The biscuit in Prescott

Before I arrived in Prescott, Ariz., I had heard two things: first, you pronounce the town name like biscuit, and second, my friend, Alex, had moved there to be with his girlfriend, Leah, but he had only arrived earlier this year and he was only going to be there for another month or so, before he moved back to Seattle, where he had been when he met her, though he was actually from Lake Orion, Michigan. Neither of these pieces of information made much sense to me and thus, both were things to which I had to get to the bottom of, before I left the following day.

I got there on Friday evening, having spent the day traversing Utah and passing most of the national parks that are there to see, because I was short on time and also because the state apparently does not let dogs traipse around the trails with you. I knew that this was not the case in Arizona, so I was planning to do a buzz by the Grand Canyon, but then, just as I was coming up on the road where I would have had to turn off to see it, I decided that I was ready to get to my destination already. I was finishing up my second full day in a row of nearly 500 miles each and my eyes hurt from all the sun and dust and dry air, and Rennie was pissed off that he had been so cooped up for so long, and well, I had seen the Grand Canyon already about 13 years ago and while I felt really bad for doing it, I drove right on by.

When I got to the apartment that Leah and Alex share with another guy, Jack, I made a beeline for the shower, while they hung out with Rennie, showing him around the pad and in the backyard, and giving him pats and rubs and scratches, and I laughed at Alex for having apologized in advance that his place was kind of humble. It was large and airy and very comfortable, and I reminded him again that I live out of my car right now, sometimes even sleeping in the backseat.

Then we headed downtown for some dinner at a local bar/restaurant/coffeehouse/music venue, and we sat in the cool air of the upstairs patio, listening to the live musicians and talking about our various adventures. But I think by the end of it, I was still not quite clear on what was going on: who was where and why or how. Nor did I know how to say Prescott exactly right.

The next morning, we took Rennie with us to another local eatery, one of the oldest in town, and it was my birthday, so Alex would not let me pay, and then we went wandering through town, passing through the main plaza, where something is usually happening, whether it’s an outdoor festival or just a bunch of friends hanging out on the grassy knoll in front of the courthouse, and we walked along the sidewalk graffiti diagram of the town’s history, reading how it got its start in 1581, some 300 years before Arizona was even a state. Then we made our way over to the studio at the Ecosa Institute, where Leah works in the office and where Alex is taking classes right now, and he showed me the projects he has been doing over the course of the 14-week program, which he still has about a month left to finish, and he explained how they have been learning about regenerative ecological design and some of the concepts that go with it, like creating buildings that collect rainwater and making sure that your yard creates a way for water to naturally flow from one plant to another, making the entire watering process more efficient, and I learned that students who do this one-time semester at the school can either earn a certificate that just proves they did it, or they can pay a little extra so that they can actually use it towards their college degree, which is what Alex is doing, because he started his college career in Michigan, which is where I met him when I was there almost a year ago, visiting his parents and taking part in the dragon boat racing competition that his dad, Sandy, was organizing.

What happened, though, is this: he was never really into that standard way of learning that so many institutes incorporate into their curriculum and at some point, he signed up for AmeriCorps in Seattle and then he met this cute girl, Leah, and they flirted around the topic for awhile, hanging out an awful lot but always just as friends, because technically, they were co-workers and it’s a little awkward to date your co-worker but finally, they confronted it head-on and fell right in love. Then Americorps was over, though, and it was back home for both of them, and Leah found a job in Prescott at the Ecosa Institute, where she had previously done this same semester that Alex is doing now, and meanwhile, Alex was home again, trying to concentrate on his studies, but it was not going very well at all for either one of them, because they missed each other so much, and so finally, earlier this year, Alex just up and moved to Prescott. He moved in with Leah and eventually, after a sort of lengthy search, found a job at a local coffee house and then he was able to enroll in Ecosa, which started in May. That will end soon, though, and then they have plans to pick up and drive to Seattle, turning it into a road trip that ends where it all began. Alex will do another year of AmeriCorps; he has his assignment already. Leah will have to find a job but she has already started looking and at the end of those 12 months, as is the agreement with AmeriCorps, Alex will have accrued another round of money to use towards college, bringing his balance up to $10,000. He will also have established residency in the state of Washington and can hopefully enroll at Evergreen, a sort of open-minded liberal arts and sciences school in Everett, where he thinks he might be better suited to learn.

And as I finally understood all the pieces and how they fit together, I realized that they were not nearly as complicated as I had originally thought, that it was just a wonderful love story about following your instincts and making things work, no matter how you have to shift things around, and how happiness is truly the best barometer for whether or not you are on the right track. And I had to smile, because I imagined that while trying to understand the situation, I had felt how some of you must feel sometimes, trying to keep up with this trip of mine: “You’re still in Athens why? And wait a minute; you haven’t left Austin yet? And Mexico— huh?”

Sometimes, you just have to actually walk the time line, point by point, to get it.

As for that whole biscuit-Prescott thing, here’s the deal: if you are a true local, you say it just like biscuit but with a PR instead of a B; if you just live there, you simply replace the final cott syllable with kit. And if you’re a total outsider and have no idea about any of that, you say it just like it looks, but I don’t recommend that.