This Desert Life

When I grow up I want to be a nomad. By growing up I mean when my kids grow up and go off to college and beyond, when my longtime and lifetime companion and I, otherwise known as my wife because straight people are allowed to legally marry, get to become free agents and do whatever we want to do. Our kids have attended the same school system since Kindergarten, and will graduate from high school in a few short years from that system. It was important to both of us for that to happen because both of us had essentially the same experience growing up. But when our daughter moves on and leaves the nest empty, I want to become a nomad.

Of course that requires being able to earn a living, and since goat herding seems to be a hard hit industry in today’s economy, I’m hoping that writing will provide the income that we need to live our lives as free as we want to. I’m not talking about some grand plan to take the nest egg like the movie with Albert Brooks and buy a big RV, I’m talking about living in different places for a year, or two, or however long we feel like living in a specific spot until we feel it’s time to move on.

We are both on board, namely because while we love the desert life and what it has to offer, and while it has been and continues to be a great place to raise our kids, neither of us have ever felt that this is truly our home. It’s one of the reasons we decided to pack up our belongings and strike out for the upper Midwest when Chloe was only a few weeks old. We came back to the desert a couple years later, but the restlessness is always there. We want to experience different places and different lifestyles and to meet different people. Maybe we’ll find a place that is the perfect fit, maybe we’ll end up right back here in Phoenix, or perhaps we’ll just spend the rest of our days as nomads, soaking in as many experiences and good people, local customs and cuisines as we can find.

But for now we are desert dwellers, and that ain’t such a bad life either. The hardest part is living in a very red state, it may not be the deep south or Montana, but in the spirit of Governor Palin, it feels like you can see those places from your backyard. While there are some very good and decent Republicans, mainly what I call the intellectual conservatives who are well read and have philosophies that are thoughtful if not always on target or realistic, there are also many knee-jerk, reactionary, social conservatives, and a lot of them seem to live in my neighborhood.

There’s also a lot of churches in my neighborhood, and while not all churches are inherently lacking in toleration and diversity and respect for people of all shades and stripes, say like Jesus was, many are and I can’t help but believe that in a mostly middle class neighborhood where demographically the population would seem to trend overwhelmingly Democratic, that the church influence doesn’t have a large effect on that. The churches we have are of two main varieties, Mormon and Mega, and for my money both are one step below cult status. They are divisive and produce people who tend to marginalize those that are different from them, many of whom have been very vocal, and often grossly misinformed as to our new president-elect as well as the issue of civil rights for gays and lesbians. That said, I also know some good people and have friends that are Mormon or attend the Mega churches, so I am certainly not trying to indict everyone here, but all things considered I’d prefer to live in a place with more cultural centers and less tax exempt compounds.

Yet despite the proliferation of social/religious conservatives and more churches than Circle K’s, which if you know Phoenix is really saying something, this desert life still ain’t all that bad. The natural beauty and scenery where I live is first rate. I can get in a great hike or trail run within a couple miles of my house, and my views are of desert buttes and a surprising amount of green trees and other flora, or is it fauna, I never can remember. The wildflower bloom in the spring along the trails is breathtaking, and for this panentheist is proof positive of the existence of God.

The weather for six months out of the year is the best this continent has to offer, mild and mellow, with mostly blue skies and sunshine throughout the late fall, winter, and early spring. The weather the other six months of the year, well, not so good, but it’s November as I write this and that hot stuff is a lifetime away right now. My winter coat is a slightly insulated flannel shirt, I can wear shorts on most days, and things like long underwear, snow shovels, and ice scrapers are not even in the equation.

And back to the people, there are also a lot of good old-fashioned friendly people here in Arizona and I’m sure many of them are even church goers too. Phoenix is a pretty friendly town, and I run across people constantly while I am out and about, hiking the local trails, hanging out at Starbucks, sitting in the park by the downtown library on my lunch breaks, running errands, attending various events and activities of our kids, or just being out among the populace. Most people out here are enjoyable, as I believe most people everywhere are, and while this is no small town, I am on a first name basis with many of those whom I see on a regular basis at the places that I frequent.

It is also pretty easy to meet people in the desert, the overall climate here is pretty laid back and easy-going, which fits in quite well with my own attitude, and certainly with that of my partner and our kids. I find Phoenix to be somewhere in the middle of the other two places that I have spent considerable time, it is more sophisticated and diverse than small town rural Iowa, but less pretentious and stuffy than big city Southern California.

So why leave all of this and become a nomad? Because there might be other places that are even more suitable, and even if it turns out this is the best fit for us, it will have been a blast to experience different lifestyles and to get to know different cultures and ways of living. The desert is a big place, but the country is even bigger, and the world even bigger still. Who knows what the future will hold, and I can think of much worse places to end up in than the Valley of the Sun, but if things work out as I hope, I’ll be a nomad by the time I’m 45, which is probably as close to being grown up as I’ll ever get. And if writing doesn’t pan out and the books I write never sell, there’s always hope that demand for organic goat cheese will increase and turn the herding industry back into a viable option.