Monsters in the night

 

            Monsters in the night

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I crawled into bed early, barely darkish. Wasn’t feeling great. My stomach/intestines were slightly crampy, nothing dire, just not my usual cast-iron gut. Went to sleep with clear conscience.

Woke up to wind that sounded like a freight train going through a tunnel at mach one speed, bending trees, flattening crops. Lightning flashed messages of doom across the black sky.

I got up and closed my last open window, grabbed another blanket and tried to curl back into sleep. The howling wind had other entertainment in store.

My mind, as erratic as the wriggling lightning moving ever closer, insisted on considering the fires in California. Dwelling on rains in far flung deserts of Arabia. Pondering tropical storms in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Reflecting on floods throughout the world, in places that never flood. Like here.

A branch somewhere nearby snaps off a tree. Debris rattles and clacks against my brick house. I think about my bricks, hand-made with sand. Something overturns on my patio.

I roll over onto my other side. My hand rests near my armpit. Quite unconsciously I finger a lump the size of a marble. We all know what that is. The Big C. My stomach continues to cramp. Probably swollen with a tumor. My body, no doubt, is riddled with tumors. I do a body scan. I discover pains I never knew I had.

Wind ramps up to mach two. I wonder if my roof will hold against such force. Then a clattering, pinging, onto the roof, against the windows. Hail.

There goes my garden. From the safety of my bed, I take inventory. My corn, waist high, leaves shredded. The new squash plants, eight inches tall when I went to bed. Gone.

Green beans. Oh, well, I’m tired of eating green beans, tender and delicious as they are. One cannot live on green beans alone. Though Bruce the Iguana would like to and attempts the feat. Tomatoes, shared with that bleeping squirrel. Tomorrow I would have had enough to make a chili sauce, now I picture tomatoes, pounded to sauce on the concrete.

Woe to my tender little peppers. It took three plantings, pleading with pepper seeds to sprout before they emerged and grew into toddler stage. The purple cabbage. The Brussels sprouts which I coddled, talked baby talk, loved like my own.

Granted, losing my little bucket garden has nothing to compare to losing a couple hundred thousand acres of prime winter wheat. But, still, it is my garden, petted and pampered toil of my hands.

I climbed out of bed and snugged a cotton rug against the front door. Checked the towels jammed under the window frames. When rains blow in from the east, every window leaks.

 

Back in bed, I thought about my hibiscus, more beautiful than ever this year. I had promised Denise pictures tomorrow. Now the flowers will be nothing more than a drooping, sopping mess.

Here come the rains. Magically, the wind dies down and the rains sound beneficent, like they are here to heal the parched earth. Now I can go back to sleep.

Or not.

My mind has a mind to decide that now we are awake, let’s take a moral inventory. We review all the sins, mortal and venial, of my past. One by one, they march through my head, each insistent on a thorough overhaul. Sins of omission. Sins of commission. Each take a place.

When I remember that a complete moral inventory tells both sides of the story, I hear, in Latin, remittuntur tibi peccata tua, your sins are forgiven, and I fall asleep to the patter of gentle rain.

There is no need to check for monsters under the bed. All my monsters sleep in bed with me.

(In the morning, I discovered that all my fears were for naught and like Mary, Mary, quite contrary, my garden still grew.)

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 27, 2020

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A Rendezvous with Death

 

A Rendezvous with Death

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I woke in the night reciting lines from WWI poet Alan Seeger’s, “I Have a Rendezvous with Death”. Where did that come from? “At some disputed barricade, When spring comes back with rustling shade, And apple blossoms fill the air. . .” I haven’t heard that poem since high school. How could I have remembered?

Ironically, I’ve never felt more intensively alive than today. Getting a new hip last winter literally gave me a new life. I’ve always liked the rain but this morning when I walked outdoors, it seemed like the world had been freshly created. Like the First Morning. Tears wet my face.

How much of my depth of feeling is due to being surrounded by death? When I sit at the computer in the morning, first thing I ask is, “What is the death toll today?”

I have a burgeoning acquaintance with Rumi, the Persian poet from 800 years ago which makes us almost contemporaries. Today he told me that every story is us, from the beginning to no-matter-how-it-comes-out. What I hear him say is that the man who died in the hospital last night and the newborn baby in her crib; their stories are also mine. We’ve lost the way to remember.

