Tag: Flagstaff

Flag

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If you read this on August 18, 19, or 20, it is likely I will be here, hiking with my husband at Buffalo Park in Flagstaff, Arizona. (I captured this photo in late July 2023.) Or relaxing elsewhere at approximately 7,000 feet.

When we moved to Arizona eight years ago, I noticed most residents of the Grand Canyon State shorten the name of this town to Flag … an affectionate term, which locals (that now includes me) drop into conversation, before or after they come to escape Phoenix summer heat and inhale pine-scented mountain air (when there are no wildfires nearby).

In the winter, the town attracts a different crowd … skiers. Nearby Snow Bowl ascends to 11,500 feet at the top of Arizona. It is a winter wonderland from December through April or whenever there is snow.

Year-round, Flag is home to Northern Arizona University. So this dog-friendly town has a young, diverse, energetic vibe that includes a fascinating mix of bohemian free spirits, western practicality, and picturesque views of the San Francisco Peaks.

Best of all, it’s accessible from Phoenix via a dramatic climb along I-17 that normally takes just over two hours by car.

You pass thousands of saguaros that stand guard over jaw-dropping landscapes.

They suddenly vanish near a town called Bumblebee to reveal high desert plants and ponderosa pines.

Up in Flag, storms roll in, over, and around the San Francisco Peaks in every season. Unannounced. That natural spontaneity appeals to me, too.

If it didn’t snow in Flag, I could see us living here. Instead, we opt to visit for a few days each summer.

However, if the summers keep getting hotter in Phoenix, we may find ourselves spending larger blocks of time here.

Whenever Tom and I visit Flag, it ignites my sense of artistry. So much so that I have written previous essays here, as well as two or three short pieces of unpublished fiction (that include Flag characters).

They exist on my laptop in various stages of development, waiting for additional inspiration.

Maybe being “up” here again in the thinner air (Flag’s altitude is 6,910 feet as compared with Phoenix at 1,086 feet) will captivate my creativity once again.

If it does, you will be among the first to know.

Clean Slate

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For the first time in a month in the Phoenix area, the high temperature failed to reach 110 degrees yesterday. (Unrelated, the kids –reluctantly or not–returned to school for a fresh start. Not my kids, but somebody’s kids.)

108 or 109 isn’t exactly pumpkin-spice latte weather, but it represents a clean-and-slightly-cooler slate for all of us Sonoran Desert rats, though the mercury is due to rise again later this week.

Coincidentally, the first day of this new month (not yet spoiled by the trauma of breaking news) is also the major league baseball (MLB) trading deadline.

MLB teams that feel they have a chance to advance to the playoffs and contend for the World Series title are adding players to their slates, who they hope will get them there.

Others (like my beloved St. Louis Cardinals who have bungled their way through the 2023 season and uncharacteristically reside in last place in their division as August begins) have decided to retool.

They have opted to prepare for a 2024 clean slate, by trading players whose contracts are about to expire for up-and-coming pitching talent that might trigger a positive outcome in the future.

Beyond the ball fields, I feel a sense of relief emotionally as we turn the page to August.

July’s heat–plus the grief of saying goodbye to my aunt, supporting my sister from afar as she recovers from surgery, and remembering the loss of my mother on her 100th birthday–has left me reeling like a rag doll cast into the corner.

While I’m healthy and vital, I think the malaise I’m feeling is probably common for those in my age range. It’s the realization that the world I once knew is shrinking and unfamiliar. Or worse yet, evaporating. That includes the people I love and the institutions I once knew.

For instance, I saw in the news that Yellow (a long-standing trucking company) has filed for bankruptcy. 30,000 employees will lose their jobs. I have no special allegiance to Yellow, but they were a client of mine when I was a consultant for Towers Perrin in the 1990s.

In 1995 and 1996, I caught a flight once a week from Chicago (where I lived) to Kansas City (near their headquarters). I met with the company’s human resources management and helped strategize their employee benefits and pay communication.

It wasn’t rocket science, but I felt I was helping people understand the options before them. Anyway, those workers that remain with the company in 2023 will now begin with a clean slate, too … whether they like it or not … as they work to parlay their pink slips into something of value that has nothing to do with Barbie-mania.

Of course, I’m thankful to be done with the traditional workforce. For Tom and me, we are fortunate to pursue our passions–the appreciation and preservation of classic films for him, the exploration of creative writing and poetry for me–on our own terms.

To close out the month of July, we manufactured our own clean slates by traveling to Flagstaff, Arizona, last week for three days and nights.

