Moving to Southern Arizona from the Pacific Northwest has not been an easy transition. The first time I had a rattlesnake encounter a year ago, I screamed and ran away like a cartoon with my arms stuck out in front of me, heart pounding at 200 beats a minute. I am terrified of the Africanized bees that will chase you and sting you hundreds or thousands of times. There are so many things to worry about in the desert when you’re running and exploring, yet I knew I wanted to keep doing it.
I’m a big fan of using mantras. One I started using when I was out in nature is “all my scary friends are here.” It helped me to slowly train my brain to appreciate all of the living things that creep and crawl and poke around, despite them being scary. It’s been about a year and I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress in letting myself be alert without being constantly freaked out.
I also love writing and don’t give myself many chances to do it these days. This blog will be a place to write about my adventures in the Sonoran Desert and elsewhere.
Who’s Sandy?
For people who might know me from other places under other names: Sandy is an alter ego/pseudonym that I use on and off to represent my more adventurous and outgoing persona.
Image Credits
All images on this site are credited with their original creators unless they’re mine.
Sources for the home page banner image:
Javelina by Calvin Tatum: https://pixabay.com/users/caltatum-4013072/
Millipede by Graham Richardson: https://pixabay.com/users/gnr588-17433225/
Bee swarm by Andreas Neumann: https://pixabay.com/users/leuchtpunkt-13009256/
(I couldn’t find sources for the other images, let me know if you created one of these and I’m missing it!)