E; Tiradito is unique to Tucson. It is a wishing place over 140 years old where people who have loved and lost go to mend their broken hearts. People light candles there, and leave little notes in its walls. El Tiradito is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

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I could picture the Wells Fargo wagon a’coming down the street, and all of Mayer’s townspeople gathering at the Big Bug station – wondering if they got salmon from Seattle, a box of sugar maple or a cross-cut saw—the way we wonder what’s in the Amazon box on the porch. I could also picture the ladies of Mayer in their long dresses and corsets, living in the dust and heat of the Wild West.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson would have liked Tohono Chul Park because he loved gardens. He once said he would rather walk around gardens and nurseries than among the Pyramids.

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Since the desert is mostly dusty browns and a zillion shades of pastel greens, this means when the Palo Verde trees bloom, they are the whole show. The contrast of bright yellow flowers against the bright blue sky can be too much for human eyes to take in. No wonder Van Gogh went nuts.

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Fourth Avenue in Tucson is the groovy neighborhood full of bookstores, coffee houses, and shops where you buy art, marijuana, tattoos, vintage clothing, and tarot readings. You see people who got left behind there and who are still living in the 1960’s. And you see people who got left completely behind and who are living in stairwells and on park benches. But you’ll also see writers, artists, students, musicians, revolutionaries, and philosopher-kings living there as well.

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Pecos Bill lived over 150 years until one terrible day when this city slicker from New York City came to town. This Tenderfoot wanted to cowboy, so he bought himself Steve Madden boots, Kim Kardashian jeans, and a Ralph Lauren cowboy shirt. When he came out of the store, Pecos Bill took one look and laughed himself to death. And that’s the sad truth, partner.

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About 300 Hohokam probably lived in walled villages on this 15-acre spot called Romero Ruins. They were farmers who knew how to irrigate the desert. They had two large ball courts, and probably played tournaments against nearby villages. Since they made seashell jewelry, archaeologists think they went to the Gulf of California to trade.

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A forest meadow on Mount Lemmon is surrounded by quaking Aspens, these white-barked trees that keep waving their yellow hands back and forth. So many leaves quake at once that it feels as if you’re sitting in quaking yellow polka dots.

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I love the way saguaros just stand in stoic silence, even in the broiling desert sun. You can learn from their silence. As Eckhart Tolle writes in his book, Stillness Speaks, “We have forgotten what rocks, plants, and animals know. We have forgotten how to be. How to be still.

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We sense a cosmic force that is always with us, the force that Buber calls love. We can have an I-Thou encounter not only with other human beings, but also animals, flowers, rocks, the sky … whatever. Every I-Thou encounter we have connects us to something other than ourselves. Every I-Thou encounter opens our hearts to the ultimate encounter with the “Thou” of the universe, the God of Love.

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