Arizona Illustrated

There are dozens of Japanese gardens in the United States, and Tucson has its own version thanks to a European woman who has lived on three continents. When Patricia Deridder was 18 years old she left her home country of Belgium so she could pursue her passion for the Japanese culture and language. Fifteen years later she moved to Wisconsin with her American husband where they raised their two children. Later, Deridder started a new chapter in Tucson where she opened Yume Japanese Gardens in the city’s midtown. Yume is the Japanese word for dream and Deridder says the facility is a dream come true. Traditionally, powwow categories are listed with the gender binary “ Women” and “Men”. However, many tribes recognize more than two genders. The 2nd Annual Two Spirit Powwow took place in Phoenix last February and the powwow committee decided to remove gender from all categories. The Two Spirit Powwow is hosted by Native PFLAG, an organization with the goal to keep families together and foster the traditional teachings of what it means to be LGBT and/or Two-Spirit. They envision a world where diversity is celebrated and all people are respected, valued, and affirmed inclusive of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. As a child growing up wedged in the middle of a large Catholic family in 1960s New Jersey, Tucson painter Chris Rush was given LSD by his older sister. He was 12. Nearly 50 years later, he published his first book, The Light Years, with the venerated publishing house Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A memoir, the book follows Rush across the country to Tucson, telling a beautiful, often violent story of drug trafficking, gay youth, homelessness, sins of the fathers, and the search for personal freedom in America, in strikingly evenhanded prose. Near the end of the book, he turns 20.