about molly | art | writings | contact | home   the avra valley dispatch: July 12 2005 - Party at Molly's: October 22 2005 Recently I had thoughts about selling my li'l house of squalor and becoming a city girl again. I'm alone in the rural desert 45minutes from town and sometimes that causes me concern. I'm not paranoid or fearful, but it's a long drive home late at night, and it does get lonesome out here. I was also thinking perhaps I took on more work than I could realistically handle by myself. The sagging gutters, and the klugey room, and the unfinished porch at the front, and the waist high dead grass, and the leftover building materials from the previous owner, and dozens of trees that need trimming, and the icky countertop in the kitchen. My home is 52 years-old, hiding on three relatively lush acres. It's a frame and cement tile house from the long-gone town of Silverbell that was relocated, plunked down in the middle of my property. I like to think about that sometimes: my little house toddling down the mountainside and across Avra Valley to West Sandy Street. I'm not exactly sure how it was done -- I don't think the house was sawn in half -- but it's done it once, it could do it again. If I could move my house into Tucson and put it on a tidy little lot, I'd be thrilled: I could ride my bike to work and to the Congress Hotel for coconut pie, shop daily at the 17th Street Market, drink that additional glass of wine, and not have to leave the party early to drive 30 miles back home. Not likely, though -- I'll just have to fluff up my pillow and dream about it. My house is just too cute to leave. It has high beamed ceilings I painted pool bottom blue, a creaky wooden floor that I painted bright Chinese red, and a most admirably efficient use of its available space. My antique everything and crazy collection of art feel right inside it. The Arizona room on the side adds an extra 200 square feet to the house, and I'm contemplating embracing my distant north African roots and turning it into a hookah den. The real estate agent I enlisted to sell my house (and who ended up convincing me not to) agreed: "You won't find anything this cute in Tucson in your price range." Half an hour after the real estate agent left, a new friend, Siet, came by for dinner, and after the grand tour essentially said, "I won't like you anymore if you sell this place." Like others I've invited over -- and like me three years ago -- she saw potential: creative space; a naturiffic retreat from the city; naked dancing in the rain; a big loud party with poi dancers, bands, and bonfires. The porch once attached to the old Palm Harbour is still standing at the back, and would make a great stage. Then there's my vintage Terry Trailer guest house -- equally cute as the main house -- and the Milky Way. That's the glowy plane of the disk of our galaxy that not a lot of city girls ever see. So, despite the sagging gutters, and the klugey room, and the unfinished porch at the front, and the waist high dead grass, and the leftover building materials from the previous owner, and dozens of trees that need trimming, and the icky countertop in the kitchen, I'm going to stay put. I am the girl that lives in the desert.     Everything © 2005 by Molly Kiely. Yay!