"Purple flowers bringing on the Butterflies"
painting by Margot Rose, posted on her blog, with comment
"94 Degrees, probably last day of season for painting out doors"
(little did any of us know, it would turn freezing 2 days later)
“Sonoran desert early morning” (first holiday summer weekend)
It is Monday but not Monday, because this is holiday weekend. So Monday is another Sunday but even more intense, because it is the second Sunday in a row, and because the public swim pools are closed for the holiday. However it is a beautiful early morning. The big bad desert summer is on its way, sposed to arrive within few days, but right now, right this moment, it is glorious. It is cool delightful wonderful beautiful perfect morning. The birds are all singing. The green leaves are translucent green light. It really does feel like heaven on earth has arrived, this is the world of paradise.
The bluest of skies, the brightest of yellow sunshines, everything anyone could want.
And who knows about the big bad desert summer. It arrived last week and we all giggled to each other and said THE HEAT IS ON. And then there was the most surprising development in the world. A very bold, very big freezing storm blew in, temps dropped 50 degrees in one hour. For 3 days we shivered and turned on space-heaters and dived into long-sleeves and got out extra comforters to sleep under. It was darkly cloudy, and it rained off and on. We swam in freezing cold water in the public pools, and were so happy when hot water in shower ran down our back. We went from too much heat, too much sunlight, too much of everything one loves, to not one bit of it at all. Only animals in their fur coats delighted in the sudden extreme change of weather. So now that the morning of paradise is back, and tv is showing advent of BIG HEAT arriving day after tomorrow, we have new attitude. It turns out we are desert rats, and do not want cold cloudy summer. I did not mind it when I was kid and we summered in the Adirondacks, because I had summered there ever since I was born, I was 3 months old when they first took me for summer in Adirondacks, and I spent the next 12 summers there. I had no idea summer could be anything else, my only experience of summer was in this mountain hamlet.
And the 3 days the storm blew thru Tucson last week was exactly like summer in the Adirondacks. And as much as I love and miss the beautiful northern woods, the beautiful Adirondacks, with their wondrous lakes and those pine tree forests-- there simply is nothing like blue sky and sunshine, and being able to wear a minimum of clothes and have that lovely air blowing all over your skin. I would not trade it now. All the pics my dad took of me as kid in Adirondacks, show me in dungarees and flannel shirt. Yes obviously there were beach days but it wasn’t a summer of beach days. I’m not saying it was 90 percent like that wild storm which blew into Tucson last week, but it easily could have been half and half. That is what the weather was like when the sun wasn’t out, and the sun was not out a lot.
The Adirondacks is an enchanted paradise too, and I am glad I have it locked away in my mind and can revisit it in my mind whenever I want. But I would not want a summer now which is all about trying to keep warm. That is what the Tucson winter is all about, and why we long so much for it to end.
But it’s nice to know the Adirondacks is still there keeping on keeping on. Like the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, it is undisturbed wilderness, and nothing seems to change that aspect of it. Even if I no longer want to summer in a northern paradise, it’s nice knowing that wondrous world of waterfalls still remains as pristine as ever. And the wondrous hardy folk who live there, still reign over this glorious kingdom, and the animals, so many animals, are undisturbed.
But Annie is desert rat now and I live in the land of sunshine. Here it is a constant dance with the sunshine, the sunshine is your lover, you are always embraced by it. It kisses you when you wake up, and holds you in its warm sweet loving arms all day long. Yes the Adirondacks is great, and so are the mountain men and mountain women who live there. It is like the Scottish highlands. But a whole life of being loved by the glorious sunshine, from morning to night, day after day, a world which dazzles with light, and the crystal clarity of desert beauty. And birdsong as crystal clear as in a concert hall. What can you say, we are given an incredibly beautiful planet to live on, with every possible kind of climate terrain and delight. If you want to canoe thru beautiful northern waters, with mountains rising on either side, and those sweet little islands in the middle. And sandy shores to swim on where the lakes gently lap. And that sweetest thing of all, the soft sandy lake beach, with lake in front of you and mountains around you. Or you can be sparrow hip-hopping from branch to branch, here in the cool lovely morning of Sonoran Desert with lovely sun kissing you.
There is every kind of paradise on our planet. The Sonoran Desert and the Adirondack Mountains are only two of the choices, but there are hundreds even thousands of variations of paradise on this sweet planet of ours. Eddie lives in Caribbean paradise, Helen, his sister, lives in Pacific paradise, and when I read Isak Dinesen’s book “Out of Africa,” I swooned at the description of her paradise. There is no forest like the primeval African forest, that is where all the fairy tales began. The animals who live deep in that forest are the most wondrous kingdom of all. That is where Alice’s wonderland takes place, and the world our children’s books are filled with. Where the Great Hare of the Forest lives with his family, he is the Mayor of the forest so very important. No one ever sees him. But if you are very deep in the forest, where no one ever goes, and you are very lucky, you see him strolling with his family, his wife in front with him, his children behind. And you hold your breath. O that primeval African forest, where Babar lives with Celeste, where Curious George hangs out. That forest is like no other, it is the heart of our planet.
But we inhabit where we inhabit, and for me it is the world of morning doves calling to each other all day long. And sparrows hopping from branch to branch right out my window. We live very intimately with the birds here. They are our constant companions. They are always arriving on my window sill and hopping in to eat my toast on my desk. When I sit here looking out my window, it is they who I constantly see flying about, sitting about, landing about, being about. They are always in that tree right out my window, they love that tree. They chirp and play with each other all thru the cool early morning and when it gets too warm, they go back to their nest and doze. They love sleeping in the warm sleepy sunshine, in their sweet happy nest. And inevitably I guess our life mirrors the life of the sparrow. We too are up at dawn, delighting in the cool summer morning and going about our activity whatever it is. And we too siesta when the afternoon becomes too hot and drowsy, in our own cool comfortable nests.
Just the simple life of a sparrow on the desert but it suits me to a T. And a sweet little fluffy doggie sleeps on my bare toes as I write this, with fur as soft as feathers and all his happy warmth. Lit up iridescent green leaves right outside my window, sparrows chirping as they hop along the ground, soft feathery dog on my bare feet. Ours is the simplest of all the paradises on our sweet planet, and we are the sparrow and morning doves who inhabit it.
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