading forward and backward across the spectrum of existence.

When inclined to judge or begrudge, I remind myself to love. I’m better in every way when I function this way. I feel love and know it’s what I was created to feel, what I’ve evolved to be, what I AM.

I love Love.

And I love this Erica Jong quote:

“Love is everything it’s cracked up to be… It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.”

So I will continue to fight, and try to be brave, and risk all that I have, for the glory of love. Because it is everything it’s cracked up to be… and then some.

Birthday Season. That’s what we Nelson’s call the weeks between mid-March and early April. In those weeks, we celebrate the days on which my three children made their earthly entrances… March 16, March 25 and April 7.  Wonderful days, those.

I’ve always known I’d be a mother, not an unusual belief for a woman of my generation. Thing is, I’ve always known that I’d give it my all, that raising kids would be one of my great endeavors. This was not typical for a bright, academically-inclined woman coming of age in the late 1970’s. I was expected to do great things, change the world, ACHIEVE. Thing is, by raising my family, that’s exactly what I did.

The Good Husband (TGH) and I fell in love completely and early. I knew by age 18 that he would be a good partner and parent, and that he would father my children. I spent the next several years learning the skills necessary to be a good parent myself.

When we married, just after I finished student teaching, we had a “first baby in 5-years plan.” Didn’t work out that way.  Daughter #1 arrived 13 months later, changing our lives forever, and for the better.

Two weeks overdue, I was thrilled when TGH arrived home from a three-week assignment on an oil rig that was a day’s travel away.  Happy to be reunited before b-day, we spent the next day walking through the gardens at The Huntington Library, and I went into labor at ten o’clock the next night. TGH slept while I dozed and dreamed of what lay ahead. By eight the next morning, I was ready to go to the hospital where we spent the next seven hours cosseted in a labor room. We labored away while outdoors a spring storm raged and the teen in an adjacent room heartbreakingly raged, “Get this thing out of me! I don’t want it! Mama, make them take it out!”

I was equally anxious to complete the task at hand, but by gum, I was going to do it with strength and dignity. I’m big on dignity. I faithfully practiced my Lamaze breathing and knew without a doubt when it was time to push. And push I did. Daughter #1 popped into the world after 16 hours of labor and only one contraction’s worth of pushing. The most beautiful baby born that day (seriously – lots of people told us that), D#1 snuggled on my chest while the doctor stitched me up; and I was sitting Indian style in the middle of my bed, eating a full meal  three hours later. Birthing at age 22 is easy. So is recovering. I wore all my old clothes by the time D#1 was ready for her 6-week check up. Let me tell you now, that never happened again!

Three years later (perfectly planned so that I, an elementary school teacher, could be home until the new baby was 6-months old), Son-The-One-&-Only was born. Arriving nine days after big sis’ birthday (again, planned… didn’t want immediate resentment of a new sib), he was, like all of my babies, about two weeks late; but he wasn’t supposed to come that day either.

Early in the morning, March 25, 1985, TGH and I trekked to the hospital for a scheduled Fetal Non-Stress Test. Since I was overdue, my ob-gyn wanted to make sure the baby was still nourished. While lying on the table, wide monitor strapped across my bulging belly, I felt a familiar twinge. “I think I’m starting labor.” I told the attending nurse. Laughing, she patted my shoulder, saying. “Honey, you will not be having this baby today and may not have it this week. You’re not even close.”

Trusting the experienced professional, TGH and I began the thirty-minute drive home. But before we reached our freeway off-ramp, my contractions required focused breathing. Once home, TGH made additional babysitting arrangements for D#1 and I paced the family room, keeping time.  Two hours after leaving the hospital, we were on our way back. Labor was so advanced I couldn’t sit comfortably, so I lay down in the backseat. TGH paled. He did not want to deliver his own child on the shoulder of Southern California’s Interstate-10.

We arrived. He parked. I got out of the car. “What can I do? What should I do?” Asked TGH. ~And this is how I know I was “in transition” (And you thought PMS was a bitch. If you don’t know, look it up) ~ “Just shut up and walk, God Damn It!”  He did.

Back in the same hallway, I looked at the same nurse. “I need to push!”

No rooms were available.

“I still need to push!”

I was literally guided around a corner and given a gown in a back hallway. Completely without shame, I stripped bare, put on that gown and hauled myself onto the skinny little gurney that the shocked nurse provided. The on-duty doc checked me, announcing, “She’s right. She needs to push.” And so I did. Right there in the hallway, as well as in the short maze of not-at-all private hallways that the nurse and TGH trundled me through. My privates no longer were. Without thought or hesitation, I pulled my knees to me ears (I’m very limber) and I pushed. I pushed so hard, I broke dozens of little blood vessels in my face, neck and chest, and was instantly dotted with tiny red and blue bruises. By the time we got to a room, he’d arrived.  Three hours of labor from beginning to end. Quickly stitched up, I was immediately wheeled back into a hallway and the next delivering mom entered the room. Busy day in labor and delivery.

