It’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting in Tucson, in the peaceful and pleasing-to-the-senses backyard of my friends Rob and Vera Arnberger, drinking coffee and listening to church bells in the distance. I can’t imagine a better place to worship than right here. There’s unabashed birdsong and there are bright native flowers, lots of green things, some prickly, many that are not. There’s a cool, fresh-smelling breeze that at times sweeps down from the Tucson Mountains, then suddenly changes direction and comes from somewhere else, like it doesn’t know where to go first.

That’s exactly how I feel about visiting Arizona.

I’m sitting with my laptop propped up in—of all places—my lap. It made the hummingbirds suspicious at first but now they come around as if I wasn’t here. Toby (my little Westie dog charge) is happily yapping at lizards and a strange bird that sounds like a squeaky toy, as long-winded and expressive as a cactus wren. A dozen or so LLBs (little brownish birds) are sitting in the top of a large ocotillo just on the other side of the fence at the back of the yard. The moon, about half-full and pale pearl-colored now, still sits in the brilliant blue sky at eleven o’clock in the morning, as if it can’t bear to leave on such a glorious day.

Along the fencing at the west side of the yard, doves are lined up every few feet, probably waiting for me to leave and take the barking Toby with me. We’re having too much fun to leave; the birds will have to live with it.

With views of the Tucson Mountains like this from the author’s friends’ backyard, it’s hard to bother leaving the house some days.

Yesterday I tried to make myself leave the house. I got as far as the bench on the front porch – and then I sat down quickly because from there the Catalina Mountains stood out from and above everything else, about thirty-five miles away from me. Clouds hung over them, like the rest of Tucson, but in places the sun would break through, as if to spotlight one peak, then another. The message was clear: Look at this—isn’t it fabulous? Now see this one—can you believe it?

I doubt if I will leave the house today. I just changed seats and everything is different. What a place. It doesn’t get any better than this.

The squeaky-toy bird was up at first light complaining about something. I heard Toby go slamming out the doggie door so I thought I should get up and see what was going on in the backyard. What was going on defies a mortal’s description. I could see right away that what motivated the bird was joy at being alive. Toby had simply heard him and had gone to join in the celebration of a perfect morning. Around here, if you snooze, you lose.

I felt the joy too, as soon as I saw the way the sun was taking over from the night, slowly moving a golden light across a land it must surely adore. I went onto the patio, covered in goosebumps, sat down, and watched. Thousands of wordy descriptions came to mind, none of them worthy.

Yesterday was another study in amazement although it started badly. I got sad word about the youth club I started in Terlingua which later moved to Fort Davis when Terlingua didn’t seem to want it. The Fort Davis board of directors is not going to pursue being a Boys & Girls Club, although they will still have an after-school club. The news hit me like the death of a loved one.

I went through the first three stages of grief in fifteen minutes: shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining. I just can’t see how something so intrinsically good and needed won’t make it. I paced around the house, furious that something I want so much isn’t happening. Get a grip, I thought—how many times are you going to do this? Then I cried and blamed myself for quitting; after that I snapped to and remembered why I’d had to give it up.

So then I blamed the faceless THEM. Give it up, I screamed. I needed to write but I can never write when I’m upset, so I tried reading. No. Television? Definitely not. Ah, I thought in that wise part of myself that always surprises me: Saguaro National Park. I went there as if called.

Well, of course… I had been. I felt better the minute I thought about that place. Over and over in my life, the wild places have saved me. That’s how I ended up living at the back door of a national park, Big Bend.

Saguaro National Park is similar to Big Bend National Park. There are rugged desert mountains that speak directly to my heart, far-distant vistas of mountains, ranges and desert, and wide, wide sky to fill the soul, colorful wildflowers, native grasses rippling in the breezes that passes.

The most stunning things here, though, are the saguaros. They’re an embodiment of the “Old West”, picturesque and perfectly placed. They’re the largest cacti found in the U.S. And they’re old. It takes about seventy-five years for a saguaro to begin to grow an arm. The really huge ones are one-hundred-fifty to two-hundred years old. It’s too much to get my head around. It would be enough for me that they’re so beautiful. The saguaros were here when the land still belonged to the native peoples. Humbling, to say the least.

In the greater scheme of things, what happens in Terlingua and Fort Davis doesn’t seem earth-shattering. I did what I could for the kids and now I have to leave it with others, to let it go. That’s the hardest part.

I sat at a picnic table in a spot that seemed so wild there shouldn’t have been a table. I was surrounded by saguaros that have been there since before my father’s father was born. I sat quietly, contemplating the wonders of the desert and its sheer, piercing beauty. I felt such gratitude that someone had fought to save the place that is now protected as a national park, and gave thanks that there was something so precious and breathtaking to save.

Then I cried out my sadness, telling the towering, multi-armed cacti my heartbreaking story. They listened in the kindly, patient way of old souls. In the end, they seemed to take it all in stride. They’d heard worse, seen worse. I left it with them and drove home thinking: it doesn’t get any better than this.

I’m back home now, in my ivy-covered cottage in Alpine. It’s a brisk, sunshiny day—the first day of November. I sit outside, this time in a lush yard full of vines and flowering plants like button mums, purple vinca, rosemary, and dusty miller. There are towering pecan trees, a pear tree, a piñon pine and elm trees. Virginia creeper sneaks along the fence, showing off its fall colors.

My first thought as I sat down was: It doesn’t get any better than this. Across the yard from me is a kitty curled on a tartan plaid blanket which adorns a blue and red wooden bench. Only my friend Judy would color coordinate her yard (the yard we now share), and the effect is a balm to the soul.

So, it seems, I adore Alpine, too—and every square inch of Big Bend Country—but I’m supposed to be writing about Arizona.

One of my last days there I stood in a forest woodland at nine thousand feet in the Catalina Mountains. I listened to the chatter of birds, smelled the fragrance of pines, and walked on a thick carpet of their needles. Through the evergreens I could see a fiery red tree here, another there, then a yellow one—as bright as the Copper Canyon daisies in Judy’s backyard. Entire hillsides were golden with aspens. I have to wonder why the deciduous trees are so showy; I mean I know their leaves have to drop for winter but who gave them the idea to do it with such flair? Do they do it for the enjoyment of the surrounding forest, for us, or for themselves? As I leaned against a pine five stories high I thought: It doesn’t get any better than this.

Two days later my friend Vera took me to the Grand Canyon. It is immense, colorful, magical. Human language can’t adequately describe it; perhaps that’s because no human had anything to do with its creation? It is awe-inspiring to the point of mind-blowing. It filled my heart and soul and sometimes my eyes, too, with tears. Again I found myself thinking: It doesn’t get any better than this.

I felt humbled and at the same time so in awe of being given the gift of time here on this earth where there are such splendorous things. I wanted to fly out over the canyon, perch on a colorful point, and become a part of the rock. I’d stay there until the wind and rain washed me away.

The Grand Canyon puts age into perspective. What we think of as old isn’t even a flicker. It reminds me that none of us will be here long and we should stop fighting and spreading hate. More time should be spent loving each other and appreciating and enjoying where we are and what we have around us.

After living 28 years in Terlingua, Beth Garcia now lives in Alpine but continues to visit and draw inspiration from South County’s rugged scenery.