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Willett: Making new memories during pandemic in Sun City

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“Hushed and serene,” I think, as I look out the floor-to-ceiling windows of our little two bedroom home tucked in this retirement community in the Valley of the Sun.

It’s 5:30 in the morning, and the bed no longer holds its allure. I slip on my robe, grab my glasses and iPhone, then tiptoe out to the dark living room to sit in the chilly, early December coldness. I wait for the sunrise to once again awaken the umber rock and shrub landscape that surrounds our part-time home.

It’s a new reality to be here in December, a month we have never spent away from home. This house is primarily an investment that we rent out to winter visitors. Our routine has been to spend November here then rush back to the cold wet northwest of Oregon to live our now retired lives. We help our three grown children and their families, plus pick back up our church and other volunteer activities that keep us meaningfully engaged.

Normally our time here finds us rushing to weed and spray our oversized lot of rocks (vs. grass). We hire again and again the locals to cut back desert trees and bushes that seem to never stop growing in this abundant sunshine. Each plant is sustained by a drip irrigation system that also requires regular maintenance.

Bathrooms, floors and baseboards demand scrubbing, plus there is always the repairing of inevitable breakdowns of some appliance or system that never seems to work quite the way it did when we left things locked up for six months in the oppressive summer heat. Even my collection of cork-soled sandals require conditioning after six months of dry heat that I’ve learned can make them crumble like graham crackers.

So, some of you are saying, “None of that sounds inviting,” but we haven’t got to the payoff yet. While the Pacific Northwest is experiencing day after day of cold, cloudy, sun-deprived short days, we are here in our little living space that includes two couches, one oversized leather chair and a fairly large rectangle dining table that separates us from the small kitchen. We sit; hot coffee with real creamer cradled in our hands and watch for the sun to slowly break over the eastern horizon, illuminating the desert around us like a dimmer switch turned on in slow motion.

Soon, the cold darkness that surrounds me sitting here with only the light of my computer screen will give way to a muted light. Desert doves and other small birds may already be on the ground under the small bird feeder I keep hanging in the tree outside one window. The light of the sun begins to paint every little rock and tree with its faithful brush.

Even in December, the coldest month — one we have never experienced here — the temperature will warm from as low as the high 20s to the high 60s or maybe 70 degrees by 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., all under mostly clear blue skies, a delight that will endure for most of the winter.

Gentle taupe-colored doves and perky Gambel’s quail bring constant life to the rocky tan landscape. Grackle birds and woodpeckers visit and cause a stir but then move on. Small gray rabbits peak out from under oleander, lantana and citrus trees, running across the rock yards, only to freeze in place, blending in to their environment in case of a hawk above them or a passing predator. Coyotes and bobcats have adapted to the humans who have built houses and golf courses in the middle of their domain, one they still claim, jumping over six-foot stucco walls that fail to keep them at bay in their own territories.

Yes, it will be a different December this year as the COVID-19 pandemic keeps us sequestered away from precious loved ones and dear grandchildren. This is a year of masks, hand sanitizer, social distancing and doing life by technical connections like Zoom and Marco Polo. It also comes with new memories we would never have made; like colored lights draped over saguaro cactus, on a 70-degree summer-like day — Christmas in the desert.