Old ladies are bad-asses

When my mom and I were in ruralish China--a crazy, godless place (there is truly no judgement in this statement) where cars slow for no man, woman, child, or traffic signal--we would wait for what seemed like days to cross a busy street. Mostly people would wait until enough of us had amassed and then we'd all cross together--safety in numbers and all. Sometimes there simply weren't enough people for an effective human shield, and small groups would take their chances darting across. It was like a giant game of frogger (Atari fans and old people know exactly what I'm talking about) with lots of people "playing" all at once. If you are young enough to not remember frogger (some people's kids... jeez), I'll old-people nerd at you; it's a very simple but harrowing game in which you win by not getting hit by oncoming cars as you try to hop across the street. This is, of course, all done with a joystick. You can ask another old guy about those. So China was like that, but for freaking real and while dragging my overly analytical mother along. (Wasn't she cute in the seventies?)

Life and death is no time to analyze. If you spend too much time thinking about your options, a decision often gets made for you. When someone pokes at you and shouts, "Cake or death?" it is in your very best interest to react quickly and shout back at them, "Cake, please!" You don't stop and ask what flavor, or if anything is perhaps gluten-free. 

While my mom was content to wait all day to cross with the other street crossing zombies, I would look around for the littlest, oldest, scrappiest peasant lady I could find and practically grab onto her with one hand and grab my funny little confused mom with the other hand and we would cross when that little old lady crossed. I figured that any little old lady walking around alone had not gotten old by being timid, dull, slow, or reckless, and I was right. Not a single old lady got herself or us killed the whole time we were there. We all got across the street to the market and back home safely every time. Cake. Not death. 

How on earth does this relate to our current adventure? Yes, like the rest of our journey, it might take us some time to circle back and figure this one out. Indulge us in a bit more rambling, if you will. We are right now in Seattle. 

Tomorrow morning we pick up our 26' Penske moving truck and watch a couple of strapping young men load everything we own into it from a storage unit that is bigger than the truck (this should be good). Then we drive back to the desert with our big, giant desert hairs, many of which are turning gray and have been for several years. WTF? 

The daffodils are starting to bloom just now in the Emerald City. The lights here are splendid. The food is varied and exquisite. People we really like and love are here. And it feels so wrong to be anywhere but the desert, especially this beautiful city. We are missing the slow, dry, dusty, tactile peace of Tucson right now. There is a low hum of constant analysis in the Northwest, the buzz of caffeine and minds that never quite spin down. When I am here, my brain is happy and busy and firing on all cylinders (this admittedly may not be very many cylinders), but my body--this dog in which I live--rebels. 

This rebellion against constant surround-sound activity may be me getting old, and this may be a very beautiful thing. My body wants to feel calm, to move gently through a still space. I crave a lower frequency, whatever that means. My big hair wants to turn gray and float around my head and catch ideas as they come out. As you might imagine, this is also a slow process.

These gray hairs I am growing so prolifically the past few years feel right at home in Tucson. When I look at them in the desert, I feel lovely, as though I am finally growing into myself and finding a place to live in my body as much as in my mind. 

This idea of aging in the desert is surprisingly blissful. While youth is largely celebrated in America, the desert only celebrates that which endures. New, sweet life is adorable, but not precious. The giant saguaro cactus is protected and revered. One hundred years is nothing. Being born isn't enough. Potential isn't impressive. Everything that was ever born begins as nothing but potential. This world perhaps requires much more, and the American desert is refreshingly frank in its demands: to survive, to thrive in spite of everything, to persist with grace, to insist generally without malice on living, to adapt, to soak up every bit of life you can and hold onto it for leaner times, to drink water and take sun, to make a place and grow roots and ribs and spines, to feel thirst honestly and without shame, to be still, to be tough, to be wild, to endure and keep growing. The desert, like old age, is no place for sissies.