Rumi said, in the same poem, those who sit at the table and eat are those who taste the meal. When Alan Seeger wrote about Spring bringing meadow flowers and apple blossoms, he was so intensely alive, sitting at that scarred oak table, bib tucked into his shirt, knife and fork poised, savoring every morsel on his plate. He knew he would not fail the rendezvous.

We are such a funny people. We have a thousand euphemisms for death. Kicked the bucket. Bought the farm. Gave up the ghost. We are so afraid of dying that we sidetrack around the words “death, dying, dead”. In avoiding death, we forget to live.

We say, we will begin living when . . . we save enough money, lose enough weight, get a little stronger, more beautiful, more successful; if we wait until fall when the crops are in, when the cattle are sold, when the bills are paid; once the kids are through school, after the rains, when the snow melts, when we retire, then we will do those things we’ve put off for years, those things in our hearts we yearn to do.

A long-time friend named Bob says, “Always choose life.” Then he walks off and leaves me to interpret what that means.

Life is not for waiting.

Like it or not, in the midst of pandemic death, life is tough. Yet, perhaps more than ever, we have opportunities to redefine, to realign our lives, to choose life. I cannot say what this might look like for you. 

Usually, when I find myself at a crossroads, the choice, making a change is simple though I’ve moved across stateliness when that is indicated.

Choosing life might be as simple as walking across the street and offering to help with childcare for that young mother who is struggling to work, to put food on her table.

Or one might set up a safe place for a few neighborhood children to gather for on-line schooling.

Did you hear about the neighbor who noticed a yard down the street gone out of control, found the owner had a broken hip, and organized a garden party for Saturday? Twenty people showed up, tools in hand, to work and soon had the entire yard renewed.

Another person drove by, saw the work being done, returned with cases of bottled water and boxes of cookies.

I know people who do shopping for those who cannot get out. If you are one those stuck at home, pick up the phone and call that old friend with whom you’ve lost touch.

See, choose life. It doesn’t have to be hard. Most changes that last are small. And quiet. Unremarked.

Our stories merge, break apart, come back together. We sit across from one another at the same scarred, scrubbed table.

Choose life. After all, in the words of my favorite philosopher, poet and songwriter, Hank Williams Sr., “No matter how I struggle and strive, I’ll never get out of this world alive.”

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 20, 2020

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Greetings from Gringolandia

 

                Greetings from Gringolandia

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Michelle and Ana, up the road in Oconahua, tagged the name “Gringolandia” onto our enclave and it stuck. Though there has never been a dozen of us in residence at any one time, we are the closest thing to a North American colony in the greater Etzatlan municipality.

As of Friday, there are now three of us pale-faces in residence in Gringolandia. Lani has returned from four-and-a-half months up north. I won’t see her until she has hidden away for the requisite two weeks.

Janet’s husband Tom is out to sea. He’s a ship captain on a NOAA ship which I think is exciting, chasing weather all over the Pacific. I made that up, the part about chasing weather. All I really know is that Tom is the captain and took over the NOAA weather boat in Guam. 

Everyone else is hunkered down in their northern homes, wanting travel, staying safe, yearning to be in Mexico.

I’m hungry for touch. Just to shake somebody’s hand. I didn’t realize how often we casually reach out to a friend, touch his arm, give her a hug, bump shoulders.

That hunger for touch is probably what kept me from freaking out the other night when I heard the mysterious scrabbling at my bathroom window. I admit my initial reaction was to freeze in place. I was sitting against a pile of pillows, reading in bed, when I heard what sounded like somebody trying to get in through the window. My heart pounded. I listened carefully for several minutes of scratching, scritching, scrabbling noises.

Nobody can get through the windows. Wrought iron with decorative  curliques would prevent the skinniest child from squeezing through. My door, on the other hand, has a 50% chance of being unlocked.

I knew the invader couldn’t be human, somebody come to rape and pillage. My heart still beat wildly. I wasn’t about to open the door, go outside in nightshirt and confront an intruder.

Next morning, no flower pots were out of place, no evidence of animal, nuclear-activated plant, extraterrestrial from outer space or inter-planetary conspiracy.

Meanwhile, life goes forward. I can pickles, one jar at a time. Gather green beans, hull lima beans. Share zucchini. Manage to become sated eating mangos.

