Tumacacori Mission stands near the San Padro River where it has been standing for almost two centuries.
The walls are crumbling down, especially on the inside, but you get the feeling it will take many more centuries for the whole church to crumble away.
The walls are crumbling more on the inside of the church because for a long time she was missing her roof.
Tumacacori is Arizona’s oldest mission. It’s one of 24 missions that Padro Eusebio Francisco Kino established in the Southwest. He came from Europe with his small but mighty band of Jesuits in 1691.
You might think he must have been an aggressive person, but Father Kino was not. He was a dreamer, a man who watched the stars, who drew maps of the lands he explored, and who learned the languages of Native Americans.
Father Kino did not build the church, but he did start the Catholic mission here. He baptized people, married them, and conducted services under a thatched canopy that shaded his congregation from the blistering Arizona heat.
The church itself was built around 1820. In its glory years, Tumacacori was painted all kinds of bright colors inside and out. You can still see a bit of color on the front of the church.
The inside of Tumacacori is dark and a little creepy. The crumbling stairway to the bell tower, the walls that once held statues and candles, the altar, once as bright as the front doors and pillars. Once it looked like the picture below.
Today it looks like the second one.
Tumacacori is a National Monument run by the United States Park Service. President Theodore Roosevelt saved it in 1902, but the Park Service never restored it. Their idea was people should see the church as it once was, and to allow it to slowly decline as a way of showing the passage of time.
The gardens and smaller buildings near the church are lovely, perhaps something like they looked so long ago. Sadly, looters raided everything here, and even opened up graves looking for Spanish gold they never found. However, you can still get the idea of that this was a little community of people who shared their lives and rituals.
Unlike San Xavier Mission nearer to Tucson, Tumacacori is not a working church. Its bells no longer ring, its choirs no longer sing, and no one kneels there every week for prayers. This gives it a lonely quality. Yet with some imagination it is easy to picture how it once was so many years ago – serene, tranquil, beautiful — the active center of a small community in this isolated desert.
It is still beautiful in its own way, even as its walls are crumbling down.
Jane St. Clair’s short story, “Hair Like Julia Roberts,” has been accepted for publication by Weber, Journal of the Contemporary West. The story is about a couple who tries to escape a religious desert cult.
To plan a visit to Tumacacori Historical National Park, go to here.
Oracle State Park is one of those places that makes you wonder about other people’s lives, and what it was like to live somewhere else in some other time.
Oracle State Park was once someone’s home. Out in the middle of no where and in the middle of the Great Depression, four Midwesterners built themselves a fanciful blue house and took up cattle ranching on this land about twenty miles north of Tucson.
They bought 50,000 acres so barren that it still has only one saguaro. Oracle State Park is all big piles of rocks and rolling grassland, but it has grand places where you can stand and see for miles and miles and miles.
If you hike Oracle State Park in late winter, its wilderness has a bleached out quality. Medium green is a bright color here and stands out among dusty hues of gold, grays, and beige. You can hike for hours and hours and see for miles and miles but what you won’t see are other people. It’s just you, land and sky –and the sky goes on forever.
After a while you start seeing details like the way the tall grass can look shiny and wet or the way an orange butterfly flutters on a sagebrush. The vistas are tremendous with snow-topped mountains above that belong now to the entire San Pedro river valley below. Animals live here – grasshoppers, mice, deer, snakes, lizards, mountain lions, jays and hawks– but usually they hide from hikers.
Oracle State Park once belonged to the Kannally family from Illinois. One of their sons had tuberculosis. He came to Arizona in 1902 as a teenager to find a cure. As his health improved from the dry air and warm climate, Neil Kannally vowed to come back some day and make his home here. He and three other siblings purchased this land and built the dramatic Mediterranean style house on the property in 1929. None of them married, and they lived out here until the last one died in 1976. While they sold most of the property to Magna Copper Company, they also left 4,000 acres to the Defenders of Wildlife, which gave it to the state of Arizona for a park.
