On the Train

On the Train

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            I boarded the Empire Builder #7 in Wolf Point. I quickly kissed my daughter goodbye, the door clanged shut, I found my seat and the train rolled west.

            I cried all the way to Glasgow; the sky, November gray in June, mirrored my sorrow.

            My daughter Dee Dee and I had managed to steal time from her busy schedule to talk, to laugh a lot and to argue the inconsequential. We had three weeks together, family times, good times. I wanted to go home and I wanted to stay.

            Human nature, or my nature, being what it is, good times are never enough. I want more!

            The lowering, layering, muzzy clouds climbed stair-steps to the ground, brushed the hills, dipped into the barrow pits, ditches, creeks and river, all overflowing. Tears and rain seemed the same, grieving the leaving.

            Winds, undulating and ululating, danced across the prairie, choreographing trees and grasses, cattails and curly dock into a Montana ballet.

            A red-winged blackbird perched on a diamond-willow fencepost.

            Vehicles on the parallel highway created miniature storms in their wake, storms within the storm.

            The train was full, no empty seats, no empty space. It seems we are led to believe nobody rides trains these days. Our cheerful car attendant is run ragged but never flags, never visibly grumbles.

            The main difference I noticed, with so many vital stations now unmanned, is that every inch of space is crammed, stacked, stuffed and overflowing with baggage since bags cannot be checked in or picked up from the baggage car at an unmanned station.

            Our train ran a couple hours late. Attendants shoe-horned passengers off and on, orderly but fast-as-possible. Passengers clutched parcels, suitcases and containers of all varieties, pushed before and dragged behind. Made for interesting and observable facial expressions and language choices.

            I love this train. Every mile of the route carries personal history for me. Even with heavy rainfall scooting across the window, slicing my view, the land is beautiful.

            Three Black Angus hugged a fence corner near Nashua.

            A doe hovered in a patch of wildrose between Hinsdale and Saco.

            White pelicans sailed in and out of Bowdoin.

            I cried all the way to Malta.

            Clay hills between Dodson and Savoy hold tightly to ancient secrets.

            I glimpsed my old house in Harlem, smiled out loud, and wished the now-owners contentment. I hope I left no ghosts.

            Huge bales stood sentinel, round and replete, guarding hay fields.

            Landmarks, fields and farms and gravel roads, elicit memories, ancient and more recent; people, events, past and present rumble through my head in a jumble.

            The train slowed for five miles of bad tracks just before Loma. We were now running three hours late. I wondered what “bad tracks” meant.

            I wanted to get off in Havre to stretch my legs but weather was nasty out there. I took in all of Havre I could see from my window.

            (Remember when, if you had a camera, you took pictures of others, not of yourself?)

            Leaving Havre, my spirits lifted as the sky began to lift. I made the transition from “going away” to “going toward”. I will visit my son Ben near Seattle a few days, help plan his trip to visit me in August.

            We passed a field of horned cattle and a donkey. For a moment I thought I was in Mexico.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 27, 2019

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What Was I Thinking?

            What Was I Thinking?

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            Does anybody remember Mighty Mouse? Is Mighty Mouse still alive? Evidently, I thought I’d swoop into my daughter’s life singing, “Here I am to save the day!”

            Boy, howdy, was I ever wrong! I totally ignored the part where I am in my seventies and my daughter is fifty. Once a “Mighty Mom”, always a “Mighty Mom”.

I also ignored other basic facts of her life, such a her husband, her teenaged daughter and forty-two hundred family pets.

            Expectations trip me up every time and land me smack on my face.

            I’d envisioned walking into Dee’s and Chris’s new home here on the western edge of Glendive, and like that cleaning tornado that was in the olden-day bathtub ads, turn everything to rights. A sparkling home is a happy home. Right down the drain!

I’d breeze in wearing a dress, a tiny frilled apron, heels and fashionable hair, and leave three weeks later having created a unique atmospheric blend of “Brady Bunch”, “Father Knows Best” and “Ozzie and Harriet”. Reality looked more like “Flintstones” meet “The Simpsons” with a touch of “Addams Family” for seasoning.

