Dear Tucson…

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Each issue we link up with Rachel Miller’s Love Letters to Tucson blog for a letter from a Tucson inhabitant about why they love this fair city. This month: Artist Alexandra “Lex” Gjurasic finds a place full of surprises, from mermaids in the streets to plants that fight back. Photos by Rachel Miller

Dear Tucson,

I had never been to Tucson till the day I moved here. But I knew I would love it and I was right.

Tucson, I am enamored with you. Having lived in the southwest previously, my heart was broken when I moved from New Mexico.

Leaving the desert was devastating, like looking at the beautiful face of a woman knowing you’ll never make love to her again. A year ago, driving into the Sonoran desert I brought with me all the optimism for a new life in Tucson.

Born and raised in Seattle, I often I feel like I love the desert with a special exuberance that a person that comes from the grey foggy mossy moist Pacific Northwest can feel. I’ve come to discover there are many other NW transplants, ex-patriots of the rain, that have migrated to Tucson to “dry out”.

For me, rock hunting in the Sonoran desert gifts me with a solitude that deeply influences my art. A soft breeze brushes the branches of an Ocotillo octopus. A quail’s ever-anxious quivering call. Saguaros stand tall like bride’s maids with their arms outstretched offering one-night-only bouquets that will ripen into sweet sticky sugary fruit. After a lifetime of searching it is here that I found a meteorite!

Tucson engages my artistic curiosity because it is a place of surprises. Here, tamales are filled with Indian flavors. The oldest barrio is inhabited by the newest Europeans. Mermaids wander the dusty streets. Motels rooms are piled high with geodes hoping to solicit sales.

In return, Tucson, I promise to accept all of you; your too damn much DeGrazia art, the co-eds that clog up my yoga class, lizards so large that I mistake them for mice, and your vicious plants that fight back.

I get it, it’s hot here. The heat is like a hissing radio static in my mind. As I crackled my way through my first summer, I went just insane enough to paint every door in my house just to avoid the sun.

I love you so much, Tucson, that I don’t even care that your water is going to run out in the next decade. I am ready for your haboobs, monsoons and your GMO-sized beetles.

The best thing about Tucson is that you are just being Tucson. You aren’t trying to be New York or LA, Marfa or Santa Fe… Tucson is just Tucson and I love you for that.

Love,
Lex

* Alexandra “Lex” Gjurasic makes art and writes about how to be an artist on her #GjurasicFactor blog on Pyragraph.com

* Got a Love Letter? Write to Rachel Miller here.