All In Life Is Not Sweet
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John and Carol walked over for Qi
Gong on my patio. It’s how we start our day. “How are you this morning?” “Fine,
all things considered.” My stock answer when I’m not feeling all that well.
“We came to tell you the workmen
have started bathroom tile. We need to be at the house this morning. No Qi Gong
for us today.”
“Actually, that’s fine with me. I
had a miserable night with the smoke.” I wiped my cheeks. Tears have
continually washed my eyeballs for the last three weeks that our valley has
been hazy with smoke from forest and grass fires; wild fires which surround us.
There is a tree at the corner of my
patio. I wish I knew the name of it, some kind of palm. At the ends of the
reaching branches, it shoots out balls of fronds, like many-fingered hands,
puffs of palm. We in Montana have it as a houseplant in a pot, usually about
two feet tall. At the base of the tree I have a beautiful bed of canna lilies,
yellow with orange splattered centers. Instead of my Chinese drill, I watched those
dratted iguanas slither down the trunk of the tree and mow the blossoms in
gulps. I like watching iguanas. I love my flowers. I try to tolerate, to share,
through gritted teeth.
Mid-morning Lani and I went to town,
lists in fists. There is no one-stop-shopping in Etzatlan. No big-box stores. Finding
what we want often requires several stops. Stores are small, shelves packed to
the ceiling. The up-side of scattered shopping is that it is a lot more fun and
one never knows what one might discover.
Fabric to make a curtain for my
bathroom doorway headed my list. On our way to somewhere else, we passed a
doorway through which I saw curtain panels hanging along the wall.
Lani and Ariel are the only
residents on the Rancho who have been here long term. The rest of us are
diligently working through various stages of construction or remodeling. My
larger jobs are finished but there are a few small tasks I’m now ready to
tackle. My casita is tiny. Opening inside doors requires room I don’t have. When
I moved in, I removed the bathroom door and rigged a temporary curtain looping
a rope on ends of a tablecloth and hanging the loops on nails. A year later,
I’m ready for a real curtain.
I’m a home-made sort of gal, used to
making what I need. I was raised that way. Everything in my home has my
fingerprints. I intended making my curtain. I also have a basket of quilt
pieces ready to stitch together for a bedspread—another good intention, paving
stones. I simply haven’t gotten a “round tuit”.
Uncharacteristically, I say, “Lani,
let’s go in and look.” Around the block we go so we can park near the store. “I
want color.” I finger a panel the same color as my canna lilies. “I can live
with this. I don’t need to make my
curtain-door.”
Bedspreads are stacked next to
curtains. “Is this cotton? I like it. Realistically, I may not get back to my
sewing until winter. I’m in Mexico. I’m the new me. I’ll buy this too.”
Leo, my yard worker, odd jobs helper
and resident philosopher, brought proper hardware and hung my curtain. I covered
my bed with my new pink-girly-flowery spread. Pink? I never buy pink. I didn’t
even like pink when I was eight. I like it today—it freshens the room.
Later, while I gathered laundry from
the clothesline, Leo was across the yard raking a bushel of flower petals from beneath
the jacaranda. The tree is in full
spread, a purple umbrella. Every day for
weeks, the tree rains purple petals onto my lawn.
“It’s a strange tree, isn’t it, Leo?
It seems like you are always raking tree debris. A few weeks ago it was the dry
leaves. Now the flowers. Next it will drop seed pods big as castanets.”
“She beautiful tree,” his reply. “She
gives you months of green shade. Seeds fall. All in life is not sweet.”
I wiped my smoke-weepy eyes on the
clean sheets and took my laundry in the house.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
April 20,
2017
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