Valley writer Audrey Treon didn’t have to travel far from home to realize how much she appreciated it.
AUDREY TREON: The dogs are boarded, my father’s run back to the house for “one last thing” for the final time, and the five of us have packed ourselves and our belongings into the family SUV.
Finally, we’re on the road to New Mexico, one too many Vera Bradley duffel bags at our feet.
My sisters and I, born and raised Arizonans, all students on winter break, weren’t necessarily thrilled about driving eight hours from Phoenix to Albuquerque just two days before New Year’s Eve, but we were excited for a mini family reunion.
Late December is always a limbo period. The festive period has passed and I don’t particularly love New Year’s celebrations — I get too in my head. Ironically, the road trip gives me time to ruminate.
Ellie and Sophie came a long way, both go to school in the UK. I took a 15-minute Uber ride from Tempe, plagued by incessant thoughts of post-grad life and where that life will be. So here we are.
The first quarter of the trip goes by rather quickly. I am watching the second season of "Breaking Bad" on my phone, seeing as I am going to Albuquerque. My sisters sit in the two bucket seats. I'm in the middle back. I like to think it’s fitting — middle child in the middle seat, but I know it’s my shorter stature dictating the decision. Ellie is dozing, Sophie’s got her nose buried in "Jane Eyre."
I find it all too easy to compare myself to the two sisters I have, middle child and all. I know Ellie is listening to cool, ahead-of-the-times music; and that Sophie is gaining brilliant insight from Charlotte Brontë. I’m re-watching a show that I nearly have the dialogue memorized to.
Comparison is uncomplicated. These eight hours are proving a fact I know to be true: The rest of life is quite complicated.
Walter and Jesse are having a meth cooking-related argument, but I’ve seen this show five times, so my mind wanders. In the 13 years since I was last in New Mexico, I have grown to love Georgia O’Keeffe, statement silver jewelry and spicy posole.
I like to think the five O’Keeffe posters that line my wall miss me as I miss them. Having nested hard into my apartment — my dad emphasizes how I am not a light traveler, on vacation or in life — I grow a deep pit in my stomach when my thoughts turn again to post-college life. What will I do with all my posters once I move out? The thought plagues me.
But I can pack my silver jewelry collection into five sandwich Ziploc bags. I used to remember where and when I purchased each piece. Now I’ve lost track. Most of them come from Arizona.
Those few things are my claims to fame as a born-and-raised Southwesterner (and I’m from Arizona, not even New Mexico). Not much else.
Being from Arizona meant that come spring and summer break, you and your high school friends flocked to the beaches of Puerto Peñasco and San Diego. That is where I got to practice being someone else. Someone who didn’t live in Arizona.
Around Apache County, surrounded by desert, my dad, practiced lawyer and practiced family-orator, interrupts his Tyler Childers radio station to give a speech about how we’re lucky enough to have grown up in the great Southwest. He points to a lone, three-armed saguaro cactus as he talks. Only a few years ago, I would have scoffed at that comment, unsure of what was so lucky about torrid summers, beige stucco, scorpion stings and bad high school experiences.
About six hours in, the sun has set. That is one thing that doesn’t change from Arizona to New Mexico. The sunsets force you to look.
But now I’m 21, a grown-ish woman learning to be appreciative of it all — the torrid summers that mean pool days in the Valley and camping trips upstate. The beige stuccoed house where my grandparents watched all the "Tom and Jerry" reruns with us kids and still host Christmas dinner. The hot nights spent scorpion hunting with my dad and his black light, still avenging my mom who was stung 10 years ago.
The navy, starlit sky hugs the metal of our speeding car and we are two hours till Albuquerque. There are few things in life that beat the crispness of a 45-degree desert night. I’m especially appreciative of Southwest winters.
And while I can’t say I’m necessarily grateful for the bad high school experiences, I’m still here, sitting in the car with my family, driving through the desert with a license plate that proudly showcases that Southwestern sunset currently on display in the rear view window.
We get into the Airbnb around 8:00 at night. Grandparents, cousins aunts, and uncles welcome us with bottles of half-drunken wine and many “Sláinte’s!” I take my glass to the front porch and sit in the cold December night, watching my breath escape my mouth. The Airbnb has a ristra hanging from the roof and underneath, a set of patinated turquoise French bistro chairs and table. The vastness of the desert night embraces me.
A few days later I fly back to Phoenix. Sitting in the window seat, I raise the flimsy plastic cover and see nothing but terracotta mountains.
Now, I like being a Southwesterner.
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