In my on-going frustration with sharing my garden with iguanas, I finally named my adversary Bruce. Though one might think iguanas look alike, this burly iguana who glares at me from atop the brick wall, possesses a definite personality, is easily recognizable. Evidently Bruce is going to be in my life forever.

Recently I gained another thief, smaller, of slightly different color who’s been hanging around my green beans, forcing me to drive him away. I call him Son of a Bruce.

One afternoon, I washed down chairs and spaced them three to four meters apart under the shade of the jacaranda in my back yard. Janet, Michelle and myself, joined by Leo, met, first time, for a couple hours of non-stop conversation, grumbling, laughter, each eating our own brown-bag lunch. It was almost like old times. Without touch.

After three weeks of nightly visits, the sounds of my unknown intruder scrabbling against the screens in my bathroom window, while still causing me to catch my breath and listen hard, no longer made my heart pound out of control. Each time I heard the noises, it was in the dark of night while I sat in bed reading, the bathroom light shining, the windows closed to keep bugs outdoors. Each morning I went outside to check for any evidence of invasion. Not a foot print, finger print, or bloody smear to give a clue.

Yes, life in Gringolandia goes on. Josue came over this morning to borrow my pitchfork. Leo brought me pozole, along with the trimmings, his sister made for their father’s birthday dinner. It smells so good. I’ve been yearning for a meal somebody else cooked. Michelle wrote that she and Ana are going to Costco Friday; anything I need? I’ll check my pantry. Janet brought me some blue poppy seedlings. They look pretty fragile but maybe they will “take”.

Last night, while leaning over the sink brushing my teeth, I saw a flicker at the lower corner of the bathroom window, through the embossed glass. Just that quickly, the mystery was solved. The shape revealed itself—a medium sized lizard, looking for a meal, eating bugs and insects attracted to the bathroom light. I’m almost disappointed.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 13, 2020

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Goo-Goo-Googling Along

                Goo-Goo-Googling Along

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I woke up with yellow eyeballs. The color was not quite glow-in-the-dark neon yellow, but definitely, the whites of my yes sported a sickly yellowish cast, gunked with matter.

In lieu of a thermometer, I felt my Ford-bumper with the back of my hand. Felt normal to me. All systems functioning.

Next I did what any modern person with access to internet knows not to do but does it despite themselves. I consulted Dr. Google. “What causes yellow eyes, O Great Oracle?”

Frankly, I didn’t care for any of the options on offer but felt like I needed a starting point, so I chose malaria. I might have picked extreme delayed reaction to excessive alcohol consumption but it’s been a while.

Besides, I pondered, perhaps it is hereditary. My Dad contracted malaria in the Army with a relapse when I was very tiny. I remembered it as a horrific time of nicotine-soaked sheets (Camels unfiltered and roll-your-own), fear pervading the atmosphere and a gray-haired doctor with the requisite black bag who came to the house with shots and pills.

All things considered, I have three fresh mosquito bites in the fold of my arm as evidence.

Other options niggled at me in the background of my mind but I have a powerful defense system in place, ignored the whispers and got on with my day, doctoring my eyeballs frequently with Manzanilla Sophia drops, a proven Mexican remedy for eye irritants, made with sterile water and chamomile tea. Besides, the last thing I wanted was to go to town to the hospital for tests while the Ugly Virus runs rampant.

Later I was out among my buckets peering beneath leaves, searching for a zucchini to eat for dinner. Leo asked me if I’d ever eaten squash blossoms. I’ve had squash blossom soup. It’s good. He went on to describe squash blossom quesadillas and fried squash blossoms.

The more I thought about it, the more appealing fried squash blossoms became, especially as I have two buckets of zucchini. And a lot of blossoms.

I was afraid if I picked all the blossoms though, I’d not have enough squash. Silly woman, we are talking about zucchini here, more notorious than rabbits.

So I punched in Garden Google and discovered that squash has male and female blossoms. True to form, the males are for pollination and the females do all the work. Learning to distinguish between the two is easy. Use your imagination. I just had to leave one or two males for pollination and I could eat all the other flowers. Interestingly, there are more men than women.

