Tucson Arizona

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I’ve lost my husband to the desert. It’s true. We have desert in Australia too, but why he is so in love with the desert here in the USA remains a mystery.

Maybe it is that here in the southern parts of Arizona, there is a monsoon season. Flying across the desert on the long, lonely highway in the darkness we hurtled toward the fantastical display of an electrical storm, cracks of lightening shocking the night sky first blue, then pink, then red. The long, stiflingly hot days roll into afternoon thunder storms and brief, heavy downpours – just like my days growing up in Queensland, Australia. The angry clouds empty their grey, bloated bellies – filled with Mexican waters, picked up on their journey up the Baja Peninsula – over southern Arizona. The nights are balmy and sexy.

Or maybe it’s that in this part of the desert, thousands of cacti stand over 15 feet tall, like sentinels guarding desert treasures. The only place where the Saguaro naturally reproduces, the Senoran Desert resounds with abundant life under a cotton-candy decorated, vibrant-blue sky.

Then again, maybe it’s the music on offer or inspiration for it. Bands like the very awesome Calexico, and artists like Neko Case and Howe Gelb call Tucson home. Perhaps the desert revealed its secrets to them too. Maybe this is how they translate its vibrations into magical music.

Maybe it’s one or all of these things that draw those with vision to it. Blink and you could miss this unique little gem.