I used to say:
“How could anyone live in the southwest? How could a person be happy without seasons? What about sweaters? What about watching the leaves change in autumn? Arizona is where retirees go to turn themselves into fruit roll-ups. I’ll pass.”
Then I came here in winter.
Today was a glorious 60 degrees. While the East Coast was getting buried under 30 inches of snow, and Chicago was frozen at 25 degrees, D.W. and I carried groceries (our melon and soda and bread) home in the sunshine. It didn’t feel false.
There are seasons here. The mountains influence the air, the desert exerts its personality on the climate in a different way each day. It’s not a baking wasteland, at least not where we are, in this gulch. At night, when you go out to look at the masterpiece that is the starry sky, it’s chilly; so I do wear my sweater. What I don’t do is cry frozen tears into a scratchy scarf because snow slush has gotten into my boots and is soaking through my socks. That winter experience is a universe away and I am deeply grateful.
I also used to say:
“I have weird symptoms but it?s nothing major. It’s probably just a gluten allergy. I should stop eating bread. It’s nothing.”
Then I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and life was thrown into a blender with an IV drip.
We say all kinds of things because we think we know the world.
That’s way the bestest aesnwr so far!
THX that’s a great asnewr!