In a dark, quiet hallway, I cuddled my baby boy, whose smell was uniquely his own and whose adoring face wrought true that a mother can love more than one child with all her heart. Two decades later, when he nearly died, I stood in another little room, breathing in his wonderfully unique smell and hoped that my adoring face proved to him that my love was and always would be unconditional and pure. I think it did.

With a boy and a girl, TGH and I thought we might be done, but two years later I had a dream. In my opinion, it was right up there with MLK’s. A young woman visited me in my sleep and pronounced herself my daughter. She also made clear that she was awaiting my cooperation and was ready for this earthly sphere. I know. A little “woo-woo.” But true. The next morning I told TGH and, as has always been the case, he supported me. A few months later we were expecting another girl.

On D#1’s 6^th birthday, as I ushered the last party guest out the front door, my body set things into motion. But it was early; I hadn’t expected it. And I shouldn’t have. For the next three weeks I remained in mild labor until my doc did some blood work and determined that my body wasn’t producing enough Oxytocin for the process to progress. He invited me to come to the maternity ward the next morning at nine where he began an IV “Pit-drip.”  Like clockwork, I was in the delivery room in three hours flat.

That’s where the drama began. With each contraction D#2’s heart rate became erratic. When I was fully dilated, my doc plunged (I’m frickin’ serious here—plunged!) both hands into the birth canal to figure out what was going on. “Don’t Push!” He shouted. “Stop pushing. The cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck.” I didn’t push, but it was darn hard not to. Deftly, the doctor turned the baby and released the cord from her neck, then told me to push. I did, and she flew on out. Really—she propelled. Thank God the doc was a good catch.  And then she cried. And she cried. That baby cried so long and so hard that the nurses refused to allow her into the nursery. Fortunately she got it all out early, and proved to be the easiest baby of all.

So there you have it. Three babies born in six years, when their mama was 22, 25 and 28. And now, as of today, my babies are 22, 25 and 28. Seems like the right time to tell their birth stories. I hope this is the right time for you to tell yours. Please use the comment function here or send me an email with your story attached. Let’s share the wonder and the glory of every birthing story.

I learned much of what I know from my 98-year old grandmother. First in her lap, and then in her kitchen and garden, I learned a lot. I heard words and songs, stories, prayers and poems from a woman to whom most sound remained elusive. Deaf from age eight, when chicken pox, measles, and scarlet fever joined forces to ravage her body and damage her auditory nerves, my Gram introduced me to both the wonder and the power of words. The relationship coalesced, and I’ve had a love affair with the written word ever since.

Outdoors, I learned the joy of working in tandem with the seasons, with the earth, with indeed, the universe.  I learned how to grow almost anything from seed or seedling, to compost, to harvest, to cook and preserve. Then Gram taught me how to conserve and re-build resources, to encourage and support the natural cycles of life. Later, when my life challenged me in ways never expected, I took refuge in the garden. The bounty of Gram’s lessons filled not only my pantry, but also my soul, repeatedly renewing my spirit. Through her actions and examples, I learned to open my heart and my mind, and to anticipate and embrace the promise of abundance and hope.

The lessons I learned in Gram’s vegetable plot and flower beds, the truths discovered in her orchard and kitchen, have carried me through lean times, both financial and emotional. I learned to have faith, to nurture patience and to see the unique wonder and beauty in every living thing. I learned to discover individual value and to look for the good and praise it. I learned to love without condition, accept despite disagreement, release judgment and anger, and to walk with my head held high. My gram taught me a lot.

She taught me how to fry the chicken everyone wants at a potluck, the secret to a good “biscuit hand,” and how to make the best vanilla ice cream and deep dark fudge. She taught me to play Aggravation and Scrabble and Kings in The Corners, and how to be gracious in victory and defeat. She taught how to baste and hem and sew a straight seam, keeping the stitches close and tight and the fabric pucker-free. She imparted the value of long, drawn-out suppers where conversation and love flow back and forth across the table just as surely as the tide rolls in and out. So many lessons. Blessed gifts.

Pondering all that Gram generously bestowed, I’m behooved to ask “What was of greatest value?” The answer is quick, pure and true. The best gift given, the most valuable lesson learned is the wonder of Love. Unconditional, unfettered, unabashed Love. Because she loved me so completely, I learned to love that way too. Lucky me.