It helped me to retreat to cooler temperatures (highs in the upper eighties, lows in the upper fifties) to regain my energy.

We stayed at a lovely and contemporary B&B there: the Bespoke Inn Flagstaff.

Samantha, the manager, surprised us with a complimentary bottle of champagne (when she learned we were commemorating my mother’s milestone birthday).

I surprised her with a complimentary copy of my book of poetry as a parting gift.

Tom and I discovered a fabulous cafe in town–Tourist Home–where we did some reading and writing. The proprietors bake and sell phenomenal gluten-free crullers with sprinkles.

To counteract the calories, we also enjoyed hiking Buffalo Park in Flagstaff. It’s positioned on a plateau just a few miles from the base of the San Francisco Peaks.

Walking the path there with my husband helped me regain my creative footing as I attempt to reignite a fictionalized story that continues to rattle through my brain.

I started to write it last year, but then got derailed. It’s about a young gay man struggling to find his way and write his story in the high altitude of northern Arizona.

For now, that’s all I’ll say, but I’m open to any positive creative vibes you choose to send my way.

On Friday, July 28, 2023, a swatch of sunflowers lined the path at Buffalo Park in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Send Away … Get Away … Give Away

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I don’t know why it’s taken me so long. Especially because over the past ten years I’ve written extensively about my family, my lineage, and our propensity to seek, find, and carve our own paths. Plus, our impulses to leave behind a trail of our own observations. All of that runs through my DNA.

At any rate, last week I finally bought an Ancestry DNA kit. I opened the cardboard box. Read the directions. Spit my saliva into the provided vial. Put a cap on it. Closed up the box. I sent it away in the mail. I expect to receive the results via email in six to eight weeks.

From my mother’s branch of the family tree, I know I am Scots Irish; from my father’s family, German, Swedish, Norwegian, and French lineage. But maybe there will be a surprise or two.

This additional family research is also prompted by my mother’s one hundredth birthday–coming next week on July 26–and the personal reflection that comes with this significant milestone.

Meanwhile, with nineteen days of 110-plus temperatures under our belts here in the Valley of the Sun, Tom and I are poised for an escape to celebrate Mom’s birthday.

We’re planning a three-day, mountain getaway to Flagstaff, Arizona, where–at an altitude of 7,000 feet–we will be (blissfully) twenty-five degrees cooler than Scottsdale.

Because my mother’s life story (and my associated grief) has served as a catalyst for my writing, I’m offering my first book as a Goodreads Giveaway through July 26th. One hundred readers (chosen randomly) will receive a free download of my book.

Simply enter by July 26. If you’re a lucky recipient of my book, you’ll be notified right after. Then, find a quiet corner away from the heat (I think it’s hot everywhere right now) and get lost in my three-generation story of love, loss, and our family’s passion for writing.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and would appreciate your rating/review online.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

From Fertile Ground by Mark Johnson

From Fertile Ground

by Mark Johnson

Giveaway ends July 26, 2023.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

After and Before

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Remarkably, here in the Valley of the Sun, we have enjoyed a relatively comfortable early June. Seventies in the mornings. Low-to-mid nineties in the afternoons.

I’ve made the most of these breezy bonus days. Walking, hiking, swimming outside to rediscover my energy after a few weeks of long rehearsals and performances on stage indoors with my pals in the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus.

Of course, all of us Sonoran Desert rats know the mild temperatures won’t last.

We now brace ourselves, before triple-digit high temperatures arrive later this week and stay like unwelcome houseguests through most of September.

I’m not complaining. The summers here are quiet, beautiful, and hot–gorgeous sunsets, rugged buttes–away from the rush of the world and the traffic generated by snowbirds.

Our sizzling stillness is punctuated in July and August by monsoon storms that boil down from the mountains that surround us.

Now that Tom and I have lived here almost six years, our Midwestern years and associated memories have begun to fade like colorful t-shirts, hanging on a clothesline, bleached by constant exposure to the sun.

This day-in, day-out aging awareness, as we approach our shared 66th birthday in early July, makes me especially thankful that I wrote stories about my Illinois, Missouri, and North Carolina memories when they were fresh in my brain.

I guess you could say I’m between creative projects. I don’t know what I’ll decide to write next, beyond the weekly ramblings that appear here.

There is a fictionalized story I set aside late last year, when I devoted more time to writing dialogue for the chorus and completing my book of poetry.

In my mind, the main character of this yet-to-emerge family drama is living in the mountains near Flagstaff, Arizona–trying to come to terms with a significant loss he has experienced.

