Memories Live Here

It is weird living in a place where I know how to navigate so easily. Other places I have resided, whether it was LA, New Jersey, or Ohio, I invested years of time learning where things were. Learning about traffic patterns, what roads or highways are busiest and what times, speed limits and unexpected bends in the street. How adventurous or polite pedestrians are, whether certain red traffic lights lasted a long time or were quick to cycle through their three colors.

It is less stressful when I know where everything is. When I get into our car here in Tucson, I have a certain sense of satisfaction knowing I could turn on my GPS if I wanted to know the most efficient route to get to a particular place at that moment, but I don’t have to turn it on. Give me the approximate cross streets and I can get there all on my own.

Classes began this week at the University of Arizona. I have taken to incorporating longer walks into my exercise routine a day or two a week in place of higher intensity cardio. If I don’t have time in the mornings before work to drive out to Sabino Canyon to get my steps in, I often go down to the U of A campus and walk around there instead. While things have certainly changed in the twenty years since I was taking classes there, the campus remains familiar to me. Similar to town, I remember where different bike paths and different pedestrian walkways run. I still remember where it is easiest to park around campus, depending on what time of day and what month of the year it is.

When a semester is nearing its start at the U of A, I can feel the city of Tucson begin to fill up. Having looked at some numbers, this feeling is not well grounded in fact. The population of Tucson is a little over 500,000 people. The number of students estimated to live on campus at the U of A is about 8,000. Let’s say another 8,000-10,000 live off campus and move in/out of town at the changing of the semesters (which seems like a generous number). That’s an approximate 3% swing in the population. You could also add in the number of professors, support staff, etc., but the point remains: not really a seismic shift. Tucson has a significant non-university dependent population. But I swear I still feel it happening.

I also hate doing this type of factual research, so my numbers could be garbage.

The seasons are different here in the Sonoran Desert. There are not many color-changing leaves in the fall, and spring foliage is not quite the same harbinger of warmer times ahead that it is in other places I have lived. So I look to the flow of students instead to mark the passing of time.

I am learning how to manage my nostalgia now that we are back in the Old Pueblo. Having moved to a lot of places, I am not used to the possibility of encountering a building, a business, or an intersection in my daily living activities which can bring back strong memories. I have been unsure how to process this nostalgia. Is it healthy for me to be letting my mind spend time reminiscing about the past? Am I spending too much time doting over Tucson and the things I love about it? Why do I have to have so many feelings?

Aunt Terry lived in Buffalo her entire life. She did not even move away for college. A few years before she died, I asked her if she had ever thought of living anywhere else besides Buffalo.

“Oh no,” she responded, “Never.”

This answer shocked me. Not because of any facts relevant to Aunt Terry or the life she lived.  Rather, I tend to assume everyone wants to leave home at some point or another. Even though I know my experiences are not universal, I expect people to have somewhere in their heart a place they’d like to try living, somewhere they’d like to try setting up a life. But my memory of this conversation with Aunt Terry reminds me some people love where they grew up, and don’t want to leave that place. Ever.

I thought of Aunt Terry again when I walked around campus this past Friday morning. I usually park at the intersection of 4^th Avenue and University Boulevard, arriving early enough so that I don’t have to pay the parking meters. I walk down University Boulevard towards campus, which takes me past Main Gate Square: a section of University filled with restaurants, bars, and other shopping. Some restaurants I frequented as an undergrad are still there, like Frog & Firkin and No Anchovies. Whenever I walk by Frog & Firkin, I recall how my father took me there to eat immediately after I finished my English GRE exam. I loved the baked garlic and brie appetizer on their menu: a head of baked garlic and slice of warmed brie served alongside a toasted baguette. I can still feel the cheese lightly burning the top of my mouth as Dad and I sat on the patio, he with his sunglasses and fedora on to keep the sun off his face.

Other places in Main Gate Square have turned over a dozen times since the early 2000s, like a corner property at the intersection of University and Park. While it housed a couple different businesses during my time at the University, the most memorable establishment I recall being there was a soda/cigarette shop called Cokes N’ Smokes.

As I continue to follow University Boulevard, I step onto campus proper and soon pass Centennial Hall. Memories of shows I saw there come to mind, like Lily Tomlin, Counting Crows, and Spalding Grey. Soon I am walking past my old dorm, Yavapai. I lived in the basement level during my residency and took joy in leaving a window in my dorm room which looked out onto an outside courtyard unlocked. This way my friends could open the window and crawl into or out of my dorm room without having to register as guests with the front desk. I went by the window once a few months ago to see if the passage of time had led to campus housing locking down these portals under the guise of “safety”. While I didn’t try to go and pry it open myself, from visual observation the window appears to be just as secure/unsecure as it had been two decades ago.

As I walk on, the process continues: memories fill my head. I recall classmates, professors, my favorite lectures, subjects where I struggled (Spanish, Chemistry). All the while I marvel at what physical features have stayed the same (the Modern Languages building, where most every English class was held) and which have changed (one of my favorite additions being two bronze wildcat sculptures erected on the main mall). Being filled with so many memories and feelings seems strange. I wonder if there’s something wrong with me, some kind of psychological defect causing me to love Tucson too much.

Then I think of Aunt Terry and how she would point things out to me and Basil when we drove around Buffalo together. This was the neighborhood where my parents had their first apartment together, where they painted the walls black. This was Grandpa Dan and Grandma Rita’s favorite Italian restaurant.  We had cousins which used to live on this street. That was one of the schools where Aunt Terry taught early on in her career as a math teacher. I have only lived a cumulative seven years in Tucson. What emotions and nostalgia Aunt Terry must have felt going about her days in Buffalo, where she spent more than sixty years of her life.

I don’t know if you can love a place too much. Do we experience psychological benefits when we move to some place new? Or does the stress of unfamiliar environs, like navigating city streets, cancel out any upside to leaving home? Is leaving a place we love only good for us if we get to come back one day and remember why we love it?

I don’t know. And while I feel a little unhinged with the amount of passion I feel for Tucson, I know the deep love I have for this place is part of what makes life special. I’d much rather try to manage these feelings than not have felt them at all.