I spent the weekend in Tucson, Arizona, where my family was marking my fathers 80th birthday. It was a wonderful weekend, particularly because my father is in excellent health, having recently returned from a tour of the coasts of Greenland, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.Although my parents have only lived there for a few years, I must admit that I have fallen in love with the Sonoran Desert. It is a landscape unlike anything else I have encountered. The plant life, in particular, is very distinctive: the green bark of the Palo Verde, the twisting trunk and feathery branches of the Mesquite, andof coursethe majesty of the tall Saguaro cactus, some of which are more than a century old.While suburban sprawl from Phoenix and Tucson continues to encroach on the desert, there is still a sense that human beings live here on sufferance. I remember getting out of our van one night at the hotel and seeing a large feline form walking in front of us next to the wall of the hotel. Without much time to react, I immediately pushed my children behind me, thinking that it might be a mountain lion. It turned out to be only a large bobcat who, it must be said, did not seem particularly afraid of us.A couple of years back my family went hiking in the Catalina Mountains, including a wide, dry wash that can turn into a raging torrent during the rainy season. A couple of days later we read that two hikers, who had followed the wash farther up the mountain, had been killed when a rainstorm on the other side of the mountain had sent water cascading down the wash. Such events are far from uncommon here.If you want to live in the desert, you must do so on its terms. There should still be a few places left in this country where nature can kill you if you are stupid or careless enough. It is a reminder that there are forces at work in the world that are larger than ourselves, to which the proper response is awe and humility.
