WEOPPOSE-- i have to tell u this. we re-located to AZ too in 94. we visited it alot before that and went to ole sedona and alot of places there. it was great on vacation til we moved IN. it then sucked majorly. after we got there and quit playing the back and forth visiting game. i took some red rocks from sedona's waterways back home to phoenix with me and all the hell that didnt finish breaking loose in AZ finally came to a head then. and it sucked mightily. i ended up alone there in the 104 degree night heat, waiting for ships to be seen from the balcony (which they did way later, right where i envisioned them, right off my shadow mountain balcony) while waiting for the night to cool down. which it never did. dont be locked out there either in barefeet in the summer. the dogs follow the trees there, looking for water.
i liked sedona a tiny bit when visiting before we actually moved there. its easy to get sucked in. the energies there were not as i had hoped, but maybe that was me then, since ive learned way more since. spent time in crystal-cruncher-ville and still have some pretty good books i got there. a few metaphysical things happened. but not many. not much happened in their vortexes or 2. all in all was sorta disappointed. we went there on a whim it seems too, and bought, sold, and left. thank god i kept the house in CA. and, as i said, all hell broke loose after i brought home those rocks to the house in phoenix. i learned later that i didnt ask the rocks seriously enough for permission to be moved. and that couldve been my mistake. i probably wouldnt have listened as well then anyway, as now. oh the errors of thy ways.
i came to the same conclusions as u on the state of affairs there. wasnt for me/us. the night we actually moved in to the house there, after going back and forth for almost a yr, the akita puppy broke its hip, the house alarm went off and couldnt be silenced, the neighbors reported us for having an above ground swimming pool box sticking out of the garbage bin (apparently against the rules waiting for pick up), other neighbors left a coffee and cookie breath old lady note on the gate that stated our big female akita dog looked at them menacingly and they were afraid to walk by (she was a doll so thats bullshit), lightening struck over our heads when putting up the tin pool in a monsoon, and cracked the trees overhead which missed us by inches, a fire started on the hillside across the street, and the fire dept couldnt get there on the single path road as we watched their porch burn. we sat on the balcony that overviewed the city and drank margaritas all day waiting to be called to work, when i realized i hadnt put down the new phone number on the resumes and wondered why i wasnt called. the old man was transferred to tucson the first week there and refused to go. we moved there for nothing. every couple we invited there got into fights later and broke up. my mountain bike was stolen from the garage when i went to the store for 10 minutes. the neighbors told every other neighbor we must be dealing drugs since we didnt work, had harleys, and drank on the balcony all day. almost everybody on that hillside peeped out of windows at us all day long. nobody spoke.
the water bill was about $200 a month and there was nothing to water. the light bill was about 400 and i kept the AC mostly off or on on 84-94 and was burning up. there were scorpions behind and in the refrigerator. the neighbor was bit by one in her house (they spoke) and was semi-paralyzed. the other half went to work in wyoming, and ppl came to do odd jobs for me and charged me double after seeing where we lived. the sewer backed up after a rag fell in a drain pipe and poop flew all over the upstairs bathroom. the final straw was when an architect came on our property and designed a blueprint for a house to be built. we found out that a sliver of land at the bottom of our hillside lot that would prevent our view partially from the balcony had been sold to a woman in panama in the 60's and had never been zoned or aligned with property lines and there was nothing we could do about it. we decided to sue our realtor and broker and our new lawyer ripped me off for thousands and did nothing. the old man lost his wallet in a chair at another lawyer's office and we had to cancel all credit cards and were in a total panic until the cleaning woman found it the next day but all was too late in my fervor to abort theft. i hit curbs that i never thot were there and i blew tires on my little sports car about 3 times. the bank thot i wrote a check for 4000 and removed that from my account when i indeed had written a check for 400 and i had a helluva time getting that straightened out. i deposited checks in that bank and they got caught in the cellophane-plastic wrap that lines the deposit slot and disapperared down int the metal workings of the ATM machine. try explaining that. i pined for ole california everyday. we almost broke up and it was hell on hot desert wheels almost every day. and as hot as all hell, for real. it doesnt cool down at night and relief never comes.
i finally decided to leave, packed up everything by myself. which was the week back after i visited CA on a consulting trip and found out that my renters here had subleased my house and had left it "with friends from their church" that werent paying. nobody in the neighborhood had ever seen them before and were calling me to ask who was in my house and i had no idea. yet i had a property mgr i was paying in CA to assist with things like that. they left the back slider doors wide open for weeks. fleas had infested everywhere from their dogs. they put holes in the closet walls, and owed me rent while wanting their deposit back.
i never shoulda taken those rocks from sedona. i came back to CA, rented that house back out to a guy who was insane and finally literally almost gave it away to get out from underneath it. bad bad vibes. and it took 10 years to close the deal. it haunted me for 10 yrs, and it all happened after those red rocks were added to the landscape. then my friend went to prison there for 3 yrs while on a biker trip to and fro. it sucks in AZ. dont take any rocks from anywhere and think it'll be ok. i stay out of there now. never again. and yes,k its safe to say "never"-- but if the ocean ends up at the inland door here in CA, i might be right back on that AZ doorstep. by sheer fate/accident. i was convinced to leave after i had left my little black car in a parking lot all day in scottsdale, got in at 4pm at the height of heat, turned on the heater instead and drove thru downtown scottsdale from the wendy paine center, blazing with the windows up. just about stoked out and i can take heat. then it hit me--i heard sam keniston's voice and he screamed "whaddaya want ppl? ur in a f*cking desert..." remember those lines from that ethiopian/sowali act of his. and i instantly knew--i was delusional thinking it was going to be ok. when ur living in a desert u have lots to contend with that i didnt realize. lots comes with that. and i left and came back. i kissed the ground when i got back here and lots of ppl think CA sucks. but its home to me after all these yrs. no helmet law in AZ but lots of other junk there. they can have sedona.
GNOTHI SEAUTON "Know Thyself!"