Who Says You
Can’t Teach An Old Dog
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When one grows up and spends much of
one’s life in the country of “far from”, in the land of the irreducible
minimum, one develops specific habits of adaptability. One telling example in
my life is a trait that my friends from elsewhere call my “siege mentality”.
You might recognize it by my refrigerator and freezer crammed with so much food
that I have to lean into the door and wrap it with a ratchet tie-down strap. Unlimited
shelving in the basement was stocked with all manner of non-perishable foods
and goods. Who else would have one hundred eight rolls of toilet tissue and
suffer heart palpitations if the stock falls lower than two cases?
We, who live far from everything, in
the land labeled the last frontier, that’s who. We never know when the snow will
falleth in malicious clumps, the wind bloweth the roads closed, and the
apocalypse cometh. I’ve been there. When I was eighteen, living at the end of a
dirt trail south of Dodson, we were snowed in from November through April. For
Christmas I made cookies with flour, molasses and corn flakes. To replenish my
larder my husband drove the work team with hay sled to town. We got mail once a
month, horseback. No, I never slogged to school barefoot, through six feet of
snow, uphill both ways. But that winter indelibly imprinted on me. If fifty
pounds of flour is good, one hundred pounds must be better.
My lifetime habit was to look at
things as if there might not be enough. I have changed. If you were to open my
refrigerator today, you might say, “But it is empty.” I say, “I see a tomato,
an onion, a poblano pepper, a jalepino, two beets, milk, butter, cheese and two
eggs. The fruit bowl on the counter is opulently filled with a mango, key limes
to make limonado, tamarindo, an avocado and a potato. I have masa for tortillas
and flour to make bread. Beans simmer on the burner.” Who could ask for more!
With a dozen little markets (My
basement had a larger stock of goods than some of these emporiums.) within a
three block radius, why worry. Every day I walk to get what I think I need or
want. I can hop a bus to the large Mercado at Centro or to any number of big
box stores including Wal-Mart.
Everything is different south of the
Border. I see things differently. It is not just the neighborhood markets with
milk and eggs, brooms and bleach. Many services come by my door.
Mario drives by in his water truck
every day. When my empty jug is sitting outside my door, Mario shoulders a
fresh twenty liter jug of water and brings it, not just to my door, but inside,
sets it on the counter while I wash the jug and upends it onto the ceramic
dispenser for me. For this service I pay
twenty pesos.
Juan is usually parked a couple
blocks away with his water buckets and cleaning cloths. While his customer is
in the restaurant at the Solomar, Juan washes and polishes the client’s car.
One day with my minimal Spanglish I asked him if he would come wash my van. We
negotiated a price. Granted, he didn’t show up that day or the next, but
eventually he came, scrubbed my poor grit encrusted van and made her shine. For
this I am happy.
Everyday I see others: the
housepainter with the twenty foot extension ladder balanced on the front of his
bicycle cart, the cardboard recycler, the junk man, the man with the truck for
hauling things either to or away, the ice vender, the propane truck, the man
who picks up bottles and cans (residents leave them on the edge of the sidewalk
for him). If I need help, there is a good chance I can find it on my street.
A couple weeks ago I heard a shrill
whistle. The knife man, sharpening stones balanced on his shoulder, was
striding down the middle of the street. I rushed to the kitchen to get my
chopping knife, which I could sharpen myself, but I also need a small repair. I was too late. The knife sharpener had gone
around a corner and out of sight. I’m listening for the whistle. I laid my
knife on a cabinet by the door. He’ll be back.
I’m returning to Montana in April. I
know that my newly trained eyes will fasten onto things I cannot find in Mexico.
My challenge will be to ignore them, and like a good Montana woman, make do
with what I have.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
March 27,
2014
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