Gleeful in our wet dirt shirts!

 

               Gleeful in our wet dirt shirts!

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We did it! We single-mindedly pulled in our first rain yesterday (Friday) with a little help from Alvin the Chipmunk out in the Pacific swirling stormily.

Would you believe that the wet dirt here in Oconahua has a decidedly different odor than the wet dirt just up the road at the rancho in Etzatlan? As collector of wet-dirt smells, I am amazed. I love the scent of wet earth, especially after the first seasonal rain.

While talking about how the rain turned out to be a delightful mood changer for me, my friend reminded me that that rain train runs both ways on the tracks. Immediately I was back on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington in February, after months of daily rain, wondering if the Arc would be ready to float in time.

Fickle I am and easily turned, I admit it.

I took a holiday from morning hose dragging chores for a couple days. I went out and stuck my fingers down into the dirt in a few of my neediest pots to find that the moisture held. More rain will come, maybe today.

Then our sadness. Paco died. Ana and Michelle have rescued several dogs over the years, and Paco, Monkey and Dude keep company with my Lola while she alternates between my area and the common area. (There are two more dog areas but my Lola and I don’t socialize there.)

If Paco stood upright, I’m sure he’d be as tall as me. Big and black with white markings, lolloping ears and tongue, a leaner. Paco was just big and dumb and loving and leaning into me was his way to show me love. Unless I sat down. Then he wanted to be my lap dog. Which I don’t allow!

Paco took ill suddenly, refused breakfast and went downhill throughout the day. The Girls took him to the vet in the late afternoon. While there, Paco’s big heart simply quit beating. His death came as a shock.

Paco was never sick. Dude, who had been ill for a long time, seems to have made a miraculous recovery. We just don’t know as much as we imagine we know, do we, especially about the Great Circle.

Sometimes feeling sad makes me want to get creative in the kitchen. Sometimes feeling happy makes me want to get creative in the kitchen. Sometimes other feelings, well, you get the gist.

I like muffins. I’ve not made muffins in years. Since paring down my kitchen tools to bare necessities when I moved to Mexico, I no longer have a muffin tin. You know how the best part of a muffin is the top? I took a basic muffin recipe, gussied and fussied it and made a tray of muffin tops.

Is that genius? I assembled the ingredients, gave wet and dry a quick swirl, added a small, very small, handful of flour since the batter was not going into tins to shape it, scooped spoonful by spoonful onto a baking sheet, cut down baking time from 25 to 15 minutes, and forgive my brag, muffin tops are the best!

I’d love to claim this idea as my own but that is not honest. There is a woman with a food truck in Glendive who whipped out a batch of these and my daughter told me about muffin tops and I thought it a great idea. So I whipped up a batch with great success and now pass the notion on to you.

Clouds are stacking up over the mountains. There is a good chance for rain this afternoon. I have only a couple empty garden pots to fill so I’ll crowd together a few seeds of lettuce, cilantro and spinach.

In the spirit of “Build it and they will come” and  “Rain follows the plow.” Oh, the folly.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

June 5, 2025

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Can’t beat the heat!

 

Can’t beat the heat! 

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The other day I got excited. Movement catches my eye. I was near the window, sensed happenings, looked out and saw that I had a new neighbor. Oh, my, he was so handsome, black, with stunning confirmation.

Here in our little town, populated by women much of the year, husbands, brothers, son and other family working up north, there is an unprecedented number of houses under construction. The land around, tall with unkempt wild grasses, makes the structures look abandoned. No. Houses are awaiting the return of the owners to begin the next phases of construction.

Across my street and down one is a house under construction where I spotted the movement and my beautiful new neighbor. In my mind I was already crossing the road the next morning to talk with my new friend.

A couple hours later, I looked out the window and saw a white pickup truck with stock rack hauling away my beauty. In the yard, almost hidden among the grasses, was a sweet little brown mare and a black burro. What!

