Bridges

            Bridges

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            What a precious two weeks in Poulsbo, Washington, while I stayed with my son, Ben. 

            Ben and I had always been close; we’d weathered some tough early years together. Ben, at thirty-five, a responsible family man with the best computer job in the world, working for a toy company where he went to work to play games, hit some extremely painful emotional times. He chose to opt out of the pain. At that time, Ben pushed me out of his life and, in retrospect, I’m glad he did so.

            It took a while for our family to piece through his lies and figure out what he was doing. Addiction is a terrible thing. His addiction stripped my son of his job, his wife, his daughter, his home, his health, possessions and self-respect.

            I am proud to say that two-and-a-half years ago, Ben hit bottom, changed direction and chose a different road on which to walk. Jail wasn’t his “hitting bottom” but he was in jail when he chose to climb the long, hard road to sobriety. This took courage I cannot even imagine.

            Kitsap County had instituted a new program for drug treatment for people while incarcerated. Ben qualified for the rigorous program, with hours of daily counseling sessions, group therapy, meetings, and service work. My son finished out his jail time in the program, months-long intensive work.

            His first six months out of jail, he continued the program in a group home. During this time, he was offered a job but his counselor said, “No, I don’t want you to work a job; I want you to work on yourself.”

            And hard work that has been. Trust is not an easy thing to rebuild once it is shattered. Slowly, Ben has evolved a working relationship with Shea, his former wife. He has earned ever-increasing time to spend with his daughter, Lexi.

Ben has built a new spirituality upon which to base his life. He has found a solid support base of friends he can turn to for help. He has reconnected with family.

            Ben works a manual-labor job, repairing and renovating houses for a man who may be the best boss in Kitsap County. He has learned every phase of remodeling while building physical strength and endurance. Because of his degenerated health, Ben arrives home from work exhausted, yet he is determined to push through, to meet his obligations and support himself and family.

            His back-trail is littered with the debris of his past, including bills, taxes, and medical expenses. It’s not easy. He tackles them one-by-one as he is able. The trail ahead will be cluttered with serious medical issues for a long time.

            When I look into my son’s eyes, I see love and determination and self-respect and pain. I see gratitude. He said he experiences glimmers of what it might be to be happy again. He forges ahead. None of this is easy for him. It is a long, tough road upon which he has embarked.

            I am grateful for Kitsap County’s innovative approach to treatment that helped him get started on his road to recovery. He’s definitely one of a lucky chosen few.

I am grateful my son changed directions, chose the harder road. During this time, Ben began communicating with me once again. My recent trip to Washington was the first time we’d been together in four years.

Every moment of time spent with Ben, my grand-daughter Lexi, my forever-daughter, Shea, was a sweet gift. I treasure time spent with Kristen, especially our afternoon mucking about, transplanting, gardening.

A poetry reading at the Poulsbohemian, a visit with Havre’s Dick Looby in a Care Center in Bremerton, dinner and many talks with my forever-friend, Gary as well as gallons of good Seattle coffee I savored with other friends from my past years in Poulsbo, especially Al, Steve, Kathy and Cass; all are experiences which will be treasured memories. I’d rather forget the blackberry attack but life isn’t all sugar.

            My son is back, only better. Only someone who has been through similar trauma can understand what I mean by “better”. Ben says it helps to have Kristen in his life, a woman who has had similar past experiences and trials. And Deckard.  “Despite his crazy hair shedding,” Ben told me, “sometimes a doggy hug is what keeps you going at the end of a long day.”

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 24, 2017

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Felled By A Blackberry Bramble

Felled By A Blackberry Bramble

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            I certainly never expected to spend an afternoon in the emergency room of the local hospital on my holiday with my son and granddaughter. Just an innocent scratch, I tried to tell myself.

            Lexi and I, along with Deckard the Dog, had walked the newly-hacked trail to the “Fort” in the woods, constructed by Lexi’s grandpa and father. If you’ve never been around wild blackberries, you need to know, the vines are indestructible.

            Left to grow uninhibited, blackberry brambles will eventually push out the holly, salal, ferns and all other woods growth. Wild vines can and do take down entire buildings, including abandoned barns and houses. I’ve seen it.

            When I first moved to Washington back in the early ‘80s, I didn’t understand this phenomenon. I was appalled when I saw my neighbor out hacking away blackberry bushes at the edge of his yard. Coming from Montana, where chokecherries, a poor excuse for fruit, requiring extreme measures to harvest and use, are revered, I learned any fruit is sacred and blackberries are rare treasures.

            The following year, and every year thereafter, in the spring and again, in the fall, after I had picked all the plump juicy berries I wanted for pies and jellies, machete in hand, I hacked the vines into pseudo submission. Blackberries always win.

