A Hot (Girl) Walk
Memories from a desert point-of-view
Inspiration for this week’s post struck me yesterday afternoon, as I returned from a midday walk. A hot walk.
I had intended to go earlier but the morning got away from me. So that’s how I found myself out in the 90-degree heat, one of few sidewalk-strollers, walking a 2-mile loop to a nearby park.
We’re experiencing a heat wave in Portland right now, my iPhone banner alerting me with the message “Excessive Heat Warning” since Monday, even though the above-90 temps didn’t hit until late this week.
While 90-100 degree weather is certainly extreme for the Pacific Northwest, and can be especially dangerous for those without air conditioning or a way to keep cool, I can’t help but chuckle a bit at these warnings.
You see, I was born and raised in the desert of Mesa, Arizona, where the average annual high temperature is 85 degrees and above-100 temps are normal in the summertime.
My dad's job took us to the rainy suburbs of Seattle when I was in middle school and I haven't lived in the desert since, but whenever the heat strikes us in Portland, as seems to be a new annual occurrence these past few years (proof I'm not dreaming), I am met with a sense of nostalgia.
It hit me hard yesterday on my hot walk—as I strolled along the sidewalk, heat radiating from the asphalt every time I crossed the street, I wondered why I was out here in this heat.
I felt less crazy when I reached the park, which is almost entirely shaded by a canopy of evergreen trees, and saw fellow walkers, joggers, a woman reading on a bench, even some parents watching their kids on the play structure.
At some point on my return loop home, when I hit a long stretch without any shade, I was nearly cursing myself, the heat being the only thing I could concentrate on for a moment. But then suddenly, gratitude washed over me as I reminisced about the desert I grew up in.
It was this exact wave of heat that I was always grateful for the second I walked outside of an overly air-conditioned mall or movie theater.
I remember the way my childhood nanny would tell me, every time I complained about being “freezing” in my shorts and t-shirt inside the mall as my brother and I tagged along with her for errands, “just wait until you get outside!”
And she was right, every single time. For as soon as the heat hit upon opening the door to the outside, the blast of hot air a relief as my body warmed up, moments later I was over it and ready for the refuge of the car’s A/C. (Reflecting on this now, I think that was my first primer in being grateful for the present moment.)
Growing up in Arizona was a constant juggling act of balancing one’s temperature between the overly-air-conditioned inside and the extremely hot outside. Yet somehow, everyone's houses were just right. It’s a childhood mystery that I never solved.
Having called the PNW home for 20 years now, I don’t miss those extremes, nor do I picture myself living in the desert again. But I do find that the desert is a core part of me. It’s in my being.
There’s a lot of little things I remember that add up to that being, that mark me as a desert kid through and through.
It's in the way I had to use caution when fastening my seat belt in a car that had sat in the sun for a while, to ensure the hot metal didn’t scald my skin.
The way my swim suit dried nearly instantaneously after being out of the pool for a couple minutes.
Never eating ice cream outside in the summer because it would simply melt faster than I could eat it. (At least as a small kid, anyway!)
The smell of the desert after the scarce rainfall.
Being conditioned to avoid jumping cholla cactus like the plague.
The eerie quiet of the park or playground once summer months hit.
The fixture of a pool party in my adolescent hang outs.
Convincing my brother to play “mermaids” in the pool with me after my low-key obsession upon watching the Disney Channel’s Thirteenth Year.
The rarity of a bright green lawn, sticking out like a sparkling emerald amongst the brown hues of the desert.
The year-round tan I carried as a child, so much so that I was shocked by the heat rash my legs greeted with me with upon my first desert return.
The persistent sound of chirping crickets as I fell asleep every night.
—
Whenever my family talks about our memories of the desert, we often find that my younger brother, who was 9 when we moved away, doesn’t remember it as vividly as we do.
It’s striking, how much those 3 years I have on him contribute to such a different grasp on the place.
The last time I visited the desert with my brother was in April 2022. He and I, in need of some exercise, decided to walk the mile or so from an errand we’d sought out to another activity.
We’d made it less than a block when we realized this city was not designed for walking like our respective neighborhoods in Portland and Seattle; the blocks were long, reminiscent of a Manhattan block but also wider. Were they designed as such because it was often too hot to walk anywhere? Or did people avoid walking because of the poorly designed pedestrian experience?
Perhaps a bit of a both, but needless to say, experiencing Phoenix as adults and trying to apply our PNW lifestyle to it was quite different.
One thing that didn’t feel different though was the awe I had over the beauty of the desert, much like the awe I hold for the scenery of the PNW.
In my experience, it’s easy for people who haven’t spent much time there to dismiss the desert as ugly, its dusty nature off-putting.
But when I think of the desert, I picture the variety of cacti—ranging from the towering statures of the saguaro to the low nature of the barrel cactus—the bright magenta of the bougainvillea, the green-barked palo verde tree, the musky smell of creosote bush in the air.
I think about the backdrop of the shadowy Red Mountain my dad would take us to for hiking adventures when the temperatures allowed it.
There is so much diversity and beauty in the desert if you take the time to look for it.
And I find it all the more inspiring, mother nature having to fight that much harder to adapt and survive in the drought-risk place.
So while I don't wish these 90-plus temps persist on the PNW anytime soon, it’s precisely my childhood in the desert that makes me appreciate our more temperate climate. And that causes me to reflect whenever it does heat up. ☀
Do you have a place that’s in your core being? I’d love to hear about it!
I didn’t know you grew up in the desert! I can totally imagine being a kid and vacillating between being too cold inside but too hot outside haha also, playing mermaids in the pool and watching Thirteenth Year is such a core memory!
Also, every time I go to AZ I think about this book I used to have growing up called The Cactus Hotel. It illustrates the life cycle of the cactus, how it keeps giving back to the desert even after it dies. I’m glad to have had that book because it helps me appreciate the true beauty of the desert 🌵
Ahh the desert. Loved reading your memories! Very nostalgic. As you know, my home reflects a bit of our desert life in with my love for beach life. I consider myself lucky to have lived in the desert, mountains and beach. It's all a part of me I suppose.