Nothing
changed; everything different
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Jim picked me up at the airport in
Guadalajara. Once we exited the labyrinth of parking and hit the straightaway,
I requested, “Tell me all the news.”
“There is no news,” Jim
responded. “Everything is the same as
when you left.”
I’d been gone a month, so I treated
his statement with skepticism. And over the course of the trip home learned
much.
Among several small rains, two
devastating storms deluged hit our town. Trees and branches down all around.
We had driven a mere five kilometers
down the road when the sky opened. At times one could barely see the lane
markers, side view. I took the storm as a personal “welcome home”. Albeit a wet
one.
Jim is building a cabana for Bonnie
and her daughter Samantha. So I heard the story of searching for elusive
materials, the frustrations of building with language barriers, the cultural
differences, learning that what works in Missouri maybe doesn’t work in Mexico.
Jim is driven. When he undertakes a
project, it is push, push, push until done! That’s Jim’s way. He is brutal with
himself. He voiced his frustrations.
Culturally, the workers here go a steady pace, steady but not
brutal. They take a mid-afternoon break for a meal and rest, generally two
hours, then return and work until dark. They might talk and laugh, pause for a
story along the way. The job gets done
just the same.
Next Jim told me that Bonnie’s mare broke through an
old-style concrete septic tank, full of sludge. Getting her out required a
backhoe and ropes, but that was last-resort effort, after EMTs and Bomberos
(firemen) and other city officials showed up and shrugged.
Jim said it took hours to wash her down and she had open
wounds from thrashing about, struggling to get out. Amazingly, she didn’t break
any bones but she contracted tetanus. Two days later, despite heroic efforts by
a school of veterinarians, Bonnie’s mare died leaving a colt motherless. A
sadness sits over the rancho.
Next morning, Leo showed me a nest in my mango tree. A
kiskadee or flycatcher, hard to tell them apart without binoculars, built a
nest and hatched five little cheepers. Life does cycle.
The bamboos I recently planted outside my western and
southern windows to shade me from summer sun have expanded to twice their girth
in one month. I’m used to virtually living outdoors with open windows and now I
am curtained in with soft green light. It’s different. I’m getting used to it.
My golden chain tree shot up a good meter higher than my
mango. And it is plush with new leaves, a surprising shade tree. It’s always
been a scrawny trunk with a few scrawny branches. How did that happen?
Reminds me of Antoinette, now taller than me, taller than her
mother, since last I saw her.
My mango tree is so heavy with fruit that Leo had to build
supports to hold the branches. I will harvest my tree’s very first mangoes in a
couple weeks, my best guess.
This morning I checked my papaya and four lovely footballs of
fruit fell into my hands. I gave one to Josue, one to Leo, one to Ariel, and
put one in the refrigerator for myself. There is nobody else here, all have
fled north. Jim left Monday.
First time, my “five-dead-trees” are all healthy and in full
bloom. The ants have not kept them stripped, hence, “dead”. I’ve never seen so
many lizards or so few ants. There might be a correlation.
I left at the end of the dusty dry season and returned for
the rains. Every night I either sleep to the rumble-grumble of thunder or wake
to an explosion of noise, lightning and rain. Every morning the sun blesses our
world with such beauty it makes me want to cry, good tears.
Next time I complain nothing ever happens in my quiet little
life, please remind me that I can go away for a month and when I return, maybe
nothing changed but everything is different.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
July 4, 2019
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