Facing the latest in a long line of temporal assaults, my sweet Gram left the hospital yesterday for a physical rehab facility, following a fall and a broken hip. Always soft-spoken, non-judgmental, forgiving and accepting, Gram (also diagnosed with Alzheimer’s) has recently displayed some atypical characteristics. Pain, frustration and dementia pushed her to “damn” the physical therapist “to hell”  (!) when he made her walk just 24-hours after surgery.  With a wide smile and dancing eyes, the young PT who already calls Gram “Grandma,” said to my mom, “She’s the feistiest patient I have. She’s amazing us all.”

That’s my Gram ~ Amazing.

Always has been.

Love…

My friend and fellow writer, V-Grrrl, wrote a compelling post about her dealings with depression and the healing and supportive effects of social media. I invite you to read her story. 

In response, I penned the comments below:

I first wanted to die at age 7. Prayed every night that I’d not awaken in the morning. For the longest time, I blamed my inner turmoil on a wildly tumultuous family life laden with violence and abuse and tears.

Through my thirties, the “dark debilitator” and I never parted company. I read scores of self-help books, ate right, got plenty of sleep, avoided alcohol, sought counseling, never toyed with drugs and practiced every holistic recommendation.

Still, He dogged me.

Despite the fact that, once an adult, I enjoyed every blessing and achieved every goal, I fell into the abyss on a regular basis. Climbing out was a monumental feat that nearly broke me time and again.

When the first of two of my children became chronically ill, I finally told the doctor the dirty details of my thirty-year battle with the beast. Her response? “This is a biological illness. All you’ve done has helped, but only medication will set your chemistry right.”

Enter the vanquisher- a prescription antidepressant. Over the last ten years I weaned myself off of it several times, thinking I could manage on my own. Finally, I accept it as my saving grace. On it, I AM me. Without it, He wins. Fuck that.

If it ever stops working, I’ll get myself to the doctor and find a new weapon. I love being me. I’ll never again willingly give up myself.

If you think you might suffer with depression, make an appointment with your doctor. Seek help. Feel better.

* "Black Dog" is a colloquial term for depression.

I garden avidly.

When I was a child, my now 98-year old grandmother introduced me to the magic of coaxing food, medicine, scent, and sensation from seeds planted in the earth.

Gram lived a few blocks from my childhood home (in which my mom still lives) and I could walk to her place in minutes.  In my first book, A Desert Gardener’s Companion, I share a few of my happy-memory stories:

~ Gram supervised while I planted bulbs in her front bed to earn my Brownie Girl Scout Handbook.

~ I learned to double-dig alongside her in the vegetable plot of her half-acre garden.

~ All the girls in the family made jams and jellies from home-grown fruit in Gram’s tiny but efficient kitchen.

It was at the dining table in that same kitchen that I first perused stacks of seed catalogs with color-rich covers cradling packet descriptions and hundreds of  varieties possessing distinct and unique qualities. I loved those catalogs then, and I love them now.  But these days my favorite catalogs and companies are online.

I recently ordered seed from Botanical Interests, enticed by their Facebook page , our Twitter connection and their inspirational blog posts.

Botanical Interests is ”a family owned garden seed packet company specializing in dependable herb, flower, and vegetable varieties for the home gardener.” Always pleased with their products, I expect this year’s choices to perform just as well.

Bring Home The Butterflies,  Xeriscape Extreme and Perennial Bloom promise to be great additions to my newly-installed bird and butterfly garden. Just outside the massive bay of windows that define my work space, I’ve planted lots of seed- and berry-producing plants to entice the desert’s insect and avian creatures.

When interplanted with the Guara,  lavender, Loropetalum, Plumbago, Pyracantha, Salvia and others, I’m sure the nectar-producing florals these selections boast, along with the baby’s breath, Nasturtiums, Penstemon, and poppies, will be utterly adored.

And I will adore the creatures they attract.

I just hope the raptors

…and the coyotes

…and wild cats

mind their manners.

Bless the beasts…

I AM in the minority and I know it. I like Mondays.

Every Monday marks the beginning of a new week when everything seems possible. I reflect on the gifts and good times I’ve just enjoyed, find peace and purpose in the new day, firm up plans for the upcoming week and anticipate the blessings that I know will be mine. But as a child, I absolutely relished Mondays. 

Monday marked the beginning of the school week and I loved school. Monday plopped me into my element; and for the next five days I could learn and read and play, and do my best to please the adults around me and hide my truths from the neighborhood kids. Mondays marked the first day of safety, freedom and relief. Back then, beginning Friday afternoon at three, I kept my inner eye on Monday as the weekend loomed ahead.

