Tempus Fugit

            Tempus Fugit

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            Time flies and the older I get, the faster it fugits. As I contemplate yet another birthday, that mean ol’ tempus is fugiting at the speed of light.

            To add injury to insult, this weekend we will set the clocks ahead in Mexico. I know, you up north are already over the shock of change.  In a few days I will struggle to remember what time it really is, whatever that means, since “time” is but an arbitrary measure.

            Before I wax too philosophical, let me change directions and note that my snowbird friends are flying north at jet speed.

            Crin left for Victoria last Sunday. Julie flew back to Minneapolis yesterday. Jim leaves for Missouri next Sunday. John and Carol are heading out in another two weeks. Pat and Nancie have been gone for three weeks. Kathy and Richard leave again the end of April.

            Like kiwi birds or emus, Lani and I will be left, summer-time flightless birds. Oops, Lani plans to sprout wings in May and fly north for an extended period of time. Woe is me, alone and abandoned.

            Try as I might, I am unable to squeeze out even a crocodile tear since Saturday four of us are sneaking off to Cancun for a week of fun in the eastern sun. At last, I will get to see the Caribbean, unexplored territory. Happy Birthday to me.

            When my friends go north, they leave a hole in my soul and a hole in my daily life. We don’t do all things as a group but our paths criss-cross with frequency. Just this week I had lunch with two different friends. Plus, one afternoon six of us women drove up the mountain to Restaurante Don Luis for a three hour meal that was more laughter than food.

            Judging by stories I am told, the original folks who built these homes we now inhabit, had common ground. They were travelers with campers and RVs, were retired military, and liked to party hearty. Oh, we here are so different!

            The other night, sitting on my patio, Julie and I agreed, our present conglomeration of residents, whom I have come to love so quickly, have absolutely nothing in common. We come from quirkily diverse backgrounds. At times we act on one another like sandpaper. Whatever our roughness, we smooth it out. We share food, borrow ladders and trade plants.

            We are all mature enough to know to look inside our own guts first when we have a problem with another person.

Time. Time is a great helper, a revealer, more often than not, replacing petty snarls and sniffs with understanding and respect. Sandpaper or time, we interact with varying and shifting degrees of tolerance, acceptance and downright liking.

Perhaps it is no accident we were each drawn to be here at this time in life; perhaps there is a strange, unknowable, purpose in grinding our rough edges. Or not.

One by one, we arrived to fill the empty houses. I came to visit my cousin. Others came to visit me. Some were in the adjacent campground and ended up staying to restore a trashed house. None of our stories connect through common ground.

So sometimes we grind against one another. Some sand paper is fine; other paper is coarse. We seem to smooth out any bumps. I’ll miss my friends when they are all gone. But I am easy with my solitude.              

Before I’m alone again, I will move forward the hands on the face of my clock. I will fly with friends to Cancun in yet another time zone and be totally confused. What time is it? Time to celebrate my birthday with chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. Skip the candles, please.

When I return home, I shall remember that time has a very special grit of sandpaper for we who live alone. Meanwhile, tempus fugit.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April 4, 2019

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Life is Big

Chance encounters of the close kind.
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Life is Big

I met Sharon at a workshop at Mt. Shasta , California in 1992. We all sat in a circle and introduced ourselves. The workshop leader asked us to buddy up, explaining that we were to work in teams of two. Sharon and I looked across the circle, nodded and grinned. Instant buddies. That week we forged a friendship.

Our lives were vastly different. I lived in a house in the woods in rural Poulsbo , Washington . Sharon had an apartment in the heart of downtown Vancouver , British Columbia . Sharon, a single woman, had traveled all over the world. She was intensely interested in alternative medicine and the healing arts. I had children, owned my own business, wrote poetry and painted. But we shared one common experience: we were both women of the prairies. Sharon grew up in Watson , Saskatchewan , just a little east and north of my own home town of Harlem , Montana . We frequently shared stories of our growing up at the end of the road, in small town isolation. We had been near neighbors and never knew it.

Over the next several years, we visited back and forth. I loved Vancouver . Sharon took me everywhere. We walked barefoot through the goose poop in Stanley Park . We explored Granville Island , its Public Market and the galleries. As time passed, our lives changed. Sharon married Ron, a chef and restaurateur from Singapore . Ron is a whirlwind of energy, full of plans, with the skills to carry them out. I liked him immediately. I became an empty nester. My children flew off into their own lives. I found myself doing something I had never thought I would do. I entered the world of theatre. Sharon attended my first play. O ur friendship grew.

One Friday Ron and Sharon surprised me when they drove up to my house in their big red pickup. They burst through the door. “Guess what we are going to do. We are leaving Vancouver . Ron sold the restaurant. We are done with the hustle and bustle, the pressures of the big city,” they announced, both talking at the same time. “We came to share our excitement with you.”

Amidst hugs and kisses, I managed to squeeze in a query, “What are you going to do?”

“We’re off to check out restaurants for sale in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland . We’re going from the west coast to the east coast.”

The weekend passed too quickly. Monday morning I waved them off with tears in my eyes. I wondered when, if ever, I would see Sharon again. I wanted to pack a bag and go with them.

A few days later, Sharon called. “Guess what? On our way east, we stopped to visit my Mom in Saskatchewan . You won’t believe this. We bought a restaurant right here in Watson. It’s called the Quick Stop. Ron has big plans for it.”

Our visits became less frequent but our phone bills increased. Five years passed. One day I called Sharon , “Guess what? We’ll be neighbors again. I’m moving back to Harlem .”

“Sondra, I am not one bit surprised. You always talked about going home. So when are you coming up here. We have a room waiting for you.”

And so we have resumed our cross-border trips, only now a thousand miles to the east. I like Saskatchewan . I feel at home up there.

This morning I called Sharon . She and I talked for an hour. We caught up on recent details of our lives. Ron has expanded the restaurant again. He added a room to house their new machine to manufacture perogies. They also bought the five acres of brush-land they took me to see on my last trip. They’ve cleared a patch and planted spruce and irises.

After our call, I stood in my doorway and watched the puffy clouds roll north, listened to the rain beat a tattoo on my red metal roof, inhaled the aroma of wet mud and lilacs, conscious that Sharon was unlocking the front door of the Quick-Stop and smelling the same fragrances. We are both back where we started. Prairie girls again.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door.
June 10, 2010
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