“Oh,” I said aloud. “I know why Black Beauty came to visit.” Well, at least I have the mare, the burro and a baby to look forward to visiting.

In the nine plus change years I’ve lived here in Jalisco, I cannot get used to spring being the hot season, summer the cooler rainy season. It’s backwards.

And hot it is! I briefly flirted with buying a portable swamp cooler. What? To use for two months and store the remainder of the year. Store where? Every inch of my space is in use, functional and pleasing to the eye. I have that gift, to create order and beauty. Soon we will have rain, early this year. So say the old-timers, of which I am one.

The cicadas have been yammering on for an entire month, early this year, which is how we know the rain will follow their song, as always. Folk lore, yes, but lore which seems to be imbedded in reality. Funny, how we welcome cicada “song” with joy when first we hear it. Funny, how at the end of a few weeks, the screech seems to rip tears in my mind, it is so loud and so harsh.

Michelle and Ana, neighbors and landladies, have a lovely pool which I can use. Just about the time we could get in the pool comfortably, early spring, we all came down with Covid. Well, that set us back several weeks. I used the pool a few times. Hurt my hip pulling weeds. The bending over thing, you know. Then my back went on the yip. It’s been probably three weeks since I’ve dipped.

Every time I’m ready to go to the pool, and this is coincidence, my friends drive out the gate. Or the young  man who cleans the pool comes a day early. Or, what happened yesterday is that Ana and Michelle, on the spur of an inspired moment, decided to head out and spend a few days in and around Ajijic.  

So no pool for me until they return. After all, I am 80, count them, a lot of years, old. My heart is healthy but one never knows when the reaper comes. I’d hate for my friends to return and find my body floating in the water. As I told them, I won’t go in the pool unless they are home. I don’t need anybody else to be in the water. I just want them nearby.

So how do I beat the heat? At pool time, I turn my shower on cooler than I normally like, and bask under my rain shower. Can one bask in a shower? I do. What can I say? It costs nary a peso and it works, cools me in the heat of the day.

My rain-shower keeps me sane under the shower of cicada song. Think of an old-fashioned blackboard scratched by a hundred long fingernails, over and over and over. Cicada song.

Time to go pet the brown mare across the street before the sun swings around. She could use some consolation after being loved and left. I leave the burro alone. It has huge teeth.

Bring on the real rain. I’m ready.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 29, 2025

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Out of my mangled mind.

 

Out of my mangled mind. 

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I wrote my title and immediately saw two meanings of “out of my mind”. Let’s just let both apply and be happy.

My mind goes weird. Yesterday I woke up singing a mangle of Mighty Mouse:

“Here I come to seize the day!”

I sat down to write John and Carol, who have left or are leaving for Duluth, driving their vintage blue and white Vincent Van Go, any hour:

“Are you on your way,

Won’t be back

For many a day?”

Remember Calypso?

John’s reply:

Sad to say, we’re under weigh

Cruising along in our Vincent sleigh,

We’re in Jimenez, without Jose

And tomorrow we’ll be entering

The you ess ay.

At my home, halfway up the mountain on the west side of Oconahua, the skies have a different energy today; the air smells like rain, the rain that will be here soon.

Cicadas are out in full force, singing down the rain according to ancient folklore, singing welcome hope, singing until the sound becomes nearly unbearable, rains flow from the sky and the singing mutes, stops, until next year.

Rain birds have flown back and are inhabiting their nests, eggs tucked into the sack-like nursery purse.

“Just a singing

Down the rain.”

It will splish-splash early this year. It will. It will.

Speaking of mangle, Kathy sent this quote this morning, don’t know from whom she snitched it, which I scoochied around a bit:

“Give it twelve hours and the undo of the redo of the previous undo of the un-implementation of the delay of the redo will be undone.”

No explanation necessary.

Lee contacted me to be part of the memorial service for his father, one of my very best friends ever. Al, David and I built a 100 seat black-box theatre with no money, no grants, nothing but our wit and determination and a handful of volunteers. That experience built a depth of friendship which death cannot break.

