Note to readers: I know, I know - my picture placement, sizing, etc. leaves everything to be desired. I'm learning. Bear with me. My writing is much better . . .
The desert can be a very deceitful place especially if you are unfamiliar with it. I was born in a desert and it always upset me to hear people say "There's nothing there." It didn't make me angry-upset; it confused me and gave me not a little pity for them. For I had sat in the backseat of our family car and ridden through Death Valley in the summer time and seen the same thing they had seen. They saw nothing; I saw space.* I saw ground that allowed growth in the most unlikely places. I saw sky uninterrupted by steel-constructed sky scrapers (which, to me, scraped the sky bloody). I saw potential - not like a land "developer" (read: ruiner) would. I saw true freedom. Freedom to wander forever, to let my feet go one way and my thoughts go another. I saw privacy - a necessity. If you live in the uncivilized desert your contact with people is rarer and more deliberate, not forced daily.
The desert doesn't give much to us, we must hunt and gather to receive its offerings. We have to look closely to see that gila monster or snake since they so ingeniously blend into their environment, unlike we humans. It takes some work, sometimes, to see things in the desert. And we don't like to work, do we? One cannot live unconsciously in the desert as one can in a city where there is always a sign telling you explicitly what to do and where to go. The signs in the desert are more cryptic.
Part of the nothingness people see is their perceived lack of color in the desert. The desert isn't obvious with its sharing its many colors.
These two plants are the same type of plant seen at diferent angles. What a difference in color!
The greens of 
the cacti are dusty and soft. The mountains are a strong and quiet granite-blue. Ireland is praised for it's forty shades of green. No one sings of the deserts forty shades of tan and brown. Again, it takes thought 
to see color in the desert unless it is sunrise or sunset when the sky edges the darker land under the purple mountains with an orange-peach-pink glow. It takes thought and effort to see the color in the desert - that lizard is not the exact same shade as that rock! - unless the cacti are in bloom. That is as aggressive as the desert gets with its color. Maybe it's stingy. Maybe it saves the treats for occasions instead of spoiling us. You can learn appreciation in the desert.
When I was 28 I left the desert for Minnesota and North Carolina - both of which are about as polar opposite as one can get from Phoenix. Minnesota's cold shocked and hurt me after Phoenix's intense heat. The moisture of North Carolina soothed me but made it a challenge to look good in the humid summers.
When I lived in Phoenix I drove around in a convertible with the top down - no air conditioner - all summer long. It felt good. After years of living in Minnesota and North Carolina my routine February trip home somehow migrated to July. The heat and the sun's intensity were not as comfortable any more. I had gone from one extreme to the other. The last summer I was in Phoenix it hit a record 122 degrees and when I arrived in Minnesota they had the famous "Halloween Storm" when it snowed a record 28+ inches before the plows were ready for winter.
Not only did I have to change outwardly in buying a new wardrobe I had to change inwardly in my attitude toward the extreme weather. All this while learning to navigate a new city, find a new job and new friends.
the cacti are dusty and soft. The mountains are a strong and quiet granite-blue. Ireland is praised for it's forty shades of green. No one sings of the deserts forty shades of tan and brown. Again, it takes thought 
to see color in the desert unless it is sunrise or sunset when the sky edges the darker land under the purple mountains with an orange-peach-pink glow. It takes thought and effort to see the color in the desert - that lizard is not the exact same shade as that rock! - unless the cacti are in bloom. That is as aggressive as the desert gets with its color. Maybe it's stingy. Maybe it saves the treats for occasions instead of spoiling us. You can learn appreciation in the desert.When I was 28 I left the desert for Minnesota and North Carolina - both of which are about as polar opposite as one can get from Phoenix. Minnesota's cold shocked and hurt me after Phoenix's intense heat. The moisture of North Carolina soothed me but made it a challenge to look good in the humid summers.
When I lived in Phoenix I drove around in a convertible with the top down - no air conditioner - all summer long. It felt good. After years of living in Minnesota and North Carolina my routine February trip home somehow migrated to July. The heat and the sun's intensity were not as comfortable any more. I had gone from one extreme to the other. The last summer I was in Phoenix it hit a record 122 degrees and when I arrived in Minnesota they had the famous "Halloween Storm" when it snowed a record 28+ inches before the plows were ready for winter.
Not only did I have to change outwardly in buying a new wardrobe I had to change inwardly in my attitude toward the extreme weather. All this while learning to navigate a new city, find a new job and new friends.
Last Monday, September 13, 2010, I began repeating this process in Tashkent. There are a few more variables this time - new language, new food, new cultures (both the local culture and the Embassy culture).
My life is so different today than when I lived in Phoenix. I'm married. I am unemployed. I have all the freedom in the world to do and learn and experience. I am different within myself. I am much more disciplined, less selfish and more broad minded. I never again want to live as I did in Phoenix yet I can't help but wonder if something - even one aspect - will come full circle in my return to the desert. 
The vans you see are ours. We are standing on an ancient fort built of mud.
The vans you see are ours. We are standing on an ancient fort built of mud.
*I recently read a book by Mary Doriah Riley called "Children of God". In the book a signal is heard from space. The sound is of singing. A group travels through space to make contact with a planet's known inhabitants. One of the members of the team is a linguist who, after listening to the singing, figured out a good deal of the language. These beings do not have a word for 'ceiling', 'floor', or 'wall' even though their structures have all those features. They refer to their dwellings by a word that indicates the space within those peramiters. I thought that was very interesting.
Yesterday we drove down the coast of Oregon, from Tillamook to Bandon, today it's on to the redwoods of California. I keep thinking about you as I take in the verdant growth all around me. You're experiencing new things all around you: new climate, new city, new language, new culture to try to find your place in. You must be exhausted at the end of each day, but maybe there's some exhilaration, too, as you realize that you really can do this. When Pete and I first got to Dresden, we kept saying to ourselves, "We can do this!". Prayers going up for you both, as you keep saying to yourselves, "We can do this!" Much love from us both.
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