Yep. Expectations. Never happens.

Well, my big little girl needed me. I am a genius at arranging household items into the most logical, functional and artistic placement. Just ask me.

My daughter moved in, plunked stuff where possible and there it would stay forever unless I intervened. Just ask her.

So I planned three weeks to get this daunting job done and done right. In my overwrought imagination, I also cooked healthy meals and baked bread. Imagination plus expectation equals disappointment if not disaster.

Three weeks! What was I thinking? Three weeks is entirely too long a time to disrupt their family life, even when family loves me. And they do love me. But will they still love me when I leave?

My daughter is a family therapist with her own office. She leaves home at 8:00 and often returns home at the opposite 8:00. “Have a good day at the office, dear.” And I wave her off into the sunrise.

Apron around my middle, I set to work. The first day I swept floors and tackled a portion of the kitchen cupboards. I figured I’d do another portion of cupboards and mop floors tomorrow.

Chris came home from work, kicked off his shoes as is his habit, dropped his hardware-store purchases in the same hallway as his shoes, and grabbed the remote.

I explained what I had done, told the poor victim of my day’s disruptions what my intentions were and said, “You might have trouble finding things in the kitchen the first few days.”

Chris looked at me like I had nine heads, each one screwed on backwards.

Antoinette brought in her favorite chicken to show me and rearranged a cupboard I had just straightened, turned out the guinea pigs and gave me her lizard to hold.

Oh, did I mention that the four dogs and Whiskers, the cat, were in and out, free-run, dispensing hair, all day.

Chris cooked dinner that night, good man that he is. By bedtime I looked around. Reality set in. I am not magic. Dog hair and disorder prevailed.

I got up the next day, feeling discouraged. What was I thinking? I went to the office with Dee. I spent the day writing friends and working on poetry.  

Before panic set in at the idea of three weeks of going to the office, waiting for her clients to cancel so I could visit with my daughter, the bulb above my head flashed on. I got it.

My daughter didn’t need me to clean and make order. My way is not her way. I thought I was supposed to come to Glendive and be a personal hero. I fired myself, put away my cleaning materials and settled into a different routine.

If I want, I do dishes or bake bread. But that is not my necessity.

Instead, I am here simply to love her and her family. And they give me bushels of loving in return. The rest is not important.

Sondra Ashton’

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 20, 2019

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Living At-With-Inside the Zoo

            Living At-With-Inside the Zoo

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            After a whirlwind trip around eastern Montana last week, I’ve settled in a room with no view, but, more importantly, with private bath, at my daughter’s new home in Glendive.

            At times in our lives, circumstances dictate in unpleasant ways. Their last home was a mice-infested hovel with a black-cloud grimace.

            This home, also an older farmhouse, welcomes one with arms wide-open. It perches on the edge of Glendive with expansive field and yard surround, spacious room for family, the zoo and Dee’s two grandchildren, Harper and Kyla, who come to run and play Sunday afternoons in the back yard.

            My daughter, under the pretense that the animals are all for her younger daughter, Antoinette, has managed to acquire, accumulate and adopt the following: one horse, four dogs, three guinea pigs, one fat cat, approximately thirteen chickens (the number varies since a hen went broody), a yellow lizard, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

Yes, a yellow lizard. Dee’s husband Chris is a saint.

            The zoo. Let me describe.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and Jilly is a sweet little brown mare who has an entire grassy field in which to run, plus a three-walled shed for shelter.

Four dogs run in and out; Burley, a medium-large mix, Sweet Pea and Cutie, fifteen-pound chihuahuas are longtime family members. Add Bella, a black lab, adopted this week when her owner died.

Antoinette works hard to integrate Bella into the pack. Bella loves to fetch the ball. Burley, older, wiser, more sedate, watches Bella as if she has lost her mind. Why would anyone spend an afternoon chasing a slobbery tennis ball? Good question, Burley.