Our theatre has grown, is strong and in better hands today. Forgive my pride.

I declined Lee’s invitation to join my friends. It might not be raining here just yet, but if I went to Al’s Celebration, my tears would cause a flood.

Like an unrepentant thief, I stole the next bit from long-time friend Sandy. In the seems-distant past, Sandy and I shared the good, the bad and the ugly. She always made me laugh. Life happened. We lost touch.

Recently, and gratefully, we reconnected. Again, we share the deeps of our all too-human stories. Age and physical miseries and our opening awareness of all manner of things dominate our talk.

As Sandy said, “We are on the last plane out of Saigon.” If you don’t “get it”, that’s okay. It’s unlikely that we will be around to clean up the mess.

Let me leave you with this thought:

If you are not part of the solution . . .

Then you must be part of the . . .

Sediment.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 22, 2025

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My Mothers Day Retrospective

 

My Mothers Day Retrospective 

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At 3:00 in the morning on the Mexican holiday of the Dia de Madres, I startled awake to the blast of a band playing outside my bedroom window.

Naturally, I was out of bed in a flash and over to the window to see what brought on such music in the night. Despite the fullish moon, the sky held just enough clouds for the night to be dark. My window is high from the street and nobody ever looks up. I was invisible in my perch.

In front of the house next door, a pickup truck had parked. In the truck bed and around the truck were possibly a dozen, maybe more, band members, playing every kind of instrument. And, they were good. I mean, really, good. I watched as lights came on in various rooms of the neighbor’s house. Eventually, someone came to the door, undoubtedly Mom, walked outside and stood at the entry gate.

The band played at full heart. I didn’t eaves drop at the window long, climbed back into bed and enjoyed the twenty minutes or thereabouts of wonderful music, claiming the splash-over of the Mother’s Day serenade for myself.

In Mexico Mother’s Day is a Big Deal. It is celebrated on May 10 every year, no matter what day of the week that happens to be. This year it was Saturday.

I’ve no pretensions to be a musician but I do know when music is good, when it is tolerable, and when it can be dreadful.

At 3:00 the previous afternoon, I happened to be at my kitchen window and saw the young neighbor boy leave the house with a beautiful clarinet in hand. Ah, that answered a lot of questions I had about the mysterious (to me) musician in the neighborhood. Frequently, I listened to somebody practicing, often solo, but sometimes in company with other instruments, usually traditional but often jazz. For a practice session, he or they, was/were amazing.

What I found delightful is that the practice sessions were lovely listening. So this young man, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, is a good musician. No matter where life takes him, he will always have that.

On our Mexican Mother’s Day, I learned that people here in Oconahua hire musical groups to serenade their Mothers. They move from street to street, from house to house, bringing music and love and fun and surprise.

There are several bands, formal and informal, in our town. This seems to be quite the musical community.

When I talk about the group who showed up outside my window, I call them the “young band” only because I could see two young men with clarinets on the north edge of the group, my neighbor and another young man. Our band could have included all ages. It could have been a neighborhood youth group. It was too dark for me to take a census.

The following day, another Mother’s Day, I enjoyed a visit with friends, John and Carol, soon to head out for Minnesota. I served scones and iced tea on the patio. A good time was had by all.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 15, 2025

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Down and Out in Paradise

 

          Down and Out in Paradise

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You know how sometimes you can be thinking about a friend or an acquaintance and the phone will ring and suddenly you are talking with that person? This is sort of how my last few weeks have been but with a wry twist.

I have been hearing from people with whom I’ve not spoken in a while, friends and acquaintances. Their words mirror my feelings.

“I don’t know if it is the long winter or all the horrible news and strife in our country but I can’t seem to find my balance. My equilibrium is out of whack.”

