But it’s a dry heat…

How many times have you heard this? “You live in El Paso ? Isn’t it hot there?” Of course it is hot here. It is the desert, after all! We reside in the midst of the Chihuahuan Desert to be more precise. A unique ecosystem within itself, my desert home explodes with flora and fauna as seen nowhere else on this earth. I hear many other interesting comments when people learn I’m from El Chuco, but for now I want to focus on an aspect near and dear to me: The stark beauty of my surroundings.

Our desert climate poses a direct threat to those of us attempting to wear our green thumbs proudly upon our sleeves. Drought-tolerant landscaping and water rationing are old–hat to most of us by now. Still, I manage to choose a few unsuspectingly perky little plants that eventually wither and die under my passive-aggressive care. Both tender and indifferent, I’ve been known to kill cacti, many times. I save their brittle carcasses: a testament to my neglect. Someday I hope to apply what I have learned from my gardening mistakes, and spare the innocents this undue trauma.

Hedgehog Cactus (Echinocereus coccineus), Anthony Gap. Photograph by Gertrud Konings, 7 April 2003.

Thankfully, I am not a complete failure, and have managed to get past caliche as well as the brutal force of direct sun with some robust specimens now flourishing in my yard. I delight in the visiting assortment of hummingbirds, and Monarch butterflies attracted by the fragrant pink of desert honeysuckle, to the Desert Willow or Chilopsis linearis, with its purple flowers.
Photograph by A.H. Harris.

I am joyously witnessing the arrival of yellow sprays atop my Spanish broom for the first time since I planted them. I had feared they would never bloom. When the pecan begins to fruit in 2 more years, I will be beside myself with joy. I do hope I have treated her well, and that she will bear fruit beyond my desire. My grandmother always had an apricot tree, and this is my next choice for planting. Somehow, I am inclined to believe that she will help me have success with that choice, from beyond the grave. I know, I’m a bit weirdo.

One of my favorite things about El Paso is found at the heart of it’s people. There is such warmth here, friendliness, a je ne sais quois about that connection to the earth and an even greater connection to the familia. Not unlike the simmering of a pot on the back burner of your O’Keefe & Merritt, handed down from abuelita’s kitchen, there remains a promise of something wonderful if you’ll only take the time to let things brew. The time to stop and enjoy what you have, the people that you have in your life, the surroundings which implicate you in their dastardly plot to make you feel and to care about something wonderful. El Paso is very brown, warm and rich with the beauty of the shifting sands and light sienna skin of the masses. A dry heat indeed…