The Color of Laughter
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Yesterday my computer went strange
on me, would not let me make any of my usual connections. So after trying
everything I knew (not much) I phoned my son for help. Ben was at work, so said
he’d call me to fix it when he got home. A few hours later, I thought to give
it one more futile try.
Obviously, the dang bugger heard me
make the call to Ben, quaked in its reboots and fixed itself.
My errant computer was a small
glitch in my day. Even with the importance my computer has assumed in my
foreign life, my world does not turn on whether it works or doesn’t work. That
is what I try to tell myself.
But once my service was restored, I
giggled and privately celebrated and shared my good news with friends—via
internet.
It’s been a rugged week for me. I
had one day I called in sick, so to speak. The rest of the time I felt mildly
depressed beneath gray and weepy skies.
I suppose life experiences form my
philosophy or belief system. I like stories of those who have clear moments of
epiphany. For me, I think eye openers
have been longer, drawn out processes, many of them.
One certainly occurred when, during
prolonged hospitalization from a car wreck, my doctor told me I might not live.
He wasn’t one to mince words.
He also said I’d never walk. At any rate, since I was heavily
drugged when he declared those ominous words, I didn’t believe him on either
count and went on to have fifty years of walking without aids. So these past
five years walking with a cane are no great burden.
Through all this, and more, I have come to know that I am
insignificant. And that makes me smile. It is a great freedom, I think, to be
of little account.
Because of this, and who is to argue, I find moments of pure
joy in other small and insignificant things, such as finding computer service
restored without great effort.
Or sitting on my patio watching lizards perform rites of
fertility.
Or harvesting mangoes from my own backyard tree and making
marmelada to share with my neighbors.
Or breathing deeply of the aroma of flowering ginger which I
planted in the back southwest corner of my garden, this year mature enough to
overwhelm all other scents. The white flowers are more beautiful than orchids.
And hardier.
Or when I found a real paper letter in my
mailbox in the post office above the Mercado.
Or when Lani and Ariel took me along
to El Parrel in San Marcos for lunch, good friends, excellent food, lovely
music and an introduction to natilla, beside which traditional flan pales in
comparison.
And I know how to make natilla. So do you. Easy, courtesy of
Mama Google. Use the recipe with vanilla bean and stick cinnamon.
Or when Leo brought me a stalk of
fingerling bananas when he noticed my empty fruit bowl.
Or when Josue unloaded his shirt
lumpy with Granada fruit for me to make aqua de Granada. Pomegranate by its
Mexican name.
Or when the vibrant yellow bird,
four times the size of a parakeet, landed for a moment on the edge of my patio
roof, posed, poised and took off again. It’s a new bird to me, in this land of
many yellow birds, the gorgeous vivid yellow of laughter.
Or when English tea with sugar and
milk cured my depression.
Or when I awoke this morning to a
bright blue sky with not a cloud in sight.
But if I were rich and famous, if I
were a real somebody, then I’d be telling you how important it is to have a
good investment team, a McMansion on the Pacific, a plastic surgeon on
retainer, and a private jet in my back yard.
If I were rich and famous, I’d tell
you to buy one hundred rare yellow birds.
I’m satisfied with being a dust mote
in the grand scheme. But then, what do I know?
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
August 1,
2019
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