            So even though Ben had cleared the path through the woods to the Fort, errant vines lurked. As I followed, Lexi ran ahead along the uneven ground, with Deckard tugging on his rope in my left hand and my cane for balance in my right hand. An errant blackberry vine whipped out and sliced through the back of my calf.

            My leg was bloody but I was on a mission so paid no attention. Lexi gave me the grand treehouse tour, we poked around the base of the tree a while, then returned home. After I cleaned my messy leg, I considered I might need stitches but could probably get by without them. What’s one more scar? I smeared Bag Balm, my go-to cure-all, on my leg and promptly ignored what was obviously not a mortal wound.

            Three days later, while having coffee with Kathy Currie and Cass Quinn, friends from my theatre days, Kathy noticed my cut leg with an expression of horror. Remember, this thing is on the back of my calf, not terribly painful, out of sight, out of mind. I twisted around to look. Ewww. My leg sported a nasty purple gash, discolored an inch around the edges of the actual cut.

            My son Ben, who’d worked several years in nursing homes when younger, cleaned the cut, disinfected a needle and broke through the crust, expressed the discharge, and smeared on an antibiotic cream, hoping for the best. By this time my leg looked as though it were being eaten from the inside out.

            On the second day of home treatment, Ben and I looked at my leg, looked at each other, and without another word, climbed into the car and took my infected leg to the Emergency Room at Harrison Hospital. I’m terrified of infections with good reason. I have a prosthetic knee on one leg and prosthetic hip on the other.

            That’s why I’m taking a horse-pill antibiotic, my mouth tastes like metal, food turns my stomach and I must rise up in the middle of the night to swallow another pill, rigidly adhering to the doctor’s precise instructions.

            The good news is the pills work. Yes, I should have gone in for stitches. I’ll add one more scar to my growing collection.

            Now, please understand I’ll probably not act on impulse. I’ve never been one to consider tattoos. I can admire good tattoo work on you but have never been tempted to deliberately jab needles into my own skin. However, my legs are criss-crossed with scars.

Recently I’ve thought about creating a “roadmap” tattoo, utilizing my natural “lay of the land”, complete with scars, dips and doodles. Towns along the “route”. Mountains and valleys. Perhaps add a lake here and a railroad track there. I could create an entire mythical country from my natural scars of life lived.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 17, 2017

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Culture Shock, Shock, Shock

Culture Shock, Shock, Shock

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            “Mom, I keep telling you. You’ve gone native.” After spending all but a few weeks of the last four years in Mexico, immersed in a different life, what is one to expect?

            My first intimation that I needed to be alert to where I am, “one world” notwithstanding, came when the man who assisted me at LA International with a wheelchair, zoomed me through customs, held my hand through security and escorted me to my next gate, gave me a raised-eyebrow, incredulous stare, when I gratefully proffered a handful of pesos for a tip. Oops, wrong money.

            Since I carry two wallets when I travel, one stuffed with pesos, the other with credit cards and a few US twenties, I soon remedied my mistake.

            Cash and credit. In Mexico, in the small town where I live, I have no use for a credit card except to extract pesos from the bank machine. I purchase everything with cash. My needs are few. Even when I lived in the city, in Mazatlan, I seldom had need or opportunity to use my card. In Etzatlan, I don’t carry a card.

            My son met me at Seatac with a surprise: my granddaughter Lexi awaited me in the car, a joyful reunion. I got to meet Ben’s new girlfriend, Kristen, but with Lexi motor-mouthing the entire drive home, giving me with updates of her life, the rest of us had to squeeze words in edgewise. Once we got to the house, situation normal.

            Ben lives a mile from our first home in Kitsap County and another mile from the home we bought and in which we lived longest. We always lived in the country, surrounded by towering trees. I love the combined scents of Douglas Firs, majestic cedars and maples with the underbrush of impenetrable Holly and blackberry thickets. I know this country intimately. I feel at home instantly.

            The “kids” (Well, they always will be our “kids”.) had made arrangements for me to have a car and a US cell phone. I’m so used to life without either, that I decided to do without. Unheard of deprivation. Right?

            Truth to tell, it’s no different in Mexico. Everyone has an implanted hand-held device that requires total attention. Despite the fact that many a caballero rides his horse into town and ties the reins to a tree branch, he probably has a cell phone in his back pocket. Most families own a car.  

            My first trip to the grocery reminds me of how differently I’ve come to live. In Etzatlan, I go to the fruitera, a small basket in hand, and fill it with enough for a few days, all for a handful of pesos. I haven’t forgotten how I used to fill my cart as though the Barbarians were at the gate and wonder if I’d need a bank loan to get out the door. But tell me, who needs forty-two brands of corn flakes from which to choose?

