Musings, Observations, and Outright Guesses

Musings, Observations, and Outright Guesses

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I could have said ‘outright lies’ but I have no blessed idea how I am going to fill this page so ‘guesses’ seemed the more appropriate word.

Most weeks I know exactly what I want to say. It never comes out the way I think it will, but I have a definite idea to start. ‘I can’t wait to talk about that.’ Or, ‘I want to tell them this little story.’

This has been a strangely blank week. Maybe it is the gray skies, make me feel like I followed my son Ben home to Poulsbo, Washington; gray, grim, unrelenting wet.

“Where is the sunshine?” I ask as if it is my God-given right to expect sun every morning by 11:00 just because it is the usual way of the day unfolding here in my magical bit of Mexico.

There has not been enough sun to outline the clouds; dark and dreary and low and heavy hangs the ceiling, solid. Every day rain is forecast. Every day I think of Chicken Little and look for the sky to fall.

Then it did—fall—in fulsome wet steady streams, all night, all day, all night, relentless and unruly. Forecast today, ‘partly sunny’. Sol made a cameo appearance about 4:15 just prior to the wind gathering out of seemingly nowhere, bringing more rain. Rained all night, again.

Ten days of grim and gray, for me, translates to heated teakettles of water, sponge baths and hair-shampoos in the kitchen sink. I have a solar water heater and about the fifth gray day, water is best described as tepid. It is a minor inconvenience at most. Only happens once, rarely twice a year.

Worst are the feelings of vague ennui and low-level depression. Boredom? How can that be? I’m never bored, despite the fact I generally spend a good portion of each day outside. When gray generates cold. I huddle in my chair, lap blanket cover my legs, book in hand, sitting in the waft of warm air generated by my tiny tower heater. 

At least the rain brought a satisfaction of action—at last—something is happening.

But all along, every day I have activity, so why the lassitude? The lethargy?

My son flew back home. I had three weeks of his full-time care and coddling plus hot, vicious two-handed pinochle in which he trounced me. I loved every minute of it. It was time for him to go home.

Sadly. 

I can care for myself with a minimum of help from neighbors, most of whom visit daily. They come with stories, with hugs, with soup, casseroles, bone broth and cookies. Cousin Nancie who lives to bake brought a huge piece of white cake with coconut frosting. Hard to stay down in the dumps with such attention.

Miguel is my physical therapist, a kind young man who gives me treatments which make each cell seem to open like a flower and breathe. Then he ruins the effects with orders for daily exercises. But I do them, diligently. Pain is negligible.

My balance is incredible, comparatively speaking, as is my walking. How could one walk well lurching along like Chester in “Gunsmoke”, half a block behind, hollering, Mister Dillon! Mister Dillon! Five years of misery that could have been avoided had I know my leg was fixable.

Jerry and Lola are here from Idaho. Jerry and I are Harlem High classmates. This is my friends’ third visit with me here in Etzatlan. They are staying at the restored Hacienda El Carmen not far from my home. Today eight of us, me and my neighbors, Jerry and Lola, met at the Hacienda for a lovely lunch and three hour visit. I saw my friends from Oconahua. Kathy from Victoria phoned. I do not lack company.

I worry about my daughter who is overworked and overwrought. I fear for her health, but will she listen to her mother? No! She is too much like her mother.

I worry about my friend in Oregon who has a malady that is not fixable. I do not want her to bear the pain and to gradually lose functions. She is too vital.

I worry about another friend in Washington, worry that he has given up, is making do, is feeling real despair, not this shadow of despair I flirt with, knowing tomorrow the sun will shine.

It will. It is forecast and it will happen. Manana. Which might be tomorrow. Or possibly the next day.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

February 6, 2020

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The Color of Laughter

            The Color of Laughter

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            Yesterday my computer went strange on me, would not let me make any of my usual connections. So after trying everything I knew (not much) I phoned my son for help. Ben was at work, so said he’d call me to fix it when he got home. A few hours later, I thought to give it one more futile try.

            Obviously, the dang bugger heard me make the call to Ben, quaked in its reboots and fixed itself.

            My errant computer was a small glitch in my day. Even with the importance my computer has assumed in my foreign life, my world does not turn on whether it works or doesn’t work. That is what I try to tell myself.

            But once my service was restored, I giggled and privately celebrated and shared my good news with friends—via internet.

            It’s been a rugged week for me. I had one day I called in sick, so to speak. The rest of the time I felt mildly depressed beneath gray and weepy skies.

            I suppose life experiences form my philosophy or belief system. I like stories of those who have clear moments of epiphany.  For me, I think eye openers have been longer, drawn out processes, many of them.

            One certainly occurred when, during prolonged hospitalization from a car wreck, my doctor told me I might not live. He wasn’t one to mince words.

He also said I’d never walk. At any rate, since I was heavily drugged when he declared those ominous words, I didn’t believe him on either count and went on to have fifty years of walking without aids. So these past five years walking with a cane are no great burden.

Through all this, and more, I have come to know that I am insignificant. And that makes me smile. It is a great freedom, I think, to be of little account.

Because of this, and who is to argue, I find moments of pure joy in other small and insignificant things, such as finding computer service restored without great effort.

