Should I move to Flagstaff?

The following essay was originally posted to the Arizona forum at mtbr.com on 28 June 2023.

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I've been "trapped" in this little mountain town since 1991.  Thirty-five years with no viable way out. But likewise, also, with little desire to leave (that's both a pro and a con, I suppose... I'll explain below). 

It's a good thing I like it here.  Bit of a gilded-cage situation, really.

What's a pro to living in Flagstaff? 

That's easy: all the trails (more all the time thx to @rockman and his crew), lakes, 777 acres of lift-served ski runs within easy striking distance of town. For me these features are the reasons I find myself so content living here. There's also a couple good grocery stores, a few places to eat really good food, and about 1000 bars. It might sound like I'm speaking hyperbolically, but I most definitely am not. 

Other pros? Hmmm... well, there are a lot of very decent people living here. I've known a few assholes, and heard about several others (we're kinda a one-degree-of-separation sort of place), but most of the folks I know personally are really cool. 

I think that's because almost everyone who lives here is here on purpose. You just don't meet too many people who are "this place sucks" except the high-school kids who don't know any better.

Cons? It's a bit expensive. I was fortunate and got a toe-hold established in the early 1990s when things were a lot cheaper, especially in comparison to today.

Another con: Bureaucratic things move slowly around here, be it the town council, or the local USFS agency, the school board, or the county government... it all just kinda churns around the same drain most of the time. 

Until disaster strikes... then everyone's pretty good at rallying together.

Turns out we've had some practice in this regard (that being the striking-of-disaster), which brings me to "the big con" about living in Flagstaff which is: we're all just here (like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove) bronc-riding a giant bomb-casing, hoping like hell it doesn't explode and kill us all. 

And by that, of course, I mean that everyone who lives here, whether it's a top-of-mind consideration for them or not, lives daily during the summer season under the looming threat of catastrophic wildfire.

So, if you're really good at pretending... or super-good at putting all your hope/trust/assurance in any of a half-dozen or so public service agencies that you think might be able to try valiantly to save you and/or personal property from total loss, then how-doo... 

Welcome to Flagstaff, pardner!

If, on the other hand, the prospect of losing everything you have (and possibly, let's be honest, everyone you love) to a massive out of control firestorm (or the unhealthy toxic off-the-charts-bad air quality, or the flooding that often occurs thereafter, or the permanently scorched landscapes that were once among your favorite places) that will inevitably be started by some tweaker a-hole who believes his right to a mid-summer campfire is enshrined somewhere in the text of the Second Amendment, then maybe take a beat, think it thru... perhaps that more-affordable much-newer townhouse in Anthem, within easy striking distance of Flag but well out of the burn-zone, is gonna be better suited to you.

'Cause here's the hard reality of life in Flagstaff: we know it's all gonna burn. We don't like to talk about it. We like to pretend we can do something to mitigate the risk of it (thinning projects, controlled Rx fire, closure orders, let-burn lightning strikes, etc). But the bottom line is simple, these things don't really work. We're merely "tilting at windmills" trying to look like we know what we're doing, but the truth is: we're fukt.

Those of us whose roots are set too deep, who have been here so long, most of us can't do much to get out of the path of what's coming... And also, well, a lot of us, we just don't want to. 

The constant draw of all that sweet singletrack just begging for a shred compels a lot of us to take a day-to-day approach to this existence, perched, as we are, on the razor's bleeding edge of disaster. 

So, I'm not going anywhere.  And that's just not because I can't.  Don't want to.

Like some Oligarch of old once said, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." The riding and the skiing and the paddling really are that good most days. We're just living here day-to-day, every one of us just kinda hoping it's not coming for us today... or maybe even that "the big one" will wait 'til we're gone, shuffled-off, aged out of the living process, ya know. 

Who the hell knows... Nobody fukin knows.

But the real truth is, we all know: it's coming. We just don't know when.