The Kannally house is very cool, with its 16-inch thick adobe walls and whimsical paintings of cowboys riding with fairy princesses. This house has no bedrooms – the family slept in various cottages on the land. It must have been so quiet out there, and so dark at night under a black desert sky stippled with stars.
This wilderness place makes us wonder about other people’s lives and what it was like to live somewhere.
Christmas catalogs this year were selling the St. Therese Prayer wall hanging. It looked like something from an antique shop, a frame with a poem printed in an old font with big capital letters. The plaque could cost up to $400.
But then, it’s a really lovely prayer.
But which St. Therese wrote it?
People are asking who wrote the St. Therese Prayer? St. Therese of Lisieux? Or St. Teresa of Avila? It doesn’t say.
St. Therese of Lisieux lived a quiet and ordinary life as a Carmelite, and then died a hard death at age 24. She wanted to be like Joan of Arc, but she never got to wear armor or go into battle. Instead, she became a saint by doing little everyday things in a saintly way, like putting up with a cranky old nun. She believed we’re meant to live the best life where we find ourselves, and we’re meant to do our best in every moment, even if we’re just doing little everyday things.
It’s something like mindfulness.
St. Therese of Lisieux didn’t think she was smart enough to understand the writings of St. Teresa of Avila. That saint’s great work, “The Interior Castle,” is hard to understand, but it helped St. Teresa of Avila become a Doctor of the Church and one of the most admired mystics of history.
So again, which saint wrote 2018’s Prayer of the Year?
The truth is neither one wrote it.
British poet Minnie Louise Haskins wrote it. It’s published in her book of poems called “The Desert” from 1908.
Since they were saints, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux would definitely not take credit for anything they did not write themselves. However, they would probably say that the St. Therese Prayer is such a lovely prayer that it doesn’t matter who wrote it.
‘Tis A Gift To Land Up Where You’re Meant to be
I really love the second line of the prayer–“May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.” It’s like the old Quaker hymn, “Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free, ‘tis a gift to land up where you’re supposed to be.” St. Therese of Lisieux would believe that, but so would St. Teresa of Avila, who once wrote, “ “Prayer alone can do a lot of good for the people you pray for. Beyond that, it’s not necessary to try to help the whole world. Concentrate on your own circle of companions who need you. Then whatever you do will be of great benefit.”
That’s their real gift, isn’t it?
The St. Therese Prayer
May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.”
Jane’s short story, “Secrets of Mama Kardashian,” is now available from Wising Up Press at their bookstore .
“Mute,” Jane’s short story about a hospice clown who gets confused after she witnesses a murder, is live online in the 97th issue of Image — see Mute by Jane St. Clair.
El Tiradito is a wishing place. It is where those who have loved and lost ask for help in mending their broken hearts. It is a place for anyone who still loves someone now lost to them … someone who has left them alone, either physically or emotionally, or someone torn from them through a darkness like addiction.
The legend of El Tiradito promises that if you make your wish and light a candle in this spot, your wish will come true … but only if your candle burns for one whole day.
The Story of El Tiradito
One hundred forty years ago, when the West was wild and lawless, a teenaged boy named Juan Oliveras married the daughter of a wealthy sheep rancher. An evil curse on his life began to come true when Juan fell in love with his mother-in-law. His father-in-law caught them together in the family’s mansion in Tucson, went crazy with hatred, and killed Juan. Then he fled to Sonora, Mexico, but he too was murdered – this time by Apache. The two widows left behind took their own lives.
Our story does not end there. The good people of Tucson’s Barrio had to do something to lessen their shock and grief. They called Juan Oliveras by a new name –“El Tiradito–” which means, “Little Castaway,” the one who is shunned and put aside. They built this wishing place so no one would ever forget this tragedy of Shakespearean proportions that affected them all so deeply.
El Tiradito Today
For all this time –over 100 years– the women of the Barrio have maintained El Tiradito’s little grotto. They moved and rebuilt it twice in its long history. Today it’s in an unlikely spot: downtown Tucson, next to office buildings and the convention center.
