Damn, It's Hot

The day we moved into our house in Scottsdale, Arizona it was 115 degrees. It was the first house I’d ever lived in that had air conditioning, but of course we couldn’t turn it on that moving day, with the doors open to facilitate the process. As a girl who had spent her entire thirty-five years in the cool, rainy Pacific Northwest, it might have been normal for me to think, “Oh Lord, what have we done,” but I don’t remember thinking that. What I do remember thinking is: Damn, it’s hot.

Everything is different here, even the houses. For instance, very few homes here have basements. Every home I’d ever lived in in Seattle had a basement. Basements, while great for storage and rec rooms, lodged big, brown fuzzy spiders seeking someplace dry to dwell. Basements were cold and damp—damper than the rest of the home. During the grey, rainy months that made up the better part of the year, that dampness seeped into my bones, making it impossible to feel warm, despite cozy fires or comfy socks.

Instead of walled-in patios with swimming pools, our homes in Seattle had decks and front porches for enjoying the sunshine when it did come out. On those gorgeous, yet rare, blue-sky days when the sun graced us with its appearance, everything was outside on the deck. Our first home as newlyweds was a tiny, white brick, “war-box” house to which we quickly added a giant deck. If it wasn’t raining, the deck was where the celebration was—birthdays, baptisms, impromptu get-togethers, all celebrated in our outdoor space.

After spending our whole lives within five miles of the house I’d grown up in, we decided to follow my husband’s job to Scottsdale. We had two weekends to find a house that would suit Jim and me along with our two boys that were nine and twelve at the time. Between two whirlwind trips packed with home tours, we settled on our current home—a remodeled southwest-style ranch home. My first home with one floor.

We traded hardwood floors for travertine marble tile…everywhere. We traded cozy rooms for soaring 14-foot ceilings. None of our “contemporary Northwest” furniture worked in the new home, but even after replacing it with more appropriate counterparts, our voices literally echoed through the house. Friends back home would call and partway into the conversation would ask, “Where are you? It sounds as if you’re in a cave.”

Out front, instead of rhododendrons, there are bougainvillea and giant, towering saguaro. Fuzzy thyme plants have been replaced by small barrel cactus and plants for which I do not yet know the names. We almost ripped out a dead looking, medusa-like bush/tree thing before finding out it was a dormant ocotillo. Ironically, the one thing we have more of in our desert landscape than we had in Seattle is a giant swath of thick, green grass.

My favorite thing about this house is that I can run from one end of it to the other. Or dance across it. With a wall of glass doors that open up to our patio, I often delightfully boogie across our living and dining area, spying outside to the swimming pool, palm trees, and hammock that paint the picture of a lovely vacation day. And, just as in the brochures, the sun is always shining.

No, I’ve never entertained the thought, what have we done? Even during our five scorching summers where you just survive five months of hotter-than-hell. I don’t believe in regrets. Despite the fact that the desert is pokey and harsh, and in many ways trying to fit in here has been the same, I am glad we moved. This home, like all the others I’ve lived in, is not “home” because of where it is or what it holds. It is home because it is where I live with the people I love. In many ways, our move to Arizona has brought our family closer because we have only had each other.

Our sons, now 15 and 18, will be moving along soon, and Jim and I already talk about “our next home.” It could be a loft condo, or a small flat in France, or a beach house in Central America. We still own our house in Seattle and people always ask if we will move back. We always have the same reply: Even if we did move back, we would live in a different house. That house, filled with the sweet memories of raising our young boys, served its purpose for us. Each new home has served the stage of our lives we were in well.

For now, with our teens fast asleep on this sunny Sunday morning, I’ll just take another sip of coffee, and do my little boogie across the house. We’ve got three more months to enjoy before damn, it’s hot begins again.