Tucson – Our Big-Little Town

Our thoughts are with those families whose loved ones were taken too soon and so awfully, and that those who were wounded be healed swiftly.

Tucson is a beautiful place. Sunrises and sunsets that make you swoon. Mountains that rise majestically from a fabulous bizarre desert landscape. In summer, thunder and lightning roll in from the East and provide us with both relief from humidity and spectacular evening entertainment. For most of the year, the high altitude, dry air, clear and dark skies allow us sweet glimpses into the celestial heavens that this transplant, from a country known for its constant cloud, still gets goosebumps from.

There is something else too. Something that can’t always be seen. The city has a population of over a million now, more than twice what it was 22 years ago when I arrived. Yet, despite its size this is a small place. A place where typically it isn’t six degrees of separation but one, or maybe two, degrees of separation. And so here Green and I sit this evening talking of the lovely Ashleigh Burroughs who I only know through her writing, and Tom & Mary who we know IRL, hoping they’re okay and that their path to healing is swift. We know we’re not alone in that hope. Across this big-little town we’re all trying to process what has happened. These people are our friends, our colleagues, our family.

From Dream Within Reach - Rebecca

Others have talked more articulately than I ever could about the factors that have contributed to the state we now find ourselves. At some point, very soon I’m sure, I’ll return to this topic, but today it is still too raw. Instead, I want to share a little bit of the Tucson I love, a video of Calexico, one of Gabby Gifford’s fav bands playing at the Festival en el Barrio Viejo 2010. This is the song Gabby picked for the Shuttle Astronauts to wake to: Crystal Frontier.