“I turned 70 and my body betrayed me. Macular degeneration in both eyes and some days my hips won’t let me walk. My use-by date seems to have come and gone.” (Wait until you hit 80, I thought, but am too kind to say.)  

“I want to lose myself in gardening but I can’t even seem to be able to do that.”

 “We’ve lost another friend. Did you hear that Terri (or Mike or Bob) died last week?”

I could go on and on but what every example, said and unsaid reveals, is that we, my friends and I, have all found ourselves mired in the murky bottom of a slough of depression.

My friends are my mirror, so I’ll speak of myself.

I don’t feel exactly the same way every day. I’ve mild depression with variations on the theme. Some days I’d tell you I feel discouraged, down in the dumps, flat. Other days I might say I’ve no strength. Go away and leave me alone. My energy has up and gone.

Clinical depression is an entirely different matter. My malady is plainoldnormaleveryday depression. It is sad that we all feel so dejected at the same time. Usually, one of us can bring the other out into the sunshine of hope.

Which leads me to a really weird postulation. What if this is the way I’m (we) should feel? Look at it this way. I’m in one of my latter cycles of physical change. Some days it seems nothing works the way it used to work. I read the obits just to make sure my name isn’t listed. I’m grieving lost family, lost friends, lost chances, lost functions, lost country.

For example, last night Michelle and Ana and I climbed the stairway to my roof to pick guamuchil pods, here known as Mexican candy. This is the week of a special celebration local to the peoples of this area. While extracting one of the legume-like white fruits and popping it into my mouth, I looked across to the adjacent mountain. A long line of folks dressed in bright costumes trooped up the mountain in procession.

“Ten years ago, just ten years ago I could walk that pathway,” I said to my friends. I might still have been walking up while they were coming down, but I could have done the trip.

What I’m struggling to say is that maybe mild depression is simply a reaction to all that is around me, my present circumstances, not good, not bad, just the way it is.

Rather than fight it, why not accept the feelings and do what I always do anyway. Talk to my geraniums. Prune the oregano. Talk with my friends. Read. Watch the birds. Eat ice cream. Let Lola bury her slobbery muzzle on my white pants and look into my eyes, tail wagging.

I’ve even got a new therapy. Now that we are well entrenched in our hot season, I’ve begun walking the swimming pool, end to end, turn and back. I’m doing this for my knees and hips and back. Walking the pool (I never learned to swim) seems to be good for both body and soul.

Whatever I feel today, this I know: tomorrow I will feel differently. I may not feel better, but I will feel different.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 8, 2025

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Don’t know where I’m going but I’ve been here a while.

                Don’t know where I’m going but I’ve been here a while.

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That line came to me as if in a song. Nobody ever accused me of being musically inclined. Like most of us, I too have music in my soul. Sing along with me and let’s see where it takes us.

Yesterday, armed with a bundle of flowers, we attended the burial of our friend Leo’s grandma, who at 96 said she felt so very tired and went to sleep the long sleep. The ceremony touched me deeply.

I was surprised at the number of folks there whom I’ve met. I garnered my own bouquet of hugs and tears and waves along with a few of “Wonder who she is and why is she here?” I forgot to bring a hat, ended up standing in blazing sun, when one of the aunties scooted over to my side and held her sunbrella over both our heads.

Every woman in Mexico owns a colorful sunbrella and uses them. I just wrote “sunbrella” on my shopping list. I never felt the need for one until now. A hat will do, but what if someone next to me needs shade?

In the rainy season, this colorful device doubles as an umbrella but I’d rather be wet than scorched.

I’ve been here long enough to attend a burial, two viewings (similar to a wake), a baptism, and a first communion. That might mean I’m well entrenched. At least I felt so when the auntie shared her shade without a qualm.

In my collection of pleasurable connections, add in one zoomer of a birthday party for my best friend in high school, Charlotte. Her best friend, Karen, now living in England, was present also, along with Charlotte’s siblings, children and extended family. We all had two hours of stories, recollections, memories revived, meeting family we’ve not met. Two hours of warm fuzzies. I confess that when I said my good-byes, I was crying, tears of pure joy.

