A Vacation From My Problems

Bisbee, AZ, is for the ghosts and me

When I was twenty-four I ran screaming from a small town, with many spiteful things to say that I won’t bore you with now. I was done, over done, and I was confident in my blame leveled at the town for the problems in my life. With the clarity of hindsight, I think I was more done with Michael’s grad school and the grad school-adjacent life. I wanted out and I was confident that Phoenix would solve many of my problems.

And I love Phoenix, warts and all, that is very true. But let me tell you, last weekend my family and I went three hours south to Bisbee, AZ, a historic mining town of 4,994 and it was heaven. We parked the car at the house we stayed in and walked all over for two days and then went home. Vacation is only restful for me if it’s a break from driving.

Bisbee is known for ghosts. The hotel bar where friends and I went for a few glasses of wine was a stop on a ghost tour and we’d just sat down when a crowd of 15 came through a side door, led by a woman in old-timey garb carrying a lantern. She introduced the group to the bartender, explained he was also the caretaker of the hotel and lived there full time. He made a well worn joke, “So you can all see me, right?” Later in the evening, when my two friends and I were the only ones in the bar, he would jump into our conversation like it wasn’t odd at all. He shared the tidbit that his grandmother used to give him weed gummies when he was too young to be having them and he didn’t know what they were till he was much older. We laughed and went back to our conversation, not inviting more chatting with him, but not annoyed.

As I age I take things less personally. Something, an interruption for example, that would have pissed me off when I was twenty-four rolls off my back with a bemused look, tucking the story away for later, not inclined to make it more than it is. A person interjecting into our conversation. Not a big deal.

I visited a city of ghosts to ease me into the week of my ghost — two days after I returned home was the one year death anniversary of a friend. 

A vacation can be a small dam holding back life so I can stream ahead, see what it’s like without all the clutter of daily responsibilities weighing me down. More often than not, time off clears a space to see how large my grief still is, to see how lucky and grateful I am, to see how much more rest I need than I can get. 

What’s the point of vacations? To see more clearly the crushing weight of surviving in this world? I say this as someone who has a high level of autonomy, I’ve chosen many parts of the life I’m living, and still, it’s on vacation I have a moment of clarity – like a small circle wiped clear on a fogged mirror. Oh. I am so tired, why must I work so hard, I’ll never “catch up.” Without fail on vacation I have the thought, Maybe I’ll just stay here. 

But then, by the last morning, I long for my bed, my kitchen, my full to bursting bookshelves. Life may be hellish at times, but I’ll have my comforts about me. Vacation is for metaphors, home is for doing the tiring work that I love.

What makes a small town die, survive, or thrive? A problem I have with the small town vs city discourse is that they are all different. Towns and cities. They must be considered on a case by case basis. I know small towns and big cities I wouldn’t live in if I could avoid it. Bisbee is thriving and I knew it for sure after stepping into their library. A building as close to living as a pile of bricks can be, animated with the care of the people working there, tending to it, remaking it so it doesn’t become a relic.

The library was where the zine fest was held and my table was tucked into the children’s section – appropriate because my 11-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter were with me, selling and trading their zines and stickers. I had the table next to a paper mache statue of Mr. Tumnus, a favorite character, next to, indeed, a lamp post. It was a lovely place to sit for three hours talking with people from all over Arizona about zines, art, printmaking, activism, and more. A favorite moment was at the end of our chat with a person who had wandered in looking for the chess meetup. We were talking about printmaking and they pulled a print from their backpack that they’d made of their fluffy black cat.  

After zine fest, I sat on a patio across the street, eating incredible vegetarian nachos, basking in the sun and recharging my social battery by being nearly silent. Then I had a meandering conversation with old and new friends and I got to ask a local questions. Bisbee is thriving because people live there on purpose, not perfect because no place is, but I saw plenty of space for different folks to be content there. That’s really all I can ask and hope for in a town no matter the size. I saw more elders walking briskly along or sitting at outdoor tables playing cards and talking than I can remember ever seeing in Phoenix. In Phoenix driving is the dominant mode of travel and activities like playing cards usually take place in a backyard.

I am halfway through this travel blog, an anomaly for me, and I thought I should let you know I won’t be linking to where I ate, I won’t be rounding up the names of the restaurants, I won’t be sharing all of the hundreds of photos I took. Call it gatekeeping, though that would be a bit silly because the internet exists. But I’d suggest not searching it to death. Show up and walk around. I will tell you that in Bisbee I couldn’t walk twenty paces before I found somewhere serving food that satisfied me above and beyond and I stood in line for the best croissants of my life. 

Back on that sunny patio, a small group discussed if we could live in a small town or not. Immediately I volunteered, yes, I could live in this small town. Sign me the hell up, I already spotted a vacant storefront with a “for rent” sign that was begging to be filled with books, magazines, zines, and nooks and crannies. Our group was mixed – some couldn’t stomach the idea of living in such a small place where you were bound to become known by and know everyone else. Watching a friend shudder at this thought, I understood it to my core. And, half surprised, I saw in myself a much smaller vision for life than I had at twenty-four. Smaller and more expansive at the same time: I want to be known to a small group of people, and I want to know them. I want to pass people in the street and know each other–not to need to stop and talk every time, but sometimes, yes, to stop and chat before going about our days. And that is difficult to achieve (but not impossible) living in a metro area like Phoenix, where communities are spread out across vast highways and neighbors can be slow to warm.

Ending at the beginning of my time in Bisbee, I stared into a giant, empty, pit mine. The Lavender Pit (named after a man, not the plant) is the history of the town. The town is up a road, removed from the mine a bit, a place people went for reprieve, or the wealthy lived profiting off the mine without toiling within it. People and businesses have gotten slightly better at hiding their tracks. Much of modern extraction is done just out of view of the global north because there is a sense, growing with each generation, that the way ‘successful’ people live is possible for less and less. There is only so much copper or gold or silver to mine. What happens when it’s all been mined?

Viewing the Lavender Pit reminded me that at the time, the mine was miraculous. Pulling metal from a new place to make possible modern life. What progress, what modernity! They didn’t want to hide away the mine, they wanted it right on their doorstep, a monument of community pride. I wonder what it would have been like to see the mine as unlimited possibility without consequences. I wonder if living by the gaping wound in the earth informs the way people live in Bisbee now. I wonder how much copper is left in Kamoa-Kakula in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Escondida in Chile.

I held up my copper-filled iPhone and took a picture. 

P.S. If you’re ever planning a trip to Bisbee, let me know and I'd be happy to share some details, but really you don’t need all that – just show up and walk around.

P.P.S. If you can tell me the movie the title references you will have my undying love.

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The Good Enough Weekly comes out on Fridays, alternating essays, interviews, and blog posts on food, climate, and labor. Rooted in the Sonoran Desert.