Sonoran Sun
Love is the Richest Kind of Gold
We’re all waiting for the sun to emerge, rising over indigo mountain silhouette dreams, to begin our lives saying: “when I make enough I’ll do this”, “when I retire then I’ll do what I love”, “when tomorrow comes I’ll keep to my promises”, “when the kids grow up then I’ll start doing more for me”, “if only I wasn’t having to work so hard then I'd start a hobby”, “I’m too tired”. Each and every ray of every day gives us the opportunity to show, to give, and to share unexpected love towards others; there is nothing we have to wait on. This is a love story of sorts.
No, this isn’t some Pretty Woman tale. Yes, there is an us and a more than us. See Lou grew up bad, I mean real bad. Those shows that you watch where you cringe seeing the mother passed out in panties and a tiny top both practically falling from her starved body with an empty syringe comfortably nestled beside her and a yelling boyfriend telling her son “this will teach you how to respect me, I’m the man of this house” as he places the small quiet child’s hand on a burning stove. That’s the kind of bad I’m talking about.
Frankly, I can’t even imagine what he saw between drunken men and a mother too young to be a mother who came from a mother who didn’t know how to be a mother, but I can tell you his love only grew. He chose to not linger on old pain and instead used it as fuel to be a servant for all that is good in the world by sharing the beauty he sees all around with others. Me? I’m Stacey born and raised near the reservation in Tucson, Arizona, by two lesbian ladies with hearts of gold, but pockets of lonely lint. We were poor living off government goldfish and rocky walls. My mom’s were innovators though and cherished this dry land always reminding me there’s more than the eye can see. This land and its plants are the toughest most resilient beings because they grow and provide for us with or without water, they love even if they are forgotten about—my Mom’s would often say “just like God, he loves us even if we forget about him because he never forgets us”.
Lou and I met beneath an old eucalyptus tree on a Sunday evening in January. He saw me sitting alone at a park in town staring at the moon. It was a full moon, glaring brightly silver shining for a revolution. He asked to join me and I swear this was the first man I’ve ever spoken with who I felt such ease and excitement at the same time that me, the glutinous talker, had nothing to say. From that evening on all we’ve done is shared our days with each other. He’s a painter and I’m a burlesque dancer at night to pay the bills and a yoga asana teacher during the day to feed my soul is how I always phrase it. Dancing for show gets old, but yoga is a lifestyle that only grows with me and if I have to do something I don’t terribly enjoy to make it possible for me to do something that aligns with my heart then so be it.
We have this small black notebook, we call it our “Sonoran Son”. We fill it with the things our parents and our communities lacked that we want to do together not only for each other, but for our desert family. The community we live in that we sometimes want to curl up in serapes (Mexican blankets) and nourish with healthy home grown treats helping diminish the stress of being a desert border town, a place where dreams burn. We toy with the idea of sustainable living where we buy a piece of naked land and clothe it in color existing separate from society as we know it. Rainwater harvesting. Solar energy. Farming and gardening. Flowers, so many flowers. A simple peaceful life beneath bright skies and nature all around. No smells of burning flesh or fuel. Instead Nag Champa incense filled nostrils and bodies cloaked in sweet magnolia perfumes. We’re dreamers, maybe one day we will be bloomers.
Our place is 4 walls and one little window. He has a corner with a rickety wooden stool and a makeshift easel made up of an orange paint bucket from Home Depot flipped upside down with an empty pizza box leaning against a stack of old yellow pages. He says it works just fine. I only nod because that’s what he and I have learned to do: to create what we see in our heads with what we have in our hands. We’re second-hand creators listening to the big guy, if you know what I mean. Although sometimes the big guy’s voice gets buried and we lose sight, but even then the big guy is always there waiting for us to remember where we left off.
Lou is obsessed with listening to talks and reading books about young entrepreneurs who’ve made a name for themselves. He gets on rants where he explains how he would be the most austere if he ever came into a large sum of money and how those millionaires sitting on their couches moving stocks around while they eat donuts and play video games could be using their money for something more than gaining more money. See the rich get richer by sticking to the motto that there is always more money to be made, it’s a never ending sad trap. I believe Lou too. I know he wouldn’t be careless or selfish with his gains, he would share his riches. Little does he know he already does by sharing his heart.
