Two Days in Tucson, Part I: Homecoming

My body remembered the heat, my hands on the wheel remembered the roads.  And my friend Greg and I laughed about old times when we were in rock bands together here, twenty years ago.

After two days in Tucson, I felt right at home.

On a journey to exotic new places, marqueed by Tierra del Fuego, passing through Tucson was the great exception: a gravity well of old associations and complicated reactions.  I was nervous about it.  Sara and I lived here for almost the whole of the 1990s, and of course every association was tinged with memories of her, of us.  I had never been here alone.  How would I deal with it?

By falling right back into familiarity and comfort, that’s how.  Granted, after a week on the road it was nice simply to stop in one place for a couple of days.  But Tucson is an oddly welcoming city to me; it makes me oddly happy to be here.  I say oddly because, of course, it’s June.

Yes, the temperatures were WELL over 100 degrees—and this wasn’t a heat wave, it was just June in Tucson.  I remembered it so well that I almost liked it; at any rate, I re-adapted to it quickly.  The hot air actively embraced my body, like wearing clothes an instant out of the dryer, and automatically I possessed a 12-pack of water bottles and knew to leave the car door open for a few beats before getting in.  I walked the shops on 6th Ave in the afternoon sun and drove to Greg’s studio with the Miata’s top down, and it felt bizarrely normal.

And thanks to my reunion with Greg, I was too busy to wallow in memories.  He played me the new songs he’s writing and dug out our old ones to toe-tap along with, and I helped him assemble an IKEA wardrobe he’d just bought. 

We ate lunch at Baggins and dinner at Delectables, and met one last time for breakfast at Bentley’s before I hit the road.  All “old favorite” places for “us” (Bentley’s an especially potent one, for various reasons), but because I wasn’t alone it was fine.

I also found Tucson a wonderful city for a Miata.  For ordinary purposes it’s a crazy and basically impossible city: a 227-square-mile exercise in horizontal retail sprawl under the blazing sun, connected by avenues that in most of the country would pass for superhighways, at Brobdingnagian distances that make walking anywhere require a Conquistador’s endurance.  It’s a city designed for cars, in other words, so why not have a fun one, and it’s a city where the sun always shines, so why not have a Miata?  I was worried about its systems in the heat but it did fine, and there was no point even trying the AC at 109 degrees so off we zoomed without it.  My little car forgot all about rainy Seattle and wanted to move here full time.  I almost did too.

I did indulge in chasing old memories a little.  I hunted up the building with our first apartment, which was still there, and our favorite used bookstore, which wasn’t (it had merely relocated).  I took my favorite night drive to the city overlook way at the top of Campbell Avenue, where the superhighway lanes narrow to a little mountain road and the lights of the whole city are spread out below; the drive was even more fun in the Miata, but in 20 years other people had caught on, and my secret retreat was now a teenage makeout spot with a special parkinglot. 

But in general I absorbed the special magic of the desert like a sponge: the ocotillo-spiced air, the cactus gardens even on city streets.  Tucson is an ugly city but at the same time a beautiful one.

Was I too attracted to Tucson because I’m nervous about crossing the border?  I’m all out of USA; the next stop is Mexico.

It’s true that I’ve grown accustomed to the comfort of the USA, where I can usually find a Denny’s if not a Starbucks, where gas stations are at regular distances, where I don’t HAVE to put the security club on my steering wheel when I leave the Miata unattended downtown.  I admit that in my secret heart there’s been a Plan B where I just explore the back roads of the U.S., Blue Highways style, and stay within range of my AAA protection and Mazda dealerships.  Tucson represents the moment of truth.

But I think this pause, this homecoming, was the breather I needed before plunging ahead.  The familiar was nice.  Now I’m ready for the exotic.