Oblivious Me

 

Oblivious Me

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I am a marked woman. Last week I announced to my little world that I am studying Spanish, obviously a language tagged as subversive. When next I arrive in Havre, I’m likely to be met on the train by armed Border Patrol, cuffed, and dragged into the slammer.

Oh, woe is me. I followed the Havre news story (also in the international news, by the way) about the two young women apprehended for speaking Spanish in the convenience store. I know that Spanish-speaking women are dangerous. I should have thought.

Oh, man, the story of my life. “I should have thought.” Not me. I’m oblivious. I blurt out whatever is on my mind.

It’s too late now. The die is cast. I’ve crossed the Rubicon. So I’ll continue forward, see where this path leads. Might be cold baloney sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the iron bar hotel?

When I say “too late”, in the night I wake up from dreams with Spanish phrases in my head. I’m determined. I may never speak fluent Spanish but my Spanglish gets better every day.

My latest language hang-up is “me gusta” which means “I like”. This phrase is common, one I already knew. Yesterday I discovered there is “a mi me gusta” which also means “I like”. I learned this version is sometimes used for extra emphasis and sometimes “just because”.

What’s that mean? “Just because”? How am I supposed to know the difference? I’m serious. I want to know why.

And that—the need to know why—is a big determinate to my lack of language skills. I want to know why. And there is no why. Different languages developed in different times and places. There may be no why or reason or logical relationship between languages. Relax and accept. Easy to say. Relajar y aceptar.

The answer to most of my problems my whole life long: relax and accept.

Meanwhile, the sun is shining and my latest project is my “Mask Factory”.

One of the things I most like about being in Mexico is that nothing is thrown away. When an items is broken, it is either fixed or a different use if found for it. Like in olden days.

Recently I gathered a bunch of scraps from a basket in my bodega. Tore apart a couple pillow covers I no longer use. Sat with my seam ripper and dismantled a couple blouses that were faded, but fine when used for lining. Bought several meters of quarter-inch elastic.

Just like that, I had a production line set up for my one-woman mask factory. My face masks are very simple in construction, easily sewn together, washable and durable. I began making masks for myself with nary a thought for others.

“Hey, Sondrita, nice mask. Where’d you get it?”

“Ah, would you like a couple?”

That’s how it all began. Then I said to self, “Christmas is a coming soon. No tengo los regalos este ano para mis amigos.” I don’t have gifts to give but I can make masks and share the work of my hands.

I don’t consider the masks to be real Christmas gifts. After all, they are made with scraps and used materials. I’m glad to share something so useful and easy for me to make. 

My friends and I now have the best dressed faces in Etzatlan, in English, in Spanish, in Spanglish.

Sondra Ashton

Looking out my back door

December 17, 2020

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The Rain in Spain—Go Away!

 

            The Rain in Spain—Go Away!

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I’m a Sun Bunny. Sun worshipper. Sun seeker.

For the past week if or when a tiny patch of sun parts the clouds, I rush out to sit, face raised toward the bounteous warmth, contented.

Don’t for a minute think I’m “sun-bathing”. I’m basking in full winter gear, head and hands the only uncovered parts of me. This is winter, even here. It is cold. I live in a house with no heat source.

I suspect it is difficult to grow up on a Montana farm and think baring one’s slathered body to the full sun is anything other than insanity.

It is hard to believe that I seek out, search out rain during the rainy season. Of course, the days during that time also include hours of sunshine. This past summer, the rain was elusive, many days non-existent.

But Rain arrived this week, like an unwanted relative you have no choice but to take into your home and tolerate, teeth gritted.  

It is difficult for me to stay long under the shadow of doom and gloom, so I’ve turned some of these extra in-the-house hours with my little ceramic heater into accelerated study. Of Spanish.

 I’ve lived in Mexico a few years. I get by. I make myself understood in most situations. I know a lot of words. My trouble comes with putting those words together. I don’t have a quick ear. The words in my head often don’t come out my mouth with the right inflection.

In conversation, by the