The good news is Tom and I have made plans to spend several days in the higher, cooler altitude of that area in late July to commemorate what would have been my mother’s 100th birthday.

Maybe this journey north, several thousand feet over the saguaros and into the ponderosa pines, is exactly what I need to rekindle my next story away from the scorching sunsets of our regular Sonoran life.

March Mellow?

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Hardly. The latest western winter storm battered Arizona last night.

It dropped temperatures, ushered in the wind, and dumped a few feet of fresh snow on Flagstaff. Sixteen inches on Prescott, less than two hours north of us.

While, down in the Valley of the Sun, heavy rains soaked our saguaros.

This afternoon, nature’s afterglow appeared. A brisk fifty-five-degree walk along the Crosscut Canal proved we are protected on the north and east by ranges adorned with snowy peaks.

Squint, beyond a woman texting while walking her dog. See the tops of the Superstition Mountains thirty miles east? They won’t stay white for long.

A Path I Might Have Missed

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There you stood, rare and bright. Defying the odds. Shining in a field far away. Flourishing in a wide open world. Sparkling in the foreground of my dreams.

I still see you, sunny and true. Unfolding under the sky. Craning for a mountain view. Growing taller everyday. Promising petals on a path I might have missed.

Written by Mark Johnson, September 6, 2019

Confessions from 11,510 Feet

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For a few minutes last Sunday, I was up on the roof. No, I wasn’t cleaning the debris out of my gutters. My husband Tom and I, along with John and Sharon (two lifelong friends visiting from St. Louis), were on a two-day, Flagstaff sightseeing mission, seeking northern Arizona’s coolest and highest spots.

On a rare, seventy-degree-and-mostly-sunny afternoon, we boarded the Agassiz Chairlift (elevation 9,500 feet in the San Francisco Peaks) and rode above the tall pines another 2,000 feet to the top of the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort.

Of course, this excursion was just for summer thrills. There wasn’t any of the frozen white stuff in late July. In fact, if there had been snow, I would have been far away for two reasons:

#1 … Unlike our friends from St. Louis who learned to ski when they lived in Europe, I’m not a snow bunny. Though Tom and I are in good shape for guys in their sixties, neither of us has skied much. On a personal note, I don’t care to risk broken bones on slippery slopes. I’m not interested in more pain or tempting fate. I figure it’ll arrive soon enough without me paving the way for a new and expensive relationship with an orthopedic surgeon. Besides, I already have a cardiologist and wouldn’t want him to get jealous.

#2 … I’ve endured enough cold and snowy Chicago days and nights to last a lifetime. To be precise, thirty-seven winters back in the relative flatness of northeastern Illinois.  Think sub-zero temperatures and howling winds in December and January and repeated rounds of snow-blowing to clear your western-exposed driveway in February and you’ll have the right mental image.

In all seriousness, Tom and I enjoyed getting reacquainted with John and Sharon. It had been nearly five years since we’d seen them. And, naturally, both the chairlift ride and the mountain scenery in our home state were breathtaking.

Hmmm … now that I think about it, perhaps our Rocky Mountain experience and my choice of adjectives have more to do with the thinner air I felt pumping in and out of my lungs at a high altitude than the actual view.

Either way, you can be sure I followed the rules on this sign. I did no running on Sunday. Just some light walking and a little heavy breathing until it was time for us to board the chairlift for the return trip, descend the mountainside, and climb down from Arizona’s magnificent and majestic roof.

 

 

 

July in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert

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It was about 90 degrees at 7 o’clock when I grabbed my broad-brimmed hat, a tall bottle of water, and a cool, damp towel to cover the back of my neck. My husband and I were heading to Vista del Camino Park for our early morning walk before the temperatures escalated past 100. Such is life in July in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert.

The elephant foot succulents on the north side of our condo don’t seem to mind. They are coping just fine. Under the eaves. Resting in the shade most of the day. We decided to move our container of gladiolas next to them. They were getting torched on the south side in the all-day sun. Maybe the American flags will help boost their spirits as Independence Day approaches.

I’ve learned to accept and adapt to July’s torrid temperatures here … since that day nearly two years ago when I survived to tell the story of An Unobstructed View. As long as you keep a ready supply of water nearby and stay indoors during the spike in the afternoon heat, it’s manageable.

This year we’ve planned a few strategic July escapes, as well.  One to the stunning red rocks of Sedona a few hours north. Another further up Interstate 17 into the fragrant, tall pines and mountains of Flagstaff, where the air is thinner and the temperatures are twenty-five degrees cooler.

Truly, life in Arizona is a story of extremes … and remarkable beauty.