The quiet one sits

Studies the oil high

Sparks turned orange wrapped

Purple at their peaks

Black hat white jacket

Gleaming squares on two

Foot handles deal grease

Over meats char greens

Head high this boy

Kitchen’s only still spot

So very fearless focused

Small future’s brightest boy

Joshua Hughes

31.December.2012

Bisbee is a town, the inventors of which have taken great care to make appealing to visitors.  Southern Arizona is full of towns like those found along the I-90 Freeway in Washington State.  With the exception of a few gems like the coffee house in Cle Elum and the Sultan Bakery, there are no attractions to be found between North Bend and Spokane.  Bisbee is a tourist destination in the high desert near Mexico.  Bisbee’s mothers and fathers have been intentional and vigilant in their shaping and care.

My brother Brandon took me on a tour of the Copper Queen Mine today.  The mine has not been used for production since 1975 and yet, Mel, our tour guide, had 19 years at the elevator switch before it closed down.  Our group took the old rail car lines down 1500 feet into the side of the hill before we disembarked and took the tour on foot.  Mel took us through as only a veteran could; with confidence, wisdom, and surety.  By the end of the tour we felt like we had an idea of what the miners were expected to accomplish on a daily basis.  Death in the mine was a common thing.

Bisbee has taken what might have been nothing more than a relic and made it a part of what keeps the city alive.  This place thrives where life is an unexpected practice of will.

Near the U.S. border with Mexico, at an elevation of 5,300 feet, is the tiny town of Bisbee, Arizona. My brother Brandon lives there with his fiance.  Alexis is from Arizona originally and one of her dreams was to live there one day.  The three of us drove down from Tucson yesterday afternoon.  While we were still a few miles outside of the city, snow began to fall.  I have witnessed Arizona snow storms on two out of four of my trips here.  A white desert seems odd because it is odd.

Bisbee is home to many artists and crafts people.  The town’s principle reason for being has gone.  Mining of the Bisbee area’s precious resources halted some time ago.  What remains of it are the gated ruins of a future time.  The land has numerous mining related towers, and other structures in good repair.  The desert is ideal for the preservation of discarded things.  

Brandon wanted to take me to his favorite hot-dog restaurant for lunch.  I ordered an Italian sausage with marinara, provalone, and hot peppers.  The ladies at Jimmy’s were right; it was the closest hot-dog I’ve ever eaten to the flavors of lasagna.

The three of us also walked many of the steps which serve to make up the Bisbee 1,000, climbed Castle Rock, walked through a dozen shops, and admired the Peace Wall.  The people are very nice here.  Shopkeepers are used to dealing kindly with gawkers.   

My older sister is an amazing woman.  One of the many testimonies to that fact is the excellence which all of her children exude.  The family makes a trip out to Bear Canyon every time I come to Tucson.  Given the familiarity with which her children treat the trails and features of the place, it is clear that the family makes trips to Sabino Canyon Recreation Area regularly.  This morning, after getting some sandwiches from the Sunrise Village Shopping Center Subway, 11 of us went to Bear Canyon to wander through and marvel at the beauty of that desert treasure.

The spirit of my niece and nephews is so very bright, positive, curious and full of energy.  I was especially impressed with Luke, Kara’s youngest.  Luke is not a runt, but he is the “baby,” of the family.  Since the addition of Isaiah, the family’s foster child, 15 months ago, Luke has had his identity stripped.  With mom constantly attending to a near-to-walking, unpredictably mood changing, completely dependent, beautiful boy, there is not room at her side for a cautious, needy Luke.

As a result Luke (5) competes with his physical immaturity in order to keep pace with Nathan (7), and Noah (10).  Amazingly, the result is a child who cannot afford to be fearful.  Fear means hesitation and hesitation serves to widen any distance between the youngest and his physically superior kin.  1.5 miles from the parking lot we came to a human enhanced reservoir area.  I kept watch over Luke during our time there.  I never offered to help him figure a way over any of the obstacles, and he never fell, never tripped, never asked for help.  My little nephew ran, bare foot, over trees, rocks, frigid water, sand, and dead, dry desert debris for about an hour.