In 1971 builders of the the Butterfield Expressway planned to destroy El Tiradito. The women saved it by putting it on the Register of National Historic Places. They take care of it to this day.
El Tiradito can be ghostly and creepy if you approach it with the wrong energy. You need an open heart that understands the power of forgiveness. To those who believe this spot is primitive and superstitious, I say that you need more magic in your lives. To those who have been in love, you already know fools give you reasons, but wise men never try.
Jane’s short story, “Secrets of Mama Kardashian,” is now available from Wising Up Press in the This book is about Americans who cross class boundaries through immigration, education, marriage, and other means, and how it feels to leave the familiar behind you. To buy a copy of this wonderful book, go to the bookstore at Wising Up Press.
“Mute,” Jane’s short story about a hospice clown who gets confused after she witnesses a murder, is live online in the 97th issue of Image — see Mute by Jane St. Clair. Also, “Disneyland Death,” a story by Jane St. Clair is online in the Spring 2018 PDF issue of Medical Literary Messenger from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Today, children, we’re going to look at insects of the Sonoran Desert, many of which are totally disgusting or deadly poisonous.
Tarantula Spider
Tarantula spiders are scientifically known as big hairy spiders. In James Bond movies, the bad guy will put a tarantula in James Bond’s bed, and it’ll crawl slowly up his arm before 007 reaches for his gun and blows it away. In real life, tarantulas are timid and shy. They’ll run away from you like scared little mice. You”ll only see them when it rains, which is also when Tarantula Hawks go hunting for them.
Tarantula Hawk
Despite its name, the Tarantula Hawk is neither bird nor spider. It is a mean little insect with a bizarre life cycle that makes you wonder about the wisdom of evolution. Its sting is so painful that the foremost expert on insects of the Sonoran Desert says when a tarantula hawk bites you, you lose your senses so that no one understands your babbling. The correct thing to do, he advises, is to lie down and start screaming.
A female Tarantula Hawk needs to find a big fat tarantula spider in order to survive. Although the Tarantula Spider is gigantic and maybe twenty times bigger than she is, the hawk takes him on. Her sting is so strong that the odds of the spider surviving are 400 to one. She stings him into paralysis, and then lays her eggs into his body. Somehow this is part of nature’s beautiful plan.
Brown Recluse Spider
The name of this spider brings to mind your old-maid aunt with her brown hair in a bun who teaches piano. However, the brown recluse is a nasty Sonoran Desert insect that hides in linen cabinets, and bites you when you grab a towel. His bite is very serious, causing a big red ulcer that needs medical treatment for months and months, and in some cases, until the end of your natural life.
Scorpions
Scorpions are among the most common insects of the Sonoran Desert. The big ones get up to five and a half inches long, but it’s the little ones that you have to watch out for. They have the nastiest stings. They feel like needle pricks when they get you, but they have this poison that causes nerve damage. Again, part of nature’s perfect plan. One neat thing about scorpions is they glow green in the dark if you shine a black light on them.
Giant Red-Headed Centipedes
A giant Red-Headed Centipede can be a foot long, or so claim Texans who are known to tell a tall tale or two. We have gigantic centipedes here in Tucson, and
I’d pit ours against theirs any day, although I’ve never seen a 12-inch one. They grow big enough to eat lizards and toads. Sadly, these Giant Red-Headed Centipedes are partly why we redheads have such a bad name. They say a Civil War soldier died when a Giant Redheaded Centipede used his little feet to cover him in bites. However, let’s be careful because this is a story told by Texans.
Killer Bees
We share our beautiful Sonoran Desert with large swarms of killer bees that look like moving glittery footballs. These bees are aggressive and came to Arizona about ten years ago. By now they have completely replaced all honey bees, but no one much cares except the dogs, horses and the occasional dumb human that these bees occasionally kill. Again, we Arizonans are okay with various kinds of bees, even though “Killer Bee” has a different ring to it compared to “Honey Bee.” Safety tip: Don’t try to escape killer bees by diving into your swimming pool, as they will wait you out for hours and hours. In that way, they are like grizzlies.
