The street in Arizona that leads to OZ

Lombard Street, Rodeo Drive, Bourbon Street, Telegraph Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue.   Anyone says the names of these streets and there is an instant connotation, perhaps even a memory.   Around 11:52pm last night My Friend In the Purple Dress and I were driving down my favorite street in Arizona, the blase unassuming construction part of University Drive.

It was the very first street I drove down when I moved here from California.  My Charming Fellow and I had driven 13+ hours straight from the Bay Area to Phoenix and when we got here that August night it was in the high 100s despite being past 2am and it was pouring warm rain.  We were tired, cranky, and this was my new home.

That first impression will always be how hot, flat, and strange this desert place was and that nagging trepidation about living here.  Could I manage to live here for 4 years?  Was this the right school for me?  Would my months-old relationship survive long-distance?  Was it going to be a party school?  It was both nerve-inspiring and exciting. 

I think the word 'epic' is used far too freely in speech and the written word, but nonetheless in these formative years sometimes there are those epic moments and this was one of mine.  I knew the word "college" before I knew the word "high school".  I had been saying I wanted to go to a university since I was literally in pre-school.  So to actually be driving into OZ on that August night with my car packed with my life in bags was something more than unreal, both odd and beautiful.  

Have you ever tried to see something and remember the first time you saw it?  Like looking around your apartment and trying to remember what it looked like when it was bare, or how small or big your work building seemed that first time you walked through, or maybe what your romantic partner was wearing that first time you saw him or her and what you first thought of them.  It's a bit cumbersome to re-imagine isn't it?  Interestingly enough this section of University has never changed from that first feeling and I don't have to do that cognitive exercise to see it for what it first looked like to me.  Then again, I drive down it only for special occasions.

Before last night I had driven down it last for Halloween when we carpooled to get booze for the next party.  Before that, I had driven down it when my car mileage was something like 9996 and so my Charming Fellow and I drove around until it reached its zeros.  And the reason I was on it last night was because it was My Friend in the Purple Dress's birthday and since we happened to see each other at midnight when she turned 23, and after a night of partying with our friends, she happened to be the last one in the car around 11:52pm and it seemed like a fun adventure to drive around until midnight.

I have a year left of college.  And some of those first questions have been answered.  Yes, I can live here for 4 years though I have escaped the summers to spend them by the beach.  In ways, no, this was not the right school for me since the English department is underdeveloped and stuck in the 19th century--though socially ASU has been the perfect college for me to gain more confidence in meeting creative, fun, bold individuals. My relationship suffered for a brief time in part because of the distance, but after figuring out a rhythm, 3+ years into it we're doing better than I could have ever predicted.  And yes, this is a party school.  Very very much so.  And I love it for its reputation.

Still, after driving down my favorite street last night I'm reminded once more that I haven't completely figured myself out yet and that's okay.  I'm going to remain in OZ for a little while longer with my courageous, heartfelt, brainy friends and our closets of cute shoes.  Cheers to college, and cheers to favorite streets that lead our way to new and old homes alike.