Tucson Rodeo — Image by kenne
February Is Rodeo Month
February rides into Tucson with a hat on too straight and a grin rehearsed. La Fiesta de los Vaqueros declares itself, loud and confident, dust kicked up on purpose. The arena fills with men proving things to people who already agree with them. Courage is timed. Pain is applauded. Nostalgia is sold by the seat.
Outside the fence, the desert refuses to participate. Creosote blooms without banners. The mountains don’t lean in for a better view. A red-tailed hawk circles, uninterested in tradition or prize money.
I don’t oppose the rodeo so much as I distrust it—the way it shrinks a hard life into a weekend performance, the way it pretends the land was ever impressed by us. Still, now and then, a horse breaks free of the script, muscles flashing in the cold light, and for a moment the West is real again.
Then the gate slams shut. The crowd exhales. February moves on. The desert remains, having said nothing at all.
— kenne
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