Crossing Class anthology. Jane’s short story, “Secrets of Mama Kardashian,” is now available from Wising Up Press in the This book is about Americans who cross class boundaries through immigration, education, marriage, and other means, and how it feels to leave the familiar behind you. To buy a copy of this wonderful book, go to the bookstore at Wising Up Press.
“Mute,” Jane’s short story about a hospice clown who is confused after she witnesses a murder, is live online in the 97th issue of Image — see Mute by Jane St. Clair. “Disneyland Death,” a story by Jane St. Clair is online in the Spring 2018 PDF issue of Medical Literary Messenger from Virginia Commonwealth University.
The other day I landed up in Mayer, Arizona, for no good reason. It’s smack in the middle of the state, and one of our near-ghost towns that used to be something other than it is now.
In the 1910s, it was a major stagecoach stop between Phoenix and Prescott. In the 1930s it was where you towed your Tin Lizzy when your radiator blew out in the Arizona heat.Today it’s more about historic buildings.
I was lucky in that it was raining and raining hard the day I wandered into Mayer. Just outside of town I got this dramatic hallelujah sky.
Then the subsequent downpour shined up Mayer’s buildings so they looked mysterious and glowing in the reddening twilight. The muddy puddles on the streets had rainbows making little waves as if they were tiny unicorn lakes.
The Wells Fargo stagecoach was stopping at Big Bug Station in Mayer by the 1880s. Twenty years later the town had a saloon, a dance hall, a brothel, a general store and a barber shop. I can imagine cowboys and ranchers resting their horses here in Mayer and frequenting these convenient businesses in the meantime. Some of these shops remain, not quite as ruins but more as remembrances of times past.
I could picture the Wells Fargo wagon a’coming down the street, and Mayer’s townspeople gathering at 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 the town in their long dresses and corsets, living in the dust and heat of the Wild West. Maybe they tried to maintain the standards they brought with them from back East. They’d try to shut down the saloons. They’d insist the town build a big red brick schoolhouse because they wanted to bring refinement and education for the children.
I could even picture the Mayer City River Band! It’d march down Main Street with 76 trombones leading the big parade, and 110 coronets close at hand! Tata ta ta!
The schoolhouse, Mayer Apartments and the business section of Mayer are on the National Register of Historic Places. But I thought other spots in Mayer were just as cool, like the old brothel near the school, the strange little cemetery on both sides of the road, and the big smokestack that was never even used.
It’s easy to miss Mayer. Most people want to visit Jerome, Arizona, a picturesque old mining city only a few miles away. Tourists also head toward Arcosanti, a nearby experimental desert community designed by Paolo Soleri. These are interesting, but there’s something authentic about Mayer. Something that makes you see the old Wells Fargo wagon itself, and think about the magic of the real West.
“Mute,” Jane’s short story about a confused hospice clown, is live online in the 97th issue of Image — see Mute by Jane St. Clair. “Disneyland Death,” a story by Jane St. Clair is online in the Spring 2018 PDF issue of Medical Literary Messenger from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Tucson, Arizona … A long time ago a mourning dove nested in a Mexican pot in our backyard, but the dog got jealous of my attention to her, overturned the pot and ate her eggs.
So I was very happy that I finally got to make friends with a new mourning dove mama. This time she built a flimsy little stick nest on top of a brick tower just outside my kitchen window. Although she was very close to the house, I was determined not to disturb her. I had to take pictures through a window that has a dirt film, but I figured if I cleaned it, she’d fly away.
I never really got the phrase “sitting on her eggs” until I watched this mama mourning dove. She sat and sat and sat. For weeks on end.
She rarely changed position or even moved her strange little head and staring beady eyes. No wonder we get the word “brooding” from bird behavior. This bird sat sitting and staring and brooding for so long she put any brooding hormonal teenager to shame. She could even give famous brooding people like Lord Byron and Dracula a run for their money.
One day I realized that she was sitting on a different kind of chair, one that was more elevated.
