The Great Texas Road Trip Thank-You Tour: 69: The El Paso Municipal Rose Garden

Although I walked every block of Sunset Heights and Downtown hundreds, if not thousands, of times, as well as Skyline Drive and even parts of the Five Points neighborhood, I'd never been to the El Paso Municipal Rose Gardens until this trip.  It was like I was tourist in a foreign city.  I always wonder why so many people love to travel to other cities, and when they do, they go to museums, theaters, and municipal parks and gardens, but when they live in the city themselves, their life is confined to the freeways, the shopping centers, a few favorite restaurants, and home.  They put up with all the bad that comes with city living (the traffic, smog, and congestion) without reaping the benefits.  The grand parks, zoos, museums and aquariums seem to be for visitors, outside the holidays, or when company comes.  The cities that I resided in, I owned.  The Dallas Museum of Art was mine, as was White Rock Lake and the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens.  I claimed them.  If I was going to put up with Central Expressway, LBJ, and I-30, by gosh I was getting something in return.  The same was true with El Paso.  I knew the border like few others.  Yet, somehow, I'd missed this jewel of a garden.

Even though we hit the garden off-bloom, with only a sprinkling of color here and there, it was still wonderful.  What we missed in blooms, we gained in light.  It was late afternoon, and the light sculpted the Italian cypresses magnificently, throwing beams of shadow across the tight, formal layout of the garden.  The air was warm and sweet with the faint smell of scattered blossoms.  

I didn't expect much, as grand parks is one thing El Paso is lacking, despite the city's abundant culture and history.  Most of the parks are little squares of grass trying to hold on under the intense heat, and unlike Phoenix, the city isn't willing to squander ballfields of water and risk the survival of future generations in an attempt to turn the desert into Kentucky.  Yet, they also haven't invested the money to return their outdated parks into natural spaces set aside for native species.   Therefore, most of the parks are dirt patches with sprigs of yellow grass clinging-on for dear life.

Yet, walking down those long, stone walkways of the rose garden, in the late afternoon light, shadows thrown from the the very architectural cypress trees, I felt like I was is in Italy.  I felt a low melancholy sweep over me as I realized this space could have been mine too.  How many wonderful afternoons did I miss sitting among the fragrant scents and bright colors, distractedly reading a book, my eyes now and then drawn to butterflies and hummingbirds, my ears pulled into conversations of people from other places?  I could have owned this place the way I owned the Plaza.  

I never want to live in a city again, but if by chance life forces me to, I will make that city my own, whether it be Provo, Utah or New York City.  Wherever you live, don't let the tourists know your city better than you do.  Life is short.  Experience more than the line at the checkout counter.  Hit those clubs.  Hear that music.  Taste that food.  See that art.  Know the city that is yours for-the-taking better than the tourists do.  You pay the taxes, you breath the air, you spend mind-numbing hours waiting for red lights to turn green.  Get something out of the deal.