Next I opened the door to Kitchen Google and looked at several ways to prepare the blossoms for frying. It’s not rocket science. It’s not even kitchen science. So I figured I’d ignore the suggestions and prepare the blossoms “my way”.

In the morning, while blossoms are in full bloom, I took scissors out to the buckets, cut off five males leaving about an inch of stem on each, pinched out the centerpieces and threw them away. Took the flowers into the kitchen and refrigerated the blossoms until I was ready to eat.

I beat an egg in a shallow bowl. Poured masa (fine cornmeal for tortillas) into another bowl, seasoned it in simplicity with salt, pepper and paprika. Sliced off small chunks of soft farmer cheese and stuffed each flower. Dipped the flower in egg, then masa, quickly, creating a thin coating.

Next I lay each blossom gently into the hot oil. Shallow. Frying is frying. You can deep fry them if you wish, but a little dab will do you. About a half minute on each side and the flowers are ready to eat.

This whole thing may have been a huge mistake. Five minutes later, I’d licked the platter clean. I hope fried squash blossoms doesn’t become my new ice-cream. I can’t wait for morning and more open blossoms.

Fortunately blossom season is short. If I plant two more buckets with squash seed, I might get a second season. I might get fed up. I might get as wide as I am tall. I might.

My eyeballs? Oh, they are fine. The whites are white again. I must have had a mild infection or an irritant of some sort. Dr. Google misdiagnosed. I do not have malaria. I told Josue to put a hold on my casket order.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 23, 2020

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I know where the keys are kept

I know where the keys are kept

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kathy said that she told Crin they should ask Josue to put locks on their closets because I am out of control with my sewing machine.

Once my creative juices begin flowing in a particular direction, they run like a river.

Innocent beginnings. I cleaned out my closet of the old and worn and stained and unloved garments, shoved them into a trash bag. The next day I retrieved two blouses and cut away parts and pieces to construct face masks.

Next, I took a hard critical look at what was left hanging in my bedroom. I seldom wore this one because I didn’t like the sleeves. Ha, that’s easily fixed. And if I pinch that one in along the sides, it will fit better. One alteration led to another to another. That kept me busy and satisfied for a short while.

Tucked away in a bin, I had pieces of batik that would make beautiful blouses. My sewing machine whirred. I tossed more of the old ‘rags’ out of my closet to make way for the new, thus giving me a bigger bag of trash I might transform with artistry of my scissors and sewing machine, needle and thread. Or, maybe just a bigger bag of trash. We’ll see.

I woke one morning with the realization, born in the night, that a piece of this one combined with a scrap of that one would make a lovely whole, each creation more unique, more beautiful.

In my closet hung three patchwork skirts, love them, bought years ago in Tequila, seldom worn. What if, what if, I altered these three blouses, cut them off below the bustline, took the waists off these three skirts married skirts to blouses pronounce them dresses.

This morning I am wearing dress number two. I’ve reduced the clothing hanging in my closet to less than half the previous, sad, worn out inhabitants. I’ve a bag for trash and one for give-away.

Looking at fabrics piled by the sewing machine, including dress-to-be number three, plus, knowing what is still safely out of sight in the bodega, I figure I have several weeks of creative stitchery-witchery ahead of me.

I don’t sew every day, you know. I drag out my projects, interspersed with reading, gardening and plain living.

When I am being creative, and it doesn’t matter much in what direction, I am content. I learned this about myself when just a young girl and I set up my first artist workshop in the old pump house on the ranch.

When I moved to Mexico, I packed along oil paints, an easel and a minimum of supplies. Several weeks ago I set up my easel, arranged my tools and smeared paint on a canvas. My heart wasn’t in it. 

After a few hours I packed everything back to the inner reaches of the bodega. If I get motivated within a year or two, I shall paint. If not, I shall donate the whole mess to Stephany’s school.

My motivation in setting up the easel was that “I should.” I considered all the uninterrupted time ahead of me, during the early beginnings of the virus arriving in Mexico, all my neighbors hied off up north, I’d no place to go, perfect set up, right? But my inner artist spoke clearly, chin jutting, “Don’t wanna.”

In my other creative endeavor, I’m in my yard and garden. Every day I begin with a bucket tour, finding what is ready to harvest, what needs water, planning my meals around what is ready to eat.