While, for most kids, weekends meant parties and movies and happy, family fun, for my siblings and me, that was only an occasional truth. For us, Friday night through Sunday, 7 p.m. was a time to be endured. During those hours my dad, plagued by psychic dragons never slain, tormented his family. A mean alcoholic, he’d start drinking during the drive home from work and wouldn’t stop until he passed out at day’s end. During the week, he got up and went to work in the morning, and the rest of us went about our days with cautious, contained calm. We laughed and played and fulfilled our responsibilities in relative contentedness.

On weekends, our world changed. Friday evenings were tolerable because Dad was celebrating the end of the work week and his attitude was fairly upbeat. Bad things did not usually happen on Friday. But as the weekend rolled on, the firestorm would brew, and it grew.

So long as we were quiet, Saturday mornings were sometimes safe since Dad, nursing a hangover, retreated to his shop or CB radio desk, and kept his distance from four kids and all that they meant. Often, he was still feeling the previous night’s buzz when he drank his morning coffee. Two cups down, he’d switch to Coor’s talls with salt on the rim. (When the Teamster’s banned Coor’s he switched to Bud; and I wonder if he, a rabid homophobic, ever understood that he joined the increasingly influential gay community in “showing those non-union bastards.” Ya gotta smile.)

Come noon, the looming tension felt like a physical threat. By three, name-calling began. If we were lucky, he took a nap in the late afternoon and we got a time out. If not, the day was really long. At five, criticism and demands regarding dinner ensued. By seven we were “stupid, lazy, sons-o’-bitches,” “fat-assed good-for-nothings,” or some equally inadequate sort. As the sun went down, his fiery malevolence rose, fueling an illogical anger that propelled hatred, fists and leather belts.

Sundays, I tried to escape because they were scary and depression enrobed me. This “Sunday Sadness” remained my norm for decades before I figured it out and let it go. Because control was my dad’s favorite tool, getting away was never easy. “No,” was his favorite word. So I chose to go to my grandparents, go to church, study, do a school project or read. Anything to prevent our paths from crossing. Often I heard his ranting, but avoided the inevitable physical end. 

Sunday nights were often blessed because by then he just passed out. We’d nurse our wounds, spiritual, emotional and physical, while we watched “The Wonderful World of Disney”   in relative peace and look forward to the next five days. And then Monday came. As a child, I absolutely relished Mondays.

A sea-change is at hand and creative women are riding it’s waves toward fulfillment. The prevailing economy and socio-political currents prompted us to tighten our belts, recycle, reduce, reuse and return to basics. These same forces also inspired us to re-examine our essential selves and search for meaning and purpose. For many, meaning and purpose are deeply rooted in creation. We are painters, crafters, writers, photographers, binders, builders and believers, who of late, have often drifted in a sea of confused focus.

But… Aha!

Something is in the air.

Thanks to the stars, the moon or some mystical cosmic shift, the tide is turning.  Encouraged by new possibilities on confident winds, we depart the doldrums and venture into the shipping lanes. No longer adrift, many artist friends have renewed enthusiasm for artistic expression and also recognize opportunities to test their entrepreneurial savvy. Navigating uncharted waters and embarking on uniquely individual voyages, artists of all ilks enthusiastically dive deep and follow unfamiliar sea-routes toward the next new world.

It’s a Renaissance of sorts.

And it’s happening everywhere.

Keep your spyglass in hand. Be awakened and aware. Sightings of brilliance are inevitable.

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Here are a few interesting artists, their stories and endeavors:

Jane Devin: One Writer No Address

Veronica McCabe Deschambault at Compost Studios

Art by Chrysti at The Altered Abbey on Etsy

Joanne Vanbezooyen, Designer

Check ‘em out!

How do they relate?

How are they manifest in my life?

In me?

Many doubt the two can co-exist. Some value one over the other.

Here’s my take:

I AM a passionate woman. Always have been. I feel in a big way and get big ideas. And I AM compelled to act.

For me, passion without action is just so much hot air.

I do not choose to tell you ‘why’.

I choose to show you ‘why’,

Create ‘why’,

Be ‘why’.

It is through action that passion achieves it’s acme.

Without passion and the ensuing action, I could never find serenity. I would be restless and searching and unfulfilled.

Calmness of mind…evenness of temper…cool, clear composure…and yes, inner quiet and stillness and peace are only possible when I know I have acted, rightly, on my passion.

Serenity is mine when I know I have done what is required.

So, yes…

I AM passionate.

I AM a woman of action.

I AM serene.

I AM!

*Passion — feeling very strongly about a subject or person.