Tucson ~ La Paloma ~ Garden Writers Association

"The primary joy of life is acceptance, approval, the sense of appreciation and companionship of our human comrades. Many men do not understand that the need for fellowship is really as deep as the need for food, and so they go through life accepting many substitutes for genuine, warm, simple.”

 ~Joshua Loth Liebman

To understand Tucson, you have to grasp a culture which flourishes like the cactus which grow plump along the roadways. Against the odds. Under the unforgiving summer sun. In the shadow of a black volcanic mountain. Historically, the ruling influences represented by flags have come and gone. The United States and Arizona flags follow the  Spanish, Mexican and Confederate banners.

  At times, the politics of this region is more brutal  than the Sonoran Desert geographic conditions. The lesson of the desert landscape is that what first appear to be insurmountable obstacles should be observed for their potential for uncommon beauty.

La Paloma. The Spanish translation is inexact to if it is dove or pigeon. Something odd to this native English speaker. In the American experience, the birds are distinctly different, particularly when you are not in tourist mode. Yet that is how translations often are. Inexact. 

In any case, it is the name of the beautiful Westin resort chosen by the Garden Writers Association for the annual migration of garden communicators known simply as The Symposium.  

Nightfall does not diminish the beauty of  the desert landscape

 In civics, in family, faith and in our professions, every individual in every community has a need for fellowship.  It is simply how God made us. And one of the great pleasures of being a human being.