Today, I breaded and fried a slab of sea bass and three squash blossoms. What I really wanted to accompany my meal was green beans, slowly coming along. The young vines, search as I might, yielded a mere four string beans, not enough for a serving. So I ate them raw while I made curried cauliflower simply because the head of cauliflower was sitting in the refrigerator, daring me.

Don’t tell my friends, but if I get desperate for one more thing to sew, I do know where the keys are kept.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 6, 2020

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Allegory of the Green Beans Applied

            The Allegory of the Green Beans Applied

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Several years ago, while I still lived in Washington, I visited Dad in Harlem. It was during the last days when my step-mom was still able to do simple things for herself. She put the meal on the table.

She was never a good cook. She’d raised eleven children and her meals were made to feed hungry bellies. Nothing was thrown away, ever. I don’t remember the meal. Certainly a meat, potatoes, perhaps a cabbage slaw since it was toward the end of Dad’s garden. But I will never forget the green-beans.

Withered, shriveled, in a tiny bowl, perhaps eight or nine pieces of green-beans, snapped, not whole.

They had been offered every meal since I’d arrived. The beans were so over-cooked they no longer had color, well, cement gray. I wasn’t about to touch them.

I looked across the table and met my Dad’s eyes. We’d both been looking with disdain at the beans. Dad reached for the bowl, dumped the desiccated mess on his plate, gave me a half smile and said, “If I don’t eat these, they’ll come around again.”

I thought, “Greater love hath no man.”

All of us whose parents had lived through the depression, through other hard times, grew up that way to a certain extent. We used, re-used, patched and repaired. The broken shovel today might be ground down, given a different handle, and appear as a garden trowel tomorrow.

Some of our family’s early examples and ways stick with us, unquestioned. Some practices we rebel against. All leave a residue that influence decisions we make in our daily lives. 

Having grown up on a family farm, we always had food, fresh from the summer garden, or from jars in the cellar or frozen packages in the freezer. Beef, pork, chickens and eggs; we had it all. My tolerance for left-over food is limited.

I have a friend who makes a vat of soup or spaghetti to eat for a week. I couldn’t do it. Today, tomorrow and maybe one portion frozen for a month. Then my stomach growls, “Nevermore.”  

Last week I baked bread. I bake all my bread, good farm-style loaves for toast or sandwiches or plain bread and butter.

I’m not quite sure where my head was that day, but my focus clearly wandered elsewhere. While I was kneading the dough, it didn’t feel quite right. “Maybe it will be alright.” When I have that thought, through long experience, alarm bells and whistles go off.

In a hurry for a reason I don’t remember, I ignored the warning. Set the dough to rise, punched it down later, after the second rising, formed dough into loaves and plopped them in the bread pans, even though the dough still didn’t feel right. Well, I wasn’t going to just throw it away, was I?

I lit the oven to pre-heat. Turned my attention to another chore. As soon as the oven was hot, I plunked the loaves in to bake. Truthfully, I didn’t even look at the dough to make sure they’d risen, just shoved the pans into the oven.

What came out of the oven looked pitiful; puny loaves but solid as bricks. They made up in weight and density for what they lacked in size.

I cannot even tell you the last time I made a bad batch of bread. Other things, other foods, oh, yes. Bread, no. I make four small loaves, keep one out for present eating and freeze three.

Almost always I enjoy the first slice, still warm from the oven, slathered with butter. I ate it. That’s all I can say. It wasn’t dreadful. It wasn’t good. My second rationalization was, “Maybe it will be okay for toast.” Again, warning bells and whistles sounded. I turned away.

I don’t eat bread every day. So a couple days later I sliced a piece of bread to toast. I looked at that dense slice of bread. I mean, I really looked at it.

And what I saw, as clearly as though I were still sitting at that long-past table, was that pitiful little bowl with eight pieces of withered, gray green-beans.

I gathered my bread, the slice I’d just cut for toast, and the loaves from the freezer and took them out the far rock wall boundary of the ranch and crumbled the offering across the rocks for my enemies, the iguanas, a penance of sorts. (Waste not.)

Today I baked bread. I paid attention to every detail, gave each part of the process my fullest focus. 

The loaves floated out of the oven, light and perfect, evenly grained. I cut a slice of hot bread, slathered it with butter and savored every bite. 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 30, 2020

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________