 I’d no more than zoomed out of the birthday party when my email pinged with a most surprising blast from the past, another thread of connection which I’d thought long cut asunder. Sandy, a friend from former years, mid-80s through the 90s, found me. We lost each other years ago when she went on the road with her husband.

Sandy and I had shared many adventures and a few mis-adventures but the thing I most treasure from her friendship was her ability to shake me out of taking myself too seriously. What a gift to be reconnected!

I truly never know where my day will take me. I’m along for the ride and glad to have a ticket.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 1, 2025

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Fire on the Mountain

 Fire on the Mountain

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Not on my mountain. Not the mountain on which I live. But over toward the east, far enough away that the glow was huge, lighting the sky scary. Far enough that I could not smell smoke, even though wind was blowing from the east. This event occurred a week ago but I cannot get it out of my mind.

Night. It was night. When dark descends, I retire to bed with my current book, propped on a huge “reading pillow”. The pillow doesn’t read; the pillow allows me to read comfortably in bed. Generally I read until my eyeballs fall down.  

I got out of bed to put away my book, and out the window, saw the fiery glow behind the horizon to the east. I stared at the phenomenon for several minutes. I couldn’t see leaping flames so with my keen logical mind, I determined that the fire must be several miles away.

I climbed back into bed, snuggled myself into comfort for sleep.

The committee decided to convene. “Oh, no, you don’t.”  “Fire, silly. Headed this way. And you want to sleep? Dumb, dumb, dumb!”

Another voice queried, “Don’t you think it might be wise to rouse the neighbors. In fact, why is the neighborhood so quiet? Fire is not to be ignored.”

“Fire races like, well, like wildfire, through the dry grasses and over the hills and before you know it, fire will be licking at your feet.”

Obviously, sleep was out of the question.

“Don’t you think you should organize a go-bag, just in case you must run?”

I decided that if I needed to evacuate, I’d take a spare set of clean underwear and socks. I’d wear my hiking boots. Passport. Water. Why would I want to lug around more than I could easily sling in a shoulder bag?

Then, with the help of my various friends-of-the-night committee, I wondered if I’d be safer closing all the doors and windows of my house and waiting for the flames to pass by. Surely there would be enough air in the house to keep one set of lungs happy. We are surrounded by a cobbled street and lots of concrete driveway and patios, and we live in brick and stone houses. I should be impervious to fire. Right? Maybe? Possibly?

Sure, it is the dry season, lots of tall brown grasses, groves of trees further up the mountain but not so many trees close by, not like a forest, here, just normal yard trees. (Never try to reason with the committee.)

“But the big danger with fire is that it sucks all the oxygen from the air, right? You’d be a goner before you ever saw a flame. You could die and never be singed.”

Now I’m getting sweaty, nervous. I can feel the flames out there eating the miles.

In the quiet of the night I continued to entertain this conversation, or it held me captive, a full half-hour. Finally, wondering why the night continued to be muffled beneath a blanket of quiet, why I smelled not a whiff of smoke, why I heard nary an alarm, I got out of bed and went to the window.

Lighting up the entire sky, my raging, leaping flames of fire, the gigantic full moon.

Perception, you deceiver. You surely fooled me.

It took so little to trick me. An awareness of our extreme dry season, an awareness hiding at the very back of my consciousness. A glow in the night sky that had not been there an hour previously. Knowledge that this time of year grass fires are a constant danger. Help from the voices of fear and anxiety and what if.  One plus one equals fire. So simple.

I’m glad I didn’t sound the alarm. I’m glad I didn’t wake my neighbors. I’m glad the joke was on me. I’m glad the fire was nothing but the mountains of the moon, that big dead rock in the night sky, reflecting other fires.

Fooled me. I forgot the maxim: Where there is fire, there is smoke.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

April 24, 2025

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