Positively Giddy

 

        Positively Giddy

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I wrote a short note to my friend Sandy in Washington to let her know I am still alive, busy unpacking, cleaning, placing, creating different livable spaces in my familiar old home, back in Etzatlan. (The first night I tucked in with only a bed and stove, my dog and myself.)

Then came the first load of boxes and furnishings. Followed by . . .

One of my favorite things is to create areas of functional beauty in my home. Perhaps I waxed a bit bombastically when talking with her about how much fun I am having.

Sandy wrote back, “You sound positively giddy.”

Perhaps I am just a bit giddy. I find pleasure in simple things, in accomplishments, and this work gives me great pleasure.

Just the same as I wrote to Sandy, this is a short note to you. I hope, and hope does seem to spring forth eternally, I hope to be more sane and able to write in a sensible manner by this time next week.

I will add one very short and scary story. With all the ins and outs and all around the house, full box in, empty box out, walk the dog, full box in, as though I’m on a merry-go-round, leaf and other tree debris walk in on my shoes and some bits decide to stay.

This morning I almost picked up a quite large centipede, in clever disguise, with my fingers, when I remembered to poke it with my cane first. It looked like a curly leaf, until it didn’t. In this subtropical country, it is amazing how many tiny critters mimic leaves and grasses, almost invisible, until they aren’t!

Oh, wait, one more little tidbit. In my bedroom I have a beautiful print of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a sandalwood statue of Quan Yin, a female Buddha from my trip to China, and a sandalwood carving of Ganesh from my India trip. It’s not really a shrine. Okay, it is a shine to remind me of my connection to Great Spirit, to God, however you understand God.

Alongside these, I hung a bedpan from my last surgery, which I had filled with an arrangement of silk flowers, a flower pot if you will, to remind me not to take myself so seriously.

Adios for now, from Giddy in Mexico.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 24, 2025

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