Recount

The plane came in from the south swooped to the east and landed heading west. I could pick out familiar landmarks. The Sacaton Indian Reservation and the alfalfa fields and then Superstition Mountains in Apache Junction. We followed the Salt River through Mesa, across Tempe Town Lake, had a peak at the Papago Buttes - and then we were here!

It was actually early evening – and we didn’t see a sunset, but I could pick out the ballpark, and the Renaissance Square Buildings downtown.

I’ve been telling myself this trip isn’t about coming home –it’s about art. I don’t know if I’m going to succeed.

The exit for our hotel is the same exit I took every night when I came home from work. “See that sign? Now it’s a restaurant. It use to be a florist shop from the 50s, that's how it got it's name,” I tell Meg.

Our route took us right past the house that has the Statue of Liberty. “Look for Lady Liberty on the left, that’s where I turned to enter my neighborhood.”

We turned to the right at the next major intersection. The hospital loomed up. “That’s where I had outpatient surgery. Mom got lost on the one-way streets when she brought the car around to get me,” I explain.

We met up with my friend Heather at the hotel – and then it was off to dinner. Do you know where we’re going I quiz her? “You’re the downtown girl,” she says. And indeed – even though there’s a light rail running down the middle of Central Avenue, I remember the tricky left turn at Roosevelt, ‘cause you can’t left at Portland to get to 1^st street.

Our dinner at PastaBAR was great and full of remembering.

Today we're up at the crack of dawn (time difference) and it’s off the Botanical Garden (which I’ve never been too!), the Scottsdale galleries and the Heard Museum. We’ll go to the Phoenix Art Museum late in the afternoon if we’re not on sensory overload.

Maybe this trip is really about the art of remembering.