The Show has spent the last year exploring the Sonoran Desert. As we head into the final season — winter — we’re sharing a collection of essays about life in Arizona called Saguaro Land.
Arizona writer Noan Dublinski explores her surprising relationship with the desert.
Several years ago, I received an email. The subject line read: "Tapestry Research: Your DNA Insights are Ready."
It had been months since I had agreed to participate in the study, and honestly, I’d forgotten all about it. I clicked open the email and read: "Go build a snowman! You have a specific genotype associated with a cold climate adaptation."
In other words, I am genetically suited to living in colder climates. I’d never felt so validated in my entire life.
Over the 30-plus years I have lived in the Sonoran Desert, I’ve often had reason to say to my husband: "Wow, it is hot out." To which my husband would reply: "It’s not hot." To which I would reply: "Well, I feel hot."
I grew up in the Midwest, and after graduating college, moved to Arizona for a job, never planning to make my permanent home here. But, as the story goes, I met and fell in love with a boy, a boy who loves the Sonoran Desert. We married, and I happily agreed to make our home and raise our daughters here in Arizona. But I never stopped missing the seasons of the Midwest, and I struggled to acclimate to the desert heat.
I always told myself: "When we retire we can relocate to a cooler climate." I am from Irish peasant stock, I would remind my husband. I’m not meant to be traipsing across caliche soil dodging jumping chollas. I’m meant to be wandering upon misty moors.
Then finally, a year and a half ago, I retired and the oddest thing happened — I found myself reluctant to leave my desert home.
While I had spent years focusing on the parts of desert living I found challenging, I had failed to acknowledge all the things about the Sonoran Desert I had grown to love — watching the monarch butterflies flock to our milkweed in the fall; listening to the great horned owls hooting as courting season began each winter; the explosion of color when the wildflowers bloom each spring; and the intoxicating scent of creosote after the summer monsoons.
Initially, I struggled to reconcile this love for my desert home with my visceral need for snowfall and frigid wind gusts. Then I realized, now that I am retired, why can’t I have both? I could visit friends and family living in snowy climates. And we could welcome those same loved ones to spend time with us here in the Sonoran Desert. So, since my retirement, that is exactly what my husband and I have been doing.
Recently, my niece came to visit. We went kayaking on the Salt River, we hiked in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, we sipped margaritas in the jacuzzi. And on the morning of her departure, she looked up at the pink and orange sunrise splayed across the desert sky and said: "So, you just look at that every day? Wow," she said, "I would love to live here."