I'm a hopeless nostalgic, a homeless romantic from the Valentine state. The 48th. Some call it the bottom, last of the lower and the ass America speaks out, but I beg to differ. I say, Cupid saved the best for last. Think about cactus. They grow in dirt like the rest of us, only hardly need anything to survive where everything else dies. Hell with roses, lovers oughtta give each other cacti.
On February 14th, 1912, Arizona became America’s Valentine. In 1989, the cutest girl in second grade asked me to be hers. Her name was Capri. Mom cut my hair after school, and I skipped my bath for a shower the night before to spiffy up for my big day.
Capri made a face when she saw me in the morning and said, "You got a haircut."
I nodded.
My homemade card in hand, she added, "You're not my Valentine anymore," and I began to understand what a desert feels like.
It hasn't always been so dry. Arizona used to be the bottom of an ocean. No joke, go for a hike and you'll find seashells on mountaintops that haven't seen rain in six months or more. That or coral that looks like petrified snake shit. That's the beauty of it. Where water once ruled, land fought back and won. Cracked earth drowns beneath a sea of sky and mountains brushed with creosote, the smell of the sun on the wind the only sound.
It's home, and I'm not.
"A to Z, nothing beats The Five Cs." That's what they taught us growing up. Copper, Cattle, Cotton, Citrus, and Climate tempted Americans west before air conditioning seduced my grandparents into their Cadillacs, Mom and Dad in their backseats, separated by a state. They met in high school, had my brother, bought three bedrooms with a nice backyard, then I was born. Copper mines dried up as suburbs poached ranches, cut cotton, and squeezed citrus into roadside planters. More people need more water, and people need the water more, even if they waste it. But I never did. Drank a gallon a day, savored every sip while the world withered around me, and I grew.
Then I left. From The Valley of the Sun to The Big Shitty, traded The Five Cs for every letter in the alphabet. Started writing to remember. Now whenever I go back, I see what I’ve forgotten. Cactus forests crumble where memories took root, and I'm reminded what we have in common: skeletons, spines, and everything dies. Only there's a ring of creosote in the Mojave that's almost 12,000 years old, still growing strong. The desert forces things to find a way. Mine was to get the hell out, snap at the stem like a tumbleweed and roll.
Now Nicole and I are back in Brooklyn after our first trip home in a year. Went to meet a buddy's baby, the first in our family of friends, and tell everyone why we don't have one. Mom was on a walker when we got there, and Dad could hardly walk when we left. She fell twice in November. He threw his back out wiping grease off the floor the night we made carne asada for fake Christmas. Through it all, I ended up learning to accept the fact we might move back, to be patient with Mom, get Dad into a back brace, pick citrus, sit on the patio, slow down and drive a hundred miles a day, reminisce about the future with my wife beside me, stretch out and enjoy the space and quiet of the state I was born in.
They say all roads lead where the heart is, but you can never go back home. Well what if it's the other way around? What if the heart's home, and no one ever really leaves? Sure, tumbleweeds tumble, town to town at the whim of the wind, breaking apart and picking up what sticks 'til nothing's left but dust. I tumble too, but my roots are tough as the earth they feed from, fused with deathless creosote and towering saguaro, waiting for the day I finally return to my deserted Valentine.
On February 14th, 1912, Arizona became America’s Valentine. In 1989, the cutest girl in second grade asked me to be hers. Her name was Capri. Mom cut my hair after school, and I skipped my bath for a shower the night before to spiffy up for my big day.
Capri made a face when she saw me in the morning and said, "You got a haircut."
I nodded.
My homemade card in hand, she added, "You're not my Valentine anymore," and I began to understand what a desert feels like.
It hasn't always been so dry. Arizona used to be the bottom of an ocean. No joke, go for a hike and you'll find seashells on mountaintops that haven't seen rain in six months or more. That or coral that looks like petrified snake shit. That's the beauty of it. Where water once ruled, land fought back and won. Cracked earth drowns beneath a sea of sky and mountains brushed with creosote, the smell of the sun on the wind the only sound.
It's home, and I'm not.
"A to Z, nothing beats The Five Cs." That's what they taught us growing up. Copper, Cattle, Cotton, Citrus, and Climate tempted Americans west before air conditioning seduced my grandparents into their Cadillacs, Mom and Dad in their backseats, separated by a state. They met in high school, had my brother, bought three bedrooms with a nice backyard, then I was born. Copper mines dried up as suburbs poached ranches, cut cotton, and squeezed citrus into roadside planters. More people need more water, and people need the water more, even if they waste it. But I never did. Drank a gallon a day, savored every sip while the world withered around me, and I grew.
Then I left. From The Valley of the Sun to The Big Shitty, traded The Five Cs for every letter in the alphabet. Started writing to remember. Now whenever I go back, I see what I’ve forgotten. Cactus forests crumble where memories took root, and I'm reminded what we have in common: skeletons, spines, and everything dies. Only there's a ring of creosote in the Mojave that's almost 12,000 years old, still growing strong. The desert forces things to find a way. Mine was to get the hell out, snap at the stem like a tumbleweed and roll.
Now Nicole and I are back in Brooklyn after our first trip home in a year. Went to meet a buddy's baby, the first in our family of friends, and tell everyone why we don't have one. Mom was on a walker when we got there, and Dad could hardly walk when we left. She fell twice in November. He threw his back out wiping grease off the floor the night we made carne asada for fake Christmas. Through it all, I ended up learning to accept the fact we might move back, to be patient with Mom, get Dad into a back brace, pick citrus, sit on the patio, slow down and drive a hundred miles a day, reminisce about the future with my wife beside me, stretch out and enjoy the space and quiet of the state I was born in.
They say all roads lead where the heart is, but you can never go back home. Well what if it's the other way around? What if the heart's home, and no one ever really leaves? Sure, tumbleweeds tumble, town to town at the whim of the wind, breaking apart and picking up what sticks 'til nothing's left but dust. I tumble too, but my roots are tough as the earth they feed from, fused with deathless creosote and towering saguaro, waiting for the day I finally return to my deserted Valentine.
Photo by Jez Arnold
My State first appeared in Having A Whiskey Coke With You, Vol. 1 Iss. 8, February 2012
Download a copy here: http://havingawhiskeycokewithyou.tumblr.com/
Download a copy here: http://havingawhiskeycokewithyou.tumblr.com/