And it was true! The eggs had hatched! I could see two little feathered heads.
But nothing much changed. She never left the nest, just sat there, keeping them warm, even though the temperature outside was in the 100s. Occasionally I could get a peek at her two babies, born helpless and unable to move on their own. They were not twins, for one was bigger and stronger.
In their dorky dependence on Mama and their fearful little ways, they were adorable. The first few days Mama provided a form of milk, as mourning doves are among the few kinds of birds that can do that.
The babies quickly grew into teenagers, and she began to leave them alone and come back with real food.I was amazed at how much work she put into this, especially after the time spent brooding.
One morning the bigger baby was no longer in the nest. I slowly opened the front door to check on him, and he was hopping on the ground.
I thought about putting him back up there with his sister, but I decided this little fellow was a daring soul who wanted his own way in life. I named him “the Red Baron” and wished him luck.
That afternoon his sister tried the same risky maneuver and died in the fall. I cried for her and felt sorry for her faithful selfless mother. It seemed so sad that after all this love and effort, my bird mama had lost a chick.
Mama mourning dove left and never came back. I didn’t blame her. I like to think that the Red Baron made it and was somewhere out there, pecking the desert ground in sunlight and flying around cactus in moonlight.
The abandoned nest of sticks reminded me of how much I missed the little family. Then, a week later, I pulled into the car port and there she was. She had built a new nest in a better place, one with a solid roof and walls around it, up there in the rafters of the garage. What’s more, she didn’t have to put up with paparazzi like me taking pictures. It was perfect for her.
Godspeed, dove-mama. May all your chicks make it to desert sunlight.
“Disneyland Death,” a story by Jane St. Clair is now available for reading online in the Spring 2018 PDF issue here at Medical Literary Messenger from Virginia Commonwealth University. Negative Capability Press accepted Jane St. Clair’s short story, “The Gerber Secret.” It will appear in the July 2018 issue under the theme of “Family Secrets.”
When you think about parks, you think about sports and playgrounds. Tucson’s Tohono Chul Park is nothing about those. Tohono Chul is about gardens and trails.
“Tohono Chul” means “desert corner” in the language of the Tohono O’oham nation, but the park isn’t deserty. It’s more gardens and oasis. And unless you’ve lived in the dry brown dust of a desert, you can’t understand how refreshing it is to feel the green lushness that is Tohono Chul Park.
It’s a big place, almost 50 acres. Once it was a commercial orange grove, and once it was somebody’s house. The house and other properties are now an art gallery, classroom, and a chichi restaurant. The Haunted Bookstore used to be part of Tohono Chul Park, but Amazon ate it up a long time ago.
The many gardens of Tohono Chul have names and themes. I like the ones with flowers and water elements the best. The park puts name tags on the plants and flowers that grow there, including over 300 kinds of cactus, and a zillion kinds of Penstemons. The Superb Penstemon, the Showy, Cleveland’s Beardtongue, Whipple’s, Sunset Crater, Gulf Coast, and whatever. Cool.
The tiny Baja Fairy Duster looks exactly like its name. I’m convinced that tidy fairies grab them up when no one’s looking.
The Children’s Garden has a whimsical birdhouse and water stream for paper boats. In the Ethnobotanical Garden you can see how the Native Americans farmed and harvested the desert centuries ago.
You’ll want to check out the tortoise enclosure and the dancing men petrographs, and the cactus circle with the horse statue. You can hike on natural desert trails, and if you’re lucky, you’ll see bobcat, coyote and javelina.
I have a favorite cactus out there I always visit because he’s so dorky he makes me smile. I like to sit on the benches in the gardens and listen to the rustle of the trees and shrubberies accompanied by wind chimes. I like to feel the soft ground under my feet –desert ground is hard, sandy and rocky.
Ralph Waldo Emerson loved gardens. He once said he would rather walk around gardens and nurseries than among the Pyramids. I love his definition of a successful life:
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
So there it is. Gardens are that important. To succeed –all you need to do is build a garden. Isn’t it pretty to think so?