Or sitting on my patio watching lizards perform rites of fertility.

Or harvesting mangoes from my own backyard tree and making marmelada to share with my neighbors.

Or breathing deeply of the aroma of flowering ginger which I planted in the back southwest corner of my garden, this year mature enough to overwhelm all other scents. The white flowers are more beautiful than orchids. And hardier.

             Or when I found a real paper letter in my mailbox in the post office above the Mercado.

            Or when Lani and Ariel took me along to El Parrel in San Marcos for lunch, good friends, excellent food, lovely music and an introduction to natilla, beside which traditional flan pales in comparison.

And I know how to make natilla. So do you. Easy, courtesy of Mama Google. Use the recipe with vanilla bean and stick cinnamon.

            Or when Leo brought me a stalk of fingerling bananas when he noticed my empty fruit bowl.

            Or when Josue unloaded his shirt lumpy with Granada fruit for me to make aqua de Granada. Pomegranate by its Mexican name.  

            Or when the vibrant yellow bird, four times the size of a parakeet, landed for a moment on the edge of my patio roof, posed, poised and took off again. It’s a new bird to me, in this land of many yellow birds, the gorgeous vivid yellow of laughter.

            Or when English tea with sugar and milk cured my depression.

            Or when I awoke this morning to a bright blue sky with not a cloud in sight.

            But if I were rich and famous, if I were a real somebody, then I’d be telling you how important it is to have a good investment team, a McMansion on the Pacific, a plastic surgeon on retainer, and a private jet in my back yard.

            If I were rich and famous, I’d tell you to buy one hundred rare yellow birds.

            I’m satisfied with being a dust mote in the grand scheme. But then, what do I know?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 1, 2019

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My Tuna Casserole Day

My Tuna Casserole Day
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My two Montana cousins and I had just returned from a trip to my old family home in southern Indiana , where aunts and uncles and mobs of other cousins gathered in celebration of my Aunt Mary’s ninety-fifth birthday. For six days we basked in our historical culture, with love, hugs, abundant food, and family stories with everyone talking at once. It was a good trip. On the way back to the Cincinnati airport we only got lost once. We made every connection, complete with our luggage. It was a trip to treasure.

I got home at midnight. I slept well. So why, next morning, did I feel punky, lethargic, and just plain blue? I had just spent the past week surrounded by loving friends and relatives. I should be walking on clouds. Instead, I was dragging my face along the floor. I knew there was only one thing that would dig me out of this pit. I needed a Tuna Casserole Day.

Now to experience a true Tuna Casserole Day, one must feel downright depressed. Self-pity is essential. Loneliness is a must. An ability to wallow in misery is vital.

Here are the rules for a Tuna Casserole Day. You must don a shabby bathrobe. Well, but not just shabby. It must be old, shapeless, stained, unwashed, smelling of sweaty nights and days in bed, colored with evidence of melted chocolate wiped from your fingers, coffee dribbled from blubbering lips and sleeves used to wipe your runny nose. Get the picture? It is against the rules to wash this rag, ever. (I recommend you have a hidey hole where the thing can be stored when not in use.) Health and Safety Warning: This item is to be worn sparingly, in emergency situations only.

Shut the blinds. Lock the doors. Disconnect the phones. Tune the radio to tear-jerking country music. Limit your television watching to soaps. Junk food is taboo. It is too entertaining. Limit your food intake to something that matches your mood. For you it might be chicken noodle soup from the can or maybe cream of wheat. For me it has to be tuna casserole.

Wallow. Yes, wallow. Really wallow. Get down and dirty. Of course the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. Feel it. Of course your life is worthless. Know it. Of course the future of humanity is hopeless. Of course you are broke and dying. Wallow in it. Oh, did I mention, it’s critical you set a timer? You don’t want to be stranded here forever.

So I crawled out of bed trying to remember where I had hidden The Bathrobe when I heard a knock on the door. It was Jerry, a long-time friend from Washington . He said, “Remember when we used to make those gratitude lists? I decided to take a road trip to see you and talk about gratitude.”

Gratitude. My Tuna Casserole Day was doomed. As I watched my day of wallowing slink out the door, I noticed the sun was shining. “Let’s go,” I said.

I had heard there are some spectacular badlands north of Hinsdale on Rock Creek. We decided to try to find them. And find them we did, a miniature Grand Canyon . We made several stops during our journey. We picked up a truly huge snake skin of the lethal variety of snake. At the edge of a field of spring wheat, we found a fist-size agate, a treasure. To our surprise, we spotted a pond full of pelicans. At the high water mark of the creek where we stopped to fish, we found some farmer’s long lost favorite screwdriver with the handle missing. Along the way we talked about old times, mutual friends and plans for the future. We ended the day in Malta with a meal fit for the gods.

So now my Indiana trip is memory. Jerry is headed back to Washington . The rain has stopped. The sun is out. I went out my back door, clippers in hand and returned with a fist full of poppies, a couple sprigs of mock orange, blue bachelor buttons, a late peony, chive blossoms and milk weed blooms. I arranged them in the antique blue glass bowl, a gift from Aunt Mary, and set it on my dining table.

The world is filled with beauty. Life is wonderful. The future is today and I am rich. Who needs a tuna casserole!

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