            Speaking of Barbarians, they arrived in the night and conquered. The brought mountains of useless, redundant and unnecessary items, seductively placed to lure one to purchase, take home and wonder, “Now, why did I think I wanted this?” Had to be the Barbarians.

            My first morning here I awoke puzzled. Where have all the birds gone? In Etzatlan I awake at first light morning to a symphony of birds, birds which sing to me while skittering through my yard and trees all day. Here I awaken to silence. Though I spend a good deal of each day under the trees, I hear and see only the occasional crotchety crow or marauding jay.

            The first week here I awoke at 5:30, courtesy of the two hour time difference coupled with longer hours of sun. (In Etzatlan we are close to having twelve light and twelve dark hours.) When I return, I’m guaranteed a week of sleeping in until 9:30. I’m usually up with the sun, between 7 and 7:30 in Etzatlan.

            Friends, they are the same. I flew north to be in the arms of my family, for snuggles with my granddaughter, to renew communication on a deeper level with my son, Ben, whom I almost lost. A morning teaching the Dancing Crane movements to Lexi. Gardening all afternoon with Kristen. That’s what life is all about.

I treasure hours of conversation with theatre friends over buckets of steaming coffee. How can one measure the good times. Good timing is easier. I attended the monthly poetry reading at the Poulsbohemian Coffee Shop where I got to meet old friends and new poems. I wish I had brought one of my poems with me for open mike. Next trip.

Best moments so far: Sitting beneath the trees at night with Ben and Kristen, listening to their stories. Waking up next to Lexi’s snuggly little body.

But where are the birds and butterflies?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 10, 2017

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The Eager, Reluctant Traveler

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            My suitcase perches, mouth open, on my sofa, poised to swallow piles of clothing and jumbles of travel essentials: toiletries, Kindle, laptop, gifts.

            Mine is not a planned trip. The “plan” was for my son, Ben, to visit me, grand-daughter Lexi in hand.  It’s still a plan, delayed by the IRS.  That fearsome entity is auditing my son’s taxes for the year he sent his life veering off the rails. Evidently, they fear he might come to Mexico and never return.  Once the audit is finished to the IRS’s satisfaction, Ben will be free to visit.

            “Mom, it has been four years. I need to see you now that I have you back in my life.” What mother could resist such a plea?  Ben is two and a half years clean and sober, working hard to re-establish a good life, one based on a realistic foundation.

            I’m eager to see my son, my Washington family, my friends of years’ duration. I lived in Poulsbo, Washington, more years than anywhere else in my life. That community grew me in good ways. Mine is a short trip; I’ll pack it full of love and experiences.

            “I’m reluctant to leave,” I confessed to my daughter via phone. “It’s crazy. I’m anxious to spend time with Ben but I wanted him to come here. I’m mentally stomping my foot. Like a spoiled child, I am.”

            “I don’t call that crazy,” she told me. “You’ve made a strong home. You are settled into the community comfortably. Besides, you live in Paradise. Who would want to leave?”

            I gazed out my windows at the hummingbirds sucking honey from the canna lilies, the iguana perched on the ledge, the green lizard scuttling across the patio, my roses which I’ve nourished from babies to full glory.  I sighed. Paradise. It’s easy to forget that this morning, while watering hibiscus along my west wall, I stepped onto a hill of red ants. They are the flesh-eating type. Hurts like fire.

            Lani came by and abducted me to go to San Marcos with her to buy a pottery plant holder she wanted. On our return, we drove previously unexplored streets of Etzatlan. I really do love my little town, cobblestone streets, every doorway begging to be explored. The street fronts may look rugged but hide a sumptuous interior or a chicken yard or a corn field, all side-by-side.

            We stopped at the square, bought ice cream and sat in the plaza, watching people, not talking, at peace with ourselves and our world.

            Back home, I went into a flurry of messaging, letting friends know I’d be leaving. “Jim, please bring me a dozen pint canning jars. Sorry I’ll miss your visit. Our trips coincide. I’ll see you in October.”

            “Kathy and Crin, I’ll be gone the first week of your visit. Back the 15^th. We’ll still have a couple weeks to eat our way through Etzatlan, what we do best!”

            Crin responded, “I’ll come sing to your flowers to keep them happy. What is their favorite music?”

“Nursery rhymes, the ones we both grew up loving.”

“I’ll start with ‘Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?’”

While I’m gone, Erica will wash down my walls, a job better done with me out of the way. My walls are brick—imagine the dust! Josue will install an electrical outlet on the outside back wall, a small but needful project. Leo will keep my lawn trimmed and potted plants watered.

My world is in order. I’m as ready for my trip as possible, both eager to go and reluctant to leave.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 3, 2017

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