To check out the park’s hours and admission charges, go to their website here.
Jane St. Clair’s story, “Disneyland Death,” was accepted for publication by the Medical Literary Journal from Virginia Commonwealth University. Another story “Mute,” about a hospice clown, will appear in Issue 97 of Image, a journal of faith, art and mystery.
When the Spaniards came to the Southwest, they named these trees “Palo Verdes,” which means “Green Sticks.”
They called them by that name because they had never seen trees with green bark before.
I wonder what they thought of the Palo Verdes in springtime when their great yellow canopies come to life. I wonder if they too saw millions of tiny yellow flowers light up the desert, and if they watched them flash and twirl against the bright turquoise sky.
Palo Verdes are everywhere in the Sonoran spring. Since the desert is usually a dusty brown along with 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 our human eyes to grasp. No wonder Van Gogh went nuts. Colors can do that to you.
I love the way the little Palo Verde petals get caught in the wind and flutter around. I like the way their petals float and dance in space whenever they are caught in a silvery thread left by a spider. I love the way these trees look in different lights, especially sunset.When the sun backlights Palo Verdes in a certain way, their blossoms look like shining polka dots, like stars dotting the night sky.
Then –just when you think Palo Verdes could not bring more beauty to the desert– their little petals start to drop. The petals are only the size of your thumbnail, and they’re simple little things, just four crinkly petals arranged in a star. When they are dropping, you walk with a velvet yellow carpet under your feet … When you look up, there’s yellow. Look down, there’s yellow. Yellow everywhere you look!
Autumn back East, back home, is magnificent with red, brown, yellow and orange colors. Yet the combination of Palo Verde yellow and Arizona turquoise in the Sonoran spring is just as jarring and just as beautiful as a Midwestern fall.
Pablo Picasso once asked the question, “Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this?”
I doubt if you can explain it. I also think it’s unimportant to explain things anyway – especially if you can just let two colors sing.
Wising Up Press accepted Jane St. Clair’s short story, “Secrets of Mama Kardashian,” to be included in a new anthology called Crossing Class: The Invisible Wall. The stories in this book all explore “The great unspeakable” about a country based on the principle that all people are equal.
Every city or university town has a place like Tucson’s Fourth Avenue.
It’s 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.
Someone’s always protesting something on Fourth Avenue.
You’ve got to admire their passion.
For some reason Fourth Avenue has this big Dairy Queen right in the middle, and a huge Tiki Man on one end of it. Tiki Man has creepy green eyes that stare down at you like Dr. T.J. Eckleberg’s eyes in “Great Gatsby.” What are you smoking, Tiki-Man?
Fourth Avenue has its own trolley, one of the most expensive trains in the country in terms of cost per-foot. The trolley runs less than four miles but cost almost $200 million or about $50 million a mile.
Far out, eh, man?
Fourth Avenue is part of the Pie Allen Historic District. The neighborhood looks as if it’s honoring the historic 1960s, but its historic value is in its buildings from the 1880s to 1930s. The district was named after Pie Allen, a prospector. Yes, that is his real name –not Allen Pie. Pie baked pies as well panned for gold.
What you’d like about Fourth Avenue–
–Cool thrift stores and hip restaurants
–A Food Co-op that promotes sustainability
–The arches in the Goodwill Building
–Street musicians and the green cactus piano you can play yourself
–The annual Fourth Avenue Street Fair
–Revolutionary spirit
–Creativity and art everywhere in sight
A groovy place, this hippie heaven
Where it’s always the summer of ‘67
Wising Up Press accepted Jane St. Clair’s short story, “Secrets of Mama Kardashian,” to be included in a new anthology called Crossing Class: The Invisible Wall. The stories in this book all explore “The great unspeakable” about a country based on the principle that all people are equal.
Tumacacori is Arizona’s oldest mission. It’s one of 24 missions that Padro Eusebio Francisco Kino established in the Southwest. He came from Europe with his small but mighty band of Jesuits in 1691.
Today it looks like the second one.