We have our evening wind down rhythm. He paints. I flow. Each stroke of brush as my breath, the only place in time we’re truly in-sync. A communication of using what we know to explain or try to understand what we don’t know. I move through poses as a dance with a lover and he captures each sway, each dip, each pause with small blurred curves or large arching lines. We exist with a purpose of being vessels to serve something more than what we can see and perceive as reality. Life is forever moving between softness and roughness, it’s strange and magical, and that’s what we share. We share our memories and moments of living making them sacred. Neither of us make much money doing what we love, but that’s just it, we love it and we are already cultivating our appreciation for our lives and the situations that have brought us to each moment.
Once a month Lou takes his paintings that he hasn’t yet sold down to the bar where I work. He sells them to overly excited one-too-many drinks tourists who are always wearing bedazzled cowboy hats and leather boots cracking jokes about what it means to be a rancher and owning horses. Little do they know it’s the 21st century and most of us don’t wear cowboy clothes let alone have never even been in person with a horse to ride one. They’re the perfect buyers.
“Hey Lou, don’t forget to wear your green button shirt with your nice Levi’s. They make your butt look great!”
“Nobody cares about my butt, why are you always making me go? I wish I could just be one of those 25-year-old millionaires. It’s not fair.”
“Trust me there’s always one person who’s looking at your butt and for goodness sakes, just be patient baby, do you think I enjoy dancing for a bunch of screaming whiskey breathed fuckers? We can’t give up.”
“I know. I know. I just wish we could finally have it easy, but you’re right. I’m feeling good about tonight though. Give my painting a juicy kiss not of luck, but of sweet sweet honey.”
“You’re ridiculous. I wish kisses worked like that, healing and making things happen. Making real good things happen.”
That was our conversation before the night that changed everything.
I remember once on a walk we heard the same message from the distant trees: how can one deny a creator when you look around and life has been painted meticulously to move together, a beautiful balance of opposites, of ease and effort? We’re in a symphony of reunion. That special night there was the dimly lit bar with its cheap humming neon signs and in your grasp gripped tightly was the painting. It’s copper frame forming horizons in your hand as you placed it in the back of the stranger’s car. A black BMW we would never forget with its tea stained seats and cigar smoked air. You couldn’t stop patting your jacket pocket making sure the $20,000 check was really there and not just your imagination. We hardly could contain ourselves that night both laying awake excitedly talking as we drew images with our fingers across the ceiling knowing what we had to do, what we would do.
Now time has passed, the blooming has run its natural course with Lou and Stacy’s dream coming to fruition after that night of bedroom banter. Real wealth is one that is shared and able to accumulate over time like the soil beneath our feet, ancient and fertile, is still feeding generations to come. Molly strolled through the sanctuary her parents, Lou and Stacey, had built watching her little girl walk along the paths they shaped with their very hands many years ago. “Mama. Mama. Can I have more berries? Please?”. Her daughter was just like her parents, fingertips stroking each leaf and waving at every flower bud singing “thank you” knowing there is more to life than metal and bright screens. An oasis in the desert, her parents called it “Sonoran Sun” a place of abundance right near the reservation where they managed to grow food, all different kinds that the grocery stores in the city don’t even carry, her favorite being sweet Cherimoya. To the left of them was a yoga room built of adobe where chanting could be heard at all hours of the day and exotic aromas practically exuding themselves from the walls filled her lungs. Surrounding it were herb and tea gardens used for Ayurvedic cooking and medicines. Near the gardens was the giant greenhouse, home of the granddaddy rubber tree and wild critters were seen scampering around throughout the day.
The land of crushed dirt was birthing food in all directions, all it needed was the patience to work with it, not against it. People came here to harvest and plant together. In the center of the land was a community gathering space where farmer’s markets, dances, and weddings were held. Even local bands came to play music, as well as poets and playwrights performed, and much more all vibrant with life sown from the ability to re-discover a deep sense of solace. Everything grown and used as an offering of gratitude knowing our dreams all begin as dancing seeds that in their own divine time will bloom ripe and delicious. As parents, we shared with Molly the wisdom to be conscious of what you’re creating and investing in, love is the richest kind of gold and through vulnerable faith our desires unfold.
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