At one point Noah came to two rocks made wide or close with time, water running between them.  After some thought he leaped over the gap.  Luke came to the same spot within a minute and Noah recommended that he go around.  “No,” he said “its faster this way.”  He jumped the obstacle effortlessly.

In truth all of my sister’s kids are remarkably adept at climbing, bouldering, and scaling.  Katherine can walk upright on a slick-bark covered tree at an incline.  Noah can find hidden holds in sheer rock.  Nate can creep like a cat out onto long, thin branches.  Of a certainty I will await these kinds of excursions with an ever increasing fondness and anticipation.

Here, in Tucson, our family tradition is strong.  My first Christmases were spent at my great-grandmother Blanch’s house.  Her husband, Ray Derby, had died a few months before I was born.  I can still remember that the family would sing Christmas songs from sheet music in a great room near the staircase which led to the second story of “The House on Yakima Avenue.”  That house is now a bed and breakfast.

My next many Christmases were celebrated at my grandmother Carolyn’s house.  She is 87 years old now, and she lives there still.  Yakima was an advantageous location for family to meet.  The Derbys came over from New York in the 1920’s.  Each of my grandmother’s two sisters have extensive families of their own.  At some point in the holiday we would go to aunt Pat’s house, play with her Barbie dolls and eat her home-made fudge.  It was in Yakima that I learned about Santa’s helpers; I caught them filling stockings one year.  

When I was a teenager, my mother began hosting Christmas in my family home in Sumner.  Sometimes you hear someone say “It just wasn’t the same,” and you think “well, of course it wasn’t.”  Yakima had snow, always seemed to have snow, and the Christmas spirit was a thriving pulse, a living heart-beat in my grandmother’s house.  My family home had no secrets, no gun cabinet, no boxes of 40 year old toys to sort through.  The magic of my family home had had all of it’s secrets revealed to me in my youth; it lacked the promise of discovery.

Now my sister hosts our family Christmas, and there is magic again.  She has four young children of her own, and a foster child besides.  Even her giant Saint Bernard can feel the excitement of this time.  He tackled me two days ago, running head long into my sternum as I crouched to photograph Isaiah.  Leaning on one elbow, laughing along with my brother-in-law I said “I can’t feel anything.”  It was at that time that my youngest nephew Luke began performing chest compressions.  

Can anything rob Christmas of its spirit?  And is not the spirit of Christmas embedded in the magic of this time?  And is there anything more magnificent than a God become fully man to show us the way?  In the future there will be another place for our family to thrive on Christmas.  And some day I will have nostalgia over now.

Sky, sky

Known throughout the world

Drifting, residing high, shifting light

Chasing away first sun then moon

Gathering white showing reds

Our lens to the scattered

Dust of God

Conduit of dreams

Stories, heroes, threats, balance

Dizzying shift over spinning seat

Vast quiet making signature 

God’s pen still on the page

Joshua Hughes

23.December.2012

As I spend time with my sister’s children, I find that they tend to ask almost rhetorical questions.  Yesterday my niece Katherine asked me if I would like to see her go horseback riding today.  Katie is 12 years old and has been riding horse for 5 years, amazing.

This is my fourth Christmas in Tucson.  This year I feel more awake, more aware of opportunities; one of the benefits to being away from everything I know and love for so long.  I think in years past I was busy, somehow, when all I had traveled here to do is spend time with these kids and their parents.  

Kate took me on a tour of the stables before she began the process of tacking her horse.  Of the 43 horses under care at Kate’s home arena, she knew the names of 38.  The beauty she was tasked to train on back of today is called Lulu.  While Kate was preparing her horse for riding, I walked around and became familiar with some of the felines who live at the ranch.  The most persistent and nosy of the species was Ariel; one of 5 black cats named after Disney cartoon characters.  

