A Saguaro cactus takes seventy-five years to grow its first arm. It takes years more — sometimes decades — before this first arm is joined by more; some of the oldest cacti dotting the Sonoran Desert have forty or more limbs, evidence of lifespans stretching hundreds of years. As I stood in the arid air of Tucson, Saguaros speckled every few feet all the way to the horizon in every direction, it was impossible to not be overcome with
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