When we gather around the table to eat, all four dogs ring my chair, waiting with visible hope and drools, for me to drop them a morsel. All four dogs ignore everyone else. Why me?

The second day of my stay, Whiskers jumped onto my lap, demonstrating acceptance. She often keeps me company, lap-style or perched on the chair back behind my head. Whiskers rules the dogs with disdain.

Three guinea pigs, Oreo, Zeus and Twix. Nocturnal critters, they take up cage space (3’X5’ cages) in a quarter of the spacious front room. Oreo, the smooth haired one, is anti-social and merits his own abode. The fuzzier two-some share an even larger two-story mansion. Timothy hay tends to creep out of the wire cages onto the living room floor. The word “barn” comes to mind.

Toothless, the yellow lizard, is, uh, interesting. Quite social, he loves to be held, wants to see all the happenings. His large glass “environment” with drop lid is also in the animal corner of the front room. His best bud is Whiskers, the cat, who should know better than to keep such low company.  

My daughter Dee (she blames Antoinette), has always wanted chickens. Last year she began collecting chickens, adding one or two at a time; managed to keep them alive and warm over the winter. Alive and warm and laying, by the way, no mean feat in frigid Montana.

The chickens are all different breeds, beautiful, colorful. One hen is white but with a unique sort of top-knot. Four are of a fluffy floosie type, resembling can-can dancers from a traveling burlesque show. The one rooster, Coco, struts around the chicken yard all cocky in attitude, ruling the roost.

At last count, chickens total thirteen. One of the hens went broody so the number varies. Yesterday another egg hatched. So far, so good. Three fuzzy black peepers follow mama as if bungee corded to her wings. 

Each bit of poultry has a name. I won’t be here long enough to learn all the chicken names.

I have personal issues with that rooster. I tell him in strong language laced with lard that he would look good, crispy fried, on the Sunday table. He walks a wide berth around me.

The new dog, Bella, thinks I am hers. And Whiskers just settled into my lap.

“No, thank you, Sweetie. Let’s pet the lizard later. I’d hate to spill hot coffee on him.”

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 13, 2019

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We Made Omelet, Mixed and Magical

We Made Omelet, Mixed and Magical  

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            Bacon and eggs are common base ingredients, but we created a different kind of omelet at Char’s the other morning, a “Friend Omelet”, made of ingredients (ourselves), old friends and new.

            I had no idea whether we could pull it off. I conjured the germ of an idea shortly after I spontaneously decided to fly to Montana. My little girl needed me. She was born in ’66, you do the math, but age is meaningless to a mother. And I wanted to see her new home.

Dee’s family moved into new digs two months ago: Dee Dee, Chris, Antoinette, four dogs, a cat, three guinea pigs, innumerable and varied chickens, a yellow lizard, a horse and an assortment of unpacked boxes. Now I know why she needed her mommy.

            But I digress. When I decided to go north, I constrained myself to a strict budget. Words mean everything, pun intended: “Strict budget” sounds much more acceptable than stone broke. I would not visit all my friends this trip.  

            Dee Dee said, “When I pick you up in Billings, let’s take a quick road trip to Havre. I’ve located an old school friend I’d like to see.”

            So, I wrote my long-time good friend Jane and asked her to arrange a breakfast gathering Saturday morning. I asked her to call two Havre women who write me real letters regularly. I knew that Jane knew Lee. In a letter, Loretta had wondered if her and Lee’s husbands had worked together at one time. Dee and her friend Cathi would join us too.

            What made this breakfast rather unique is that the ingredients, we people, were all strangers in some ways. I’d never met the women who corresponded with me. Dee knew Cathi from high school but had not seen her in too many years.

            Loretta said it best. “When Jane, a stranger to me, called, I thought, this breakfast meet is way out of my comfort zone. I won’t know anyone.” But she took a deep breath and showed up despite misgivings.

            We all arrived about the same time, full of hugs and glad-to-meet-yous and so-good-to-see yous.

            Coffee appeared. The young woman who served our table was so sweet and patient. We delayed ordering because we were too busy talking, laughing. Our good food took forever to eat between questions, stories, insights, and connections.