If you could have seen my niece riding Lulu around the arena this morning, you would understand my pride.  All skill aside, Kate is a good listener and is very respectful.  She has a cheerful attitude, is eager to correct bad form, and is slow to become frustrated.  Kate brings Joy to the people around her. 

If there is a place on this planet where discoveries are no longer made, I hope I never see it.  The world is vast and full of light.  Humankind is naturally a curious animal.  Today I spent the bulk of my time with my sister and her three sons; Noah, Nathan and Luke.

This morning we drove to Phoenix.  Shortly after lunch we walked through the front doors of the Arizona Science Center.  Lego was in the title of the main exhibit.  Has anything since the invention of the Lego even come close?

When I was a boy, I had Legos.  When I was a teenager I still played with Legos, using my younger siblings as a front.  If they haven’t been turned over to the mad cleaning bug my mother sometimes gets while sifting through the dusty confines in the furnace room of my family home, I still have a great box of Legos somewhere.  My favorite type were the castle ones.

A science center would be a fascinating place without the presence of people.  Being there with boys aged 10, 6 and 5 multiplies the fascination around a given apparatus by three.  Every switch, knob, light, pedal, screen, sound, and block of wood take on a magnetic dimension.

I was drawn, because they were drawn.  They were drawn because they are precious and full of energy for investigations which most likely will not net them greater wealth.  They follow passion.

I was able to spend time with each of the boys, as well as some with my sister Kara.  She is such a fine mother, her boys have no idea how many good ways of living they are being taught, and how much love it truly takes to care as much as she does.

Kara’s children are her masterpieces, each one.  I hope to have the kind of rapport with my kids one day that she has with hers.

At the end of the day we drove back to Tucson.  Kara made nachos in the oven and we all snacked on four kinds of pop-corn from a holiday tin.  Katie, Noah, Nathan, Luke and I began what is certain to be an epic game of Risk.  Luke is showing great promise in that game as well.  After Daniel got home from work, the two youngest boys went to bed and the rest of us sat on the couches and watched Captain America.  Life is like God’s finest writing.

Moving west, escaping the home you know, leaving one world for the next, is an American idea and an American ideal.  In the desert, on the Rialto River in the 48th state, is the city of Tucson.  God must intend for me to know of this place.  15 members of my family live here.  Today I had the opportunity to invest in relationship with two of my nephews.  My sister Kara and my brother-in-law Dan are raising four thoughtful, loving, respectful, creative, happy kids.

Noah, the ten year old and oldest boy, and I walked to Starbucks Coffee this morning.  I can still remember him as an unsteady toddler, when his front teeth had been chipped into the shape of fangs from making contact with the ground with such force and frequency.  All of the tears and falls have no doubt contributed to this young man’s toughness, focus, and resolve.  Noah is my oldest nephew, and of course I love him simply for that.  The fact that he is now of an age where the two of us can laugh at each other’s stories and exchange opinions over which Marvel super hero is our favorite and why, has been an unexpected treat for me.  I also connect with Noah’s appreciation for life’s simple joys.

This afternoon I was tasked with taking Luke, my sister’s youngest, on his first outing to the batting cages.  We found The Batter’s Box after no small amount of driving around.  The desert has few landmarks and Tucson seems to have placed a moratorium on new street names.  Two or three streets with no connection to each other will have similar if not identical looking names and are then to be found within the same neighborhood.

As soon as we arrived, Allen took Luke under his care and did not cease in either complete attention or instruction to the 5 year old for the next 90 minutes.

After watching the two of them work Luke’s stance, swing, timing, follow through, pivot, and vocabulary, I can say that I learned more today about batting technique than I have in all of my living days.  It was simply amazing to see Luke hit pitches that were coming out of a machine.  Allen walked him through all of the steps of the at bat and by the end he was telling me just how naturally talented Luke was.  The best part about it, however, was how attentive Luke was to Allen; how much respect, and deference, care to detail and positive poise he showed.

Afterward, we went out for burgers and fries.  Does anything say America like a day which begins with black coffee, mixes in a little baseball and then finishes with potentially heart stopping food?