I may be in the minority here, but I exhale deeply in summer. The way I describe it, summer in Tucson is like the quiet after a loud party when most everyone has gone home and you find yourself surrounded by the people you know and love the best.

What are your favorite summer-in-Tucson moments? I’ll start. There was a Calexico show way back before they were, you know, CALEXICO, but they were already kicking ass live. Amazing show at Congress, played until bar time, then moved into the lobby for more, and when the lobby closed, they brought it out to the parking lot till early morning, a few horns and a small crowd surrounding. It may have only been May when this happened, but it was surely summer, and it had that feel. Biking home afterward, no more responsibility than making sure I got up for work in the morning.

Bittersweet. I love the way that my kids tether me to the earth, and yet, and yet…part of me longs to ride in the dark without a helmet, assuming that the biggest potholes would reveal themselves in the modest yellow light of the West University streetlamps.