that's what Rob Brezny's Freewill Astrology horoscope advised for us Capricorns last week. Not only did I embrace my yins and yangs but I caressed them, fondled them, made slow passionate love to them. Okay, not really. But I certainly paid attention to them and marveled at the horoscope's appropriateness.
Culture shock was to be expected had I visited Portland, a city where I had lived for 20 years (micro-brew swilling fine-wine imbibing rain-drenched city-walker) from a trailer park in southern Arizona (draft-beer guzzling chicken-fried-steak-eating sun-bleached desert-crawler), but going to that city in the Pacific NW from this little Mexican fishing village was more than culture shock...it was almost an electrocution, a near-death experience of all I thought I had held dear.
The food choices astounded me. Olive or asiago bread? Black Diamond or Colby extra-sharp cheddar cheese? Terminal Gravity or Stone IPA? Dolcetto or Montalcino? Bombay Sapphire or Tangueray martini? Peppered or limed sea salt? The vegetables that are always 'in season'. Chinook salmon or fresh-caught Albacore tuna? The coffeehouses. Restaurants Caffe Mingo or Mingo II? Sugo de carne or pork loin over garlic mashed potatoes?
I was bowled over by the opulence. How quickly I had forgotten what city-life was like. As much as I like Tucson, it doesn't come close to 'city'.
The bookstores. The happy hours. The wine bars. My most fabulous friends. All conspired to bring me back.
A week later, as my plane made its descent into Tucson, we crossed over a rainbow. The monsoons had been in full fierce force. As I walked through the concourse I passed the airport bar where cowboy-hatted caballeros conversed in quiet tones over tall drafts. Outside the terminal I was greeted with strikes of lightning and rumbles of thunder. About 10 miles south of Tucson, I smiled, my mood as expansive as the vista. I was home.
But I wasn't. In a few days I had to head to my little trailer on the Sea of Cortez. I had just spent nearly two weeks of non-stop people; I now faced alone-time to the extreme, at least for another two months. I didn't know how I would feel when I crossed the border into Mexico.
After the military and policia thoroughly searched my van, the four-hour drive went smoothly. I enjoyed the continuation of the Sonoran desert. I slowed down for those axle-wrenching topes. I vowed to buy a copper pot on my final return to the U.S. I passed through a pounding and blinding 5-minute thunderstorm to emerge back into full sunlight under blue skies.
I pulled up to my trailer which looks dingier than usual, my bike more rusted, pelican poop streaking down the trailer walls. I opened a pale ale and turned on the AC in my closed-up tin can. I set to scrubbing the kitchen sink which was covered in rust marks. Then I started the unpacking process: books, condiments, gin, toilet paper, skirts for the Seri women. My neighbors invited me over for pizza, caught me up on the local gossip of which there was only one bit: the gay guy with cancer got into a fight with his boyfriend and took off in the van for the U.S. and had a stroke and so the boyfriend pulled out their rig and they are no longer here.
The military trimmed back the palms in front of my trailer, using the fronds for their palapas. The sea is high. It has not rained here.
My daughter and I are often on the same wavelength..."home is where I want to be...but I guess I'm already there."
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