            Here is where our story gets unique. To be good an omelet must have ingredients whose flavors blend and enhance each other, right?

            Two ingredients, Dee and her friend Cathi, whom I recognized instantly, is Lee’s daughter. Now how about that! Dee and Cathi cornered one end of the table talking as though no time had passed.

Stir in a third ingredient, Lee. Now add my friend Jane. In the mixing, I learned that my daughter’s friend, also Lee’s daughter, Cathi, had, at one time, been married to my friend Jane’s son. What a mixed omelet! Keep in mind, I had no idea they all knew each other and were family.

Now to gently fold in a generous measure of seasoning. Loretta and Lee had known one another in the past. Indeed, their husbands had worked together. They had many remember-when type stories to share.

Oops! I also must jump into this omelet pan. Turn up the heat but not too high. Blended together, with no preconceived notions, we made a great omelet.

Having lived long enough to have no shame, we hung dirty laundry on the line. Our collective stories included the good, the bad and the ugly. Every ingredient is necessary to live life with full flavor.  

We sat down as strangers, discovered connections, shared experiences and stood up as family. Magical. Bizarre and magical.

           

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 6, 2019

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Do you ever get down in the mouth?

Do you ever get down in the mouth?

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            Depression by any other name is no rose, let me tell you.

            Steve and Theresa, my friends from my long-time home in Washington, are back in their home. We had a lovely time together; I especially treasure the stories we told, peeling back layers to reveal more of ourselves.

            When friends leave me, typically I count on three days depression before I can get myself back in gear. I don’t mean deep-clinical-want-to-rip-my-heart-out-with-a-rusty-machete-and-no-anesthetic type depression. Just a low-level down in the dumps.

            Hey, they are my friends. We just had ten days of intimacy. They flew away. I’m left alone. I miss them. To make it worse, I am the only gringa on the rancho. Isolated.

            But I’m leaving on a jet plane for a couple weeks visit with my daughter and her family so I need to buck up, pull myself together.

            What to do? I consider some typical remedies. Ah, ha! Booze. I live in Jalisco, home state of Tequila. I’m serious. Look it up. But then I remember that I’ve already tried that. Didn’t work for me then and I doubt it will work for me now. So scratch that option.

            Food? I’ve said that I’ve never met a food I didn’t like. Can’t say I’m too fond of chittlins but I’ve eaten them, admittedly, in a social situation in which it would have been quite rude to turn my nose. I’m not anxious to taste eels but they might be yummy.

            Comfort food. Let me see. Chocolate. Bread in any form. Pineapple empanadas, a form of bread. As is chocolate croissant. Problem is, I already had breakfast and I’m not hungry and I need to figure out what will make me feel better right now.

            Tea! A cup of tea. Always a good thing, Tea with milk and sugar. Steaming hot. Ahhh.

            Then there is retail therapy. Unfortunately, I hate shopping. At any rate, I have no money. No problem. Shop online and slide the magic plastic. But I’m afraid that would bore me to tears and I’m already in tears so what kind of solution is that?

            I hate to bring logic into the picture but here goes. Not only do I dislike shopping but there is nothing I need. Or want, really.

            Activity is good. I have a friend who cleans closets when she is feeling down. I could deep-clean my house. But why? I’m leaving; the house will be empty. I have another friend who follows her suitcase out the door with a wet mop in hand. Me? I will clean when I return, windows and all. 

            Exercise? You are kidding, aren’t you?

            Maybe gambling? Buy a lottery ticket? I know a couple of sweet women friends who derive great pleasure from casino machines. I don’t get it. But, if there were a pot of twenty tickets and I bought nineteen, the other ticket purchaser would win. My luck.

            Comes from a misspent childhood. I’ve thought this one out. If you are going to be born, choose to be a single child or one of a large family.

Here’s why: in my family, I was “encouraged” to throw the game and let younger sister win. Why? Because she was little and whined.  If you must have a single sibling, be the younger. It pays.

In a large family, life is a free-for-all. Games are “grab what you can” and whiners are ignored.

Okay, I get it. I’m whining. I’ll take a shower and get dressed. Pajamas at noon? Not my style. I’ll play some music. Blues always make me feel happy. Or real old country and western.

I’ll roll my suitcase in from the bodega and start packing. Go sit under the jacaranda and watch butterflies, track the birds, listen to the cicadas. Sp another cup of tea.

A sure way to feel better is to talk with friends. You are “it”. Today you get to be my ears, hear my sorry story.

Tomorrow I’ll be on my way north, excited and full of anticipation and joy to be back in Montana, even for a few days.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

May 30, 2019

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Reasons, Seasons, and Forever Friends

                    Reasons, Seasons, and Forever Friends

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            Friends come in every size, color and flavor and I would not want it to be any other way.

            I’ve heard it said that some friends are for a reason. I’d agree with that. Take Benjamin, for example, the man who delivers my twenty liter jugs of drinking water. He is a delightful man. I enjoy our short chats, always like to see him. But we don’t share home visits.

            My long-gone but always with me friend, David, would say Benjamin is a business associate. And that is true.

            We have neighbors with whom we are friendly, borrow a cup of sugar, share a backyard barbeque. We are not intimate but we look out for one another. Maybe we don’t share secrets.

            My friend David enriched my life for a season. We were very good friends and through association with him, I became involved in live theatre, discovered and developed unknown talents, and enlarged my acquaintances and skills.

A bonus of friendship with David is that I also got to know and love his wife, Vidya, and though David died, both he and Vidya are forever friends. That’s the best kind.

This week Steve and Theresa from my old stomping grounds on the Olympic Penninsula are visiting. They visited last year and fell in love with this area of Mexico.

Steve and I were business colleagues for many years. Through helping one another we progressed from “reason” friends to “real” friends. Eventually they invited me to join them when their talented musician sons were playing gigs in local venues. Together, we enjoy a “family” friendship that “took”. I’ve stayed in their home many times. We don’t keep secrets.

After they returned home last year, Theresa could not shake her desire to have a place on the rancho. The only casa for sale was a shell that had sat forlorn and empty for years when the owner died. A thief entered, stripped plumbing and wiring and fixtures before anybody caught on and stopped the destruction.  

I described the house to Theresa. The bones are good but it needs a lot of work, a lot. New septic system, all new electrical, all new plumbing, for starters. But, the bones are good. I sent pictures. That sweet woman bought the house, sight unseen.

So the first question Theresa asked when they entered out little colonia the morning of their arrival was, “Where is our house?” Followed by, “I love it. It is beautiful.”

Well, it will be beautiful. Right now an open trench with septic pipes fronts the house, along with broken concrete and mounds of dirt. Work has begun. All our casitas are brick with arched windows, outlined with wrought iron. The bones are good.

We’ve spent hours in their new acquisition, painting trim, tearing out walls, buying new tile for kitchen, rearranging the bathroom, placing furniture, hanging artwork not to mention building a patio, planting trees, landscaping and installing a fountain in the new patio. All in our heads, of course. But that is where the real work begins.

Yesterday we smudged the house with sage, inviting pain and lingering shadows from the past to leave and blessed the house with sticks of copal, the local equivalent of our sweetgrass, for cleansing and blessing. 

Don’t get the idea their visit is all work and no play. One thing my friends did that I think brilliant is to stay two night at Hotel El Centenario, in town, in a room with balcony overlooking the plaza. They explored the surrounding streets to pick up a feel for the energy and workings of the town.

Like a chocolate-dipped ice cream cone, we topped off the fun with a day in beautiful Tequila, where we toured the Jose Cuervo distillery, popped into galleries and watched the reenactment of the ancient swirling dance of the pole flyers.

We explored small outlying villages, San Juanito de Escobedo to San Pedro and Santa Rosalita, ending up at El Parrel in San Marcos for dinner.  

My good friends will return in October to check progress on their new home and make further plans. When good friends become good neighbors, that is the best.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

May 23, 2019

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