EDITOR'S LETTER

editor's LETTER It was a tough summer.

Three insufferable months of unprecedented heat. By more than one measure, it was the worst summer ever. And making it through was a test of perseverance. It seems we've made it, though, and maybe we're more resilient for that. Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker, Nietzsche said. “What doesn't kill me makes me stronger.” Saying goodbye - good riddance to summer is a rite of passage in the Sonoran Desert. It's a celebration.

Of all the seasons, autumn is our Audrey Hepburn. The most beautiful. Like a sailor setting course for a distant lighthouse, we use the reds and yellows of oaks and aspens as a beacon. A bright spot on the horizon to remind us that the suffering will eventually end.

Getting there is never easy, but this summer was especially difficult. It shattered any resistance we might have built up. For 31 consecutive days, from the end of June to the end of July, the temperature in Phoenix soared to at least 110 degrees. That's a new record. The old mark was 18 days in 1974. Like Rommel's relentless attack on the Gazala Line, the sun kept pounding us. Day after day after day. As a result, trailheads were closed, outdoor events were canceled, and saguaros started tipping over. No one had ever seen that before the beloved lords of the desert throwing their arms in the air, and then down to the ground. After hundreds of years of determination, they simply gave up. It was just too hot.

But to everything there is a season. Turn! Turn! Turn! Even in Arizona. Not everyone knows that. Or believes it. The desert landscape, which accounts for less than half of the state's geographical area, breeds stereotypes: “Don't you get tired of Plateau around Yom Kippur and ending as late as January in the riparian areas down south.

People ask me about the best places in Arizona to see fall leaves. There's no objective answer it's beautiful up and down but the North Rim is where I'll be in early October. In particular, Point Sublime. That's the place I kept thinking about when I was feeling desperate over the summer. It's been a few years since I've stood on that magnificent peninsula. Geologically, it will be the same as it was before, but this time, when I look to the west, I'll be looking toward a section of Arizona's newest national monument: Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni. And as I do, the temperature will be in the mid-50s and I'll be wearing a sweatshirt.

I'm looking forward to that, but the allure of autumn is more than just a break in the weather. It's a time to reconnect with those things that bring us comfort: sweatshirts and sweaters, boots, root vegetables, apple cider, hot chocolate, Märzen lagers, pumpkin patches, hayrides, fires in the fireplace and the smell of smoke. Especially the smoke. Those things can take us back in time, too, by evoking memories of childhood and adolescence, when all we had to worry about was what costume to wear on Halloween.

One of my favorite photographs from the archive of this magazine was inspired by one of those cherished memories. The image was made by Esther Henderson on Pleasant Street in Prescott. It's titled Autumn Interlude. The caption quotes Ms. Henderson: “Curling leaves, sun-shafts through smoke; our street, our town, our neighbors. These are the good things wellremembered from my childhood in midwest America fifty years ago. One fall morning, when passing through Prescott, I saw just the right conditions to re-create this remembrance. The Reverend Charles Franklin Parker of Prescott had dropped his morning duties to assist with pipe and rake, my husband became the other 'neighbor' and the postman happened to walk by. After all these years, fall never really comes to me until that sweet smell of the sand and the scorpions and the same old weather every day?” Stereotypes. It's like saying that all Canadians skate to work. They don't. And we do in fact have four seasons. In the spring, the low desert gives birth to billions of wildflowers. In winter, there's snow. A lot of snow. Last year, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon got more than 20 feet. Feet, not inches. We have summer, too. And it's lovely, except in the desert. Now, mercifully, it's autumn, a season that reveals its brilliant colors for about four months in our state, beginning on the Kaibab

Leaf smoke announces summer's end.”

Summer's end. The two words we've been waiting for. There were times in July and August when I thought we'd never get here. But perseverance, Hugo said, is the secret of all triumphs. In spite of the record heat, we have persevered and made it through. So long, summer. Audrey Hepburn is waiting for us.