Starting Over One More Time
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“I need a wife,” Ellie wrote. I
grinned. I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve been a single Mom and
then later on, simply single, that I said those same words. We women keep an
on-going conversation, email obliterating the separation of miles, borders and
even an ocean.
It means a lot to us that we know
one another’s hard times, strengths and weaknesses, joys and sorrows. Sometimes
a person simply likes for another to acknowledge that they see you; they know
what you’re going through. It’s almost as good as a person holding your hand.
I’ve been reading a compilation of
oral history of several Montana pioneer women, women born in the latter 1800’s
and early 1900’s. They could be our grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and even
mothers.
Fortunate or unfortunate, who can
judge, many of us can look back on the tail-end of similar experiences. Most of
my early years we never had running water or indoor plumbing. When I got
married in 1963, fresh from graduating high-school, I lived in a primitive
house constructed by shoving three small storage sheds together and tacking on
a roof. I learned to cook on a wood stove. The facility was down the path out
back.
I carried water from the yard pump for the cattle into the
house in pails. We had a washstand on which to set the bucket of drinking
water, a dipper hanging handy from which everyone drank. Oh, I know. We never
thought a thing of it.
Wash day was a nightmare of lugging water, heating it in
boilers on the wood stove, pouring into tubs, scrubbing and rinsing. Then I
carried the dirty water out to dump over the hill after the work clothes were
washed. But I did it.
We had electricity. I know neighbors who didn’t have that
luxury.
My father-in-law was a true
skin-flint. We lived on $125.00 a month salary and deer meat. This was 1963 to
1967, enlightened times.
When I had saved enough to buy paint, I proudly invited my
neighbor Doris over to see the results, her first visit to my home. It took me
looking back years later to understand the look on her face. My friends didn’t
judge me but family tongues certainly wagged.
My experiences don’t compare to
those of the true pioneer women. Mine were just a taste. We had so much more.
Certainly I never thought I’d be
starting over, making a new life, a kind of pioneering. But here I am, on the
edge of a farm village in the foothills of the mountains in central Mexico. I
thought my quiet little life in my quiet little apartment in Mazatlan was it,
the rest of my days.
Suddenly I am working with a local
craftsman, designing kitchen cabinets to suit my needs. Or pruning in my
overgrown jungle of a yard. I don’t know the names of many of my plants but I
know they will benefit from a severe “haircut”. Or shopping in the local
tiendas for paint or lighting or tiles.
What I do know is this move has
given me a surprising infusion of energy. I’m slower than I used to be. I’m
patient. But inside me perks a bubbling cauldron of new life.
My friends eagerly await news of
on-going progress. They “hold my hands” through the dips and troughs. I’m not
alone. Lovely young neighbors watch out for me. Leo comes several days a week to
help me with chores and gardening. For today, I don’t feel like I “need a
wife”.
Hummingbirds and gold finches gather
nectar from grapefruit blossoms outside the window where I sit at my keyboard.
Canaries nest near-by, perhaps in the Leticia draping over my brick wall, where
I watch them flit in the morning sunshine. Often scent of orange blossoms
nearly overwhelms me. I had my eye on the coffee bush in back but it is too
late this year. Next year I’ll know how to recognize when the beans are ready
to harvest.
Excuse me, please. I need to pluck a
couple avocados to make guacamole for dinner with Lani and Ariel, Jody and
Theresa.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
March 24,
2016
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