It has been a “frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” (from Lewis Carroll’s JABBERWOCKY).
We spent the entire afternoon at our son Randy’s house, cavorting in the pool with his little boys, Jack and Jamesie, under the relentlessly sunny Arizona sky. (Phoenix gets 211 days of sun per year, and another 85 partly sunny.) It is unusually humid, maybe 55%, and storms threaten. (It is, after all, monsoon season in the southwest.) But now we are indoors, after having a swell supper cooked by Randy. Laura, our daughter-in-law, is at work as a pediatric nurse at a Chandler hospital.
I am seated on the couch with a small boy on each side. My husband ,Dave, and my sons Nick and Randy, look on. I am reading aloud from HOW I BECAME A PIRATE by Melinda Long, a terrific children’s book Nick found at our local Goodwill store. (Why have I never heard of this book? I was a librarian, for God sake!)
Once. Twice. Typical kids, they can’t get enough of this story. The third time through, Jack (who is almost 5) is losing interest, so he hangs on the periphery, preferring to see what the men are talking about. Not Jamesie. This time through, Jamesie (almost 3) wants to read the book backwards! Well, not really read. He is so enamored by David Shannon’s whimsical illustrations. We’re actually just hunting for the recurring images of the Captain’s peg leg, the Jolly Roger flying from the ship’s mast, the frantic, wild-eyed parrot, and the mangy ship’s cat on every page we turn.
Jamesie couldn’t get closer to me unless we mingled our molecules. He is warm and sweet-smelling, a squirming bundle of soft skin and wispy hair. While Nick snaps pictures of us, Dave and Randy try to goad Jack back to the book. “Oh, no, Jack, they’re finding the pirate with the hook for a hand!” Jack weasels his way under my arm and over my lap to see. Also sweet-smelling, Jack is becoming long-limbed and angular, all elbows and knees, but still a great joy to snuggle against.
We also read MUSTACHE BABY, a board book by Bridget Heos. We make cardboard mustaches (both good guy and bad guy mustaches!) for the boys to wear. We discover Dave’s beard, because the next-door baby in the book has a beard! Dave has always had the beard, but the boys never paid it much mind until now. Wow! Whiskers!
And then, too soon, it’s time to go so little boys can get to bed.
Exhuberant, running-and-jumping hugs are had as we kiss goodnight these precious children.
These are the reason we packed up our worldly goods, bade good-bye to Wayland (our home for 34 years), and trekked 2,000 miles west during the dog days of August last year with 11 cats to live in the Arizona desert.
West Virginia may be almost heaven, but this is the real deal.
Lynn, just wondering…any other reasons for moving to Arizona besides the grandkids? A close friend of mine is moving to Tucson, and, to be honest, I’m not sure why. My superior half and I are planning a westerly move also but would prefer the Pacific Northwest with our kid in Portland OR
Walt, the sole reason for moving to AZ was to have our small family together in one place. Now that we’re here, there are so many things that I like about it. Silly reason, the climate has been great for a couple of the cats. Bitey used to suffer from terrible skin problems, which are now totally gone. Others who had a bit of respiratory problems are doing much better. My own asthma is improved, too. Also, we were all getting too old to handle the snow. Non-silly reasons include the ethnic diversity. In our own small subdivision there are white folks, black folks, brown folks, Asian folks and many mixed-race families. Of course there are Christians, but there are many Jews and Muslims, too. Every group that Trump has a problem with, they are here in great numbers, making for a great, diverse community. Intel is here, employing thousands of people. This will sound racist, and maybe it is, but because so many Indians and Asians work for them, the schools are among the best in the state because they support excellence in education. And because they make very good livings the standard of living and the housing values continue to rise. Housing inventory in Chandler is in short supply. Having lived in MI I find the library system lacking by comparison, but it is still good. AZ is a red state, but the blue is creeping up in numbers, so purple isn’t too far away. I see, looking over what I’ve written, that I sound like the Chamber of Commerce president! We do all like it here very much. But again, the primary reason was to have family together. I’ve never even visited the northwest, but I hear it’s very nice. Let your heart lead you west, young man. (Are you young? Well, I’m sure young at heart!) Family is everything if your hearts are joined. Blessings in making your decision. If you decide on AZ, there is a house available in our neighborhood!
Thanks for sharing your reasons for your move to AZ, Lynn. Climate is far from a silly reason even if it’s about the cats. We too have cats. But we and they love the changing colors and coolness of the Fall and actually like to romp in the snow. Portland OR, although under fire from the angry right, remains the town where college students go to retire. Senior citizens, which we both are, are referred to as Honored Citizens and treated with privileges befitting our revered status. And moss grows everywhere, even on the people.
Would certainly like to visit your adobe/terra-cotta/desert world but we’re most comfortable snuggled up to the fireplace on a cold and wintry night.
Then again there’s always the chance of a tsunami…
I liked this piece a lot.
Lynn, I hope you continue to write pieces like this. Be sure to save them to give to your grandchildren when they become parents. I know how much it will mean to them. In genealogy, these writings make up the space between “birth date” and “date of death. Wishing you many, many more such writings.
I really enjoyed reading this.