It’s hard to believe that it is towards the end of May, which means there are only 2 months left in my time in Tucson. A lot has happened since my last blog post, so I thought I should share some updates:
First, I officially will be working at Eastern Mennonite University as the Sustainability Coordinator! As a student in college, this was a position I spent a lot of time promoting and talking with faculty and administration about, so I was eager to apply, and I’m excited to be working in that space and community again. I’ll be starting in mid-August, so that allows some time between my time in Tucson and Harrisonburg to travel a bit. I plan on going to the Pacific Northwest for about 10 days to see some college friends in Seattle and Yakima Washington and Oregon, which I’m really excited about! Having this job puts me at ease a bit knowing I have some things planned for the foreseeable future.
With that being said, the past month has been an emotional and mental rollercoaster as we’ve started thinking more of our individual next steps, and not as much of what we as a house will do together. Jessie and Michaela will finish their time in Tucson at the end of June, so the last weeks of work and farewells are approaching faster than I’d like. foreseeable
Some Highlights in May
Parent’s Visiting (April 29 - May 2)
Right after I returned from Virginia, my parents came out to Arizona for about 10 days, spending a long weekend in Tucson with Elisa and me. It was fun to show them around to various places a for them to get a taste of what I’ve been up to in Tucson. Some highlights were going to Biosphere 2 and a beautiful sunset on Mt. Lemmon.
Harper’s Farewell (May 5-7)
We then had to say goodbye to our housemate and new friend, Harper. She was here for 3 months working at Casa Alitas and was then going to work on the East Coast before starting college in the fall. We appreciated the presence she brought to our house, and she was always able to make us laugh and keep us spontaneous. That last weekend was packed with things: an evening hike to Tanque Verde Falls, a farewell party, Saturday breakfast, and then traveling to Phoenix for a concert. We purchased tickets to see The National Parks, which was a great time with good music! The first image is us posing with a surprise sticker that Harper made us!
Vocational Discernment (May 12-14)
We had a vocational discernment weekend with the Young Adult Volunteers from Albuquerque and Tucson in Silver City, New Mexico. The weekend consisted of personal reflection, group conversation, and procession related to our vocation and how we can discern what’s important to us moving forward. We did our border delegation with the YAVs back in October, so it was good to reconnect with them and see how their service year has been going. Also, we experienced a big thunderstorm for the first time in a while.
Biking the Loop (May 20)
Yesterday, I crossed off one of my major Tucson goals: biking the Huckleberry Loop. The Loop is 54 miles (we biked a total of 60 miles including the stretch from our house to the loop), which circles the entire city of Tucson. Jessie and I started at 5:30 am to beat as much of the heat and finished by 11 am. It was a gorgeous morning. I was impressed with my body’s capability of doing 60 miles. The most I had done previously was about 30 miles.
At Work
Since coming back, work at WMG has been good, but we are approaching a slow period for my program/the organization as a whole for June. This means that we will not have any outward-facing events, and will be a time for staff to recharge and work on projects that are typically on the back burner. Since I’ll be wrapping up my time in July, I’ll be spending a lot of my time training new folks in the work I’ve been doing and organizing documents so they are easy to pass on to the next person. The photo is from my May Clean Up, and I will have one more in July before I wrap up at WMG.
Coming up the first weekend in June, our house will be going to Rocky Point, Mexico for a beach weekend with our local program coordinator and family! June will be slower but will begin the “last of things” as we approach the end of June when we will be going to Kansas City for Mennonite Convention from July 3-7th.
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