Homesick

I feel homesick. I've lived in Utah for a long while now. My family is here now so I rarely get to go back to what I will always consider my home. Arizona is where I grew up. I went from playing with troll dolls to driving on highways while I lived there. It's my place of birth. I miss the cacti and the wide-open space. I miss the fiery sunsets. The nights where the heat clings to the rocks even after the air has cooled off. Swimming pools and concrete, concrete, concrete. The feeling of warm pool water and the pavement's fever radiating heat through your sandals. Shaved ice on the worst, most sweltering days. The tingle on your cheeks when you go from an air conditioned building out into the blinding, white heat of an Arizona summer. Prickly plants that you look at but never, under any circumstances, touch. Bougainvillea like bright lipstick kisses. The way the sky turns from blue to silver in August. Late nights under orange streetlights, windows down, local bands on the radio. And staring up at the stars from the cold, damp grass of a golf-course.

Arizona, I miss you.

In no particular order, I give you "Arizona" according to my memories (or at least according to the photos I have on this computer):