So, my two-posts-a-week plan was deviously semifoiled by spring break–I actually have the privledge of getting one, and I am spending a good part of it in Phoenix, AZ with my mother.
Phoenix is a very, very different city from Seattle. For one, it sprawls even more epically than any city I’ve lived in, including Colorado Springs, pioneer of suburban sprawl. Phoenix is a big city to begin with, and its suburby tentables flop all over the valley; cities that I had thought were separate like Tempe, Scottsdale, and Sun City are totally overtaken by its sprawl. It’s not super-polluted or smoggy or anything, though, so that’s been nice. It does, however, take half an hour to get anywhere. I thought I was done being half an hour from everywhere when I moved out of Conifer, Colorado–that small town outside of Denver where I grew up.
Other than the size, it’s hot here. I laugh when they tell me it’s a late spring here, and usually much hotter at this time of year. It’s been in the low to mid 80s, which feels like the hot depths of summer to me. I actually got too much sun (!) the first day I was here and had to go lie down inside and stave off a headache. At least this is a dry, desert heat. I can’t imagine how anyone gets anything done in 95 degrees and humidity aside from collapsing on fainting couches and perhaps showering.
The desert itself is fantastic–there’s been rain lately, so it’s more alive and blooming than usual. I’ve seen a classic contingent of desert fauna and flora here: Saguaro Cactus, eighteen million other kinds of cactus, ocatilla, cholla*, desert wildflowers galore, and also infinite lizards, a jackrabbit, various other bunnies and ground squirrels, a rattlesnake, mourning doves, and little quail. We heard (but not saw) coyotes doing their classic sunset chorus out in one of the parks. It’s so funny, what you get used to in terms of “normal” animals. Doves, for example. Hanging out on the rooftop of the little adobe that we’re staying in, I watch the doves fly back and forth to the chimney, cooing and hopping. They seem so much more sleek and classy than the garden variety pidgeon that roams the streets of Seattle (with the crows and seagulls). I know they’d get old given a week of hearing them coo-COO-ing outside the house, but for now they are a novelty, along with so much of this dessicated landscape.
Bits of the Arizona landscape remind me of the dry Ponderosa Pine forest I grew up in, but some things are incredibly different. Palm trees aren’t happy in Colorado, for one, where they line the overwatered car lots here with ease. Plus, there really is something surreal and cool about the Saguaro. There’s a good reason why the Saguaro has always been the symbol of Arizona on the liscense plates. It’s a very unique plant. It’s interesting to me when people have genuine kinship with plants, as plants are so often ignored or considered less alive than animals. (I mean, who carves their initials into a squirrel? But then, who carves their initials into a tree…?)
Anyway, bouncing around Arizona and thinking about how much of an adjustment it would be to live here reminds me of the concept of psychotope. David Wagoner introduced me to the word when I took that class from him. A psychotope (from Latin, shape of the mind) is the landscape of the imagination. It is how the places you grew up in and live in reflect on how you think about things. The concepts of “far,” “hot” and “cold” are different to me than they would be to a Phoenix native, or a Seattle native. Pheonix’s “cold” is Seattle’s “nice” is Conifer’s “let’s go hiking in shorts” weather. Rainfall, proximity to large bodies of water, density of people, availability of culture and diversity…all of these influence a person’s psychotope, in other words, their basic outlook on life. I know that until I moved to Washington, my psychotope contained no place for humidity and didn’t understand why Seattle people don’t use umbrellas or rain gear. Now I know that if I really wanted to shake up my psychotope again, I’d have to move somewhere really hot: humid or not, the heat would definitely throw me for a loop (my Devnver-based-psychotope best friend moved here five months ago, and is still adjusting). My body is set up for cool Scottish climates, and it’s been interesting watching it struggle in the desert these past few days. I’m not saying I really want to move anywhere warmer, but it’d sure keep me on my toes.
I enjoy watching conflicting psychotopes interact. For example, when I first moved out to Washington, I had a roommate from Florida. Once we made this cake, which was out sitting on the counter. My first move was to cover it with plastic wrap so that it wouldn’t dry out. Hers was to put it in the fridge or otherwise leave it uncovered so that it wouldn’t liquify. Of course, it was Washington, so we did nothing and it was fine.
So, I’m curious, O Neglected Readership…what are your psychotopes like? What’s hot to you? What’s cold? What’s far, what’s steep, what’s humid? How does the place you live in shape your mind?
*lingual note: ”chola” and “cholla” are not at all the same thing. A chola is a latina girl who wears intense makeup (dark lip liner, light lipstick, angry eybrow liner, etc.) and may or may not be affiliated with a gang. A Cholla is a very spiny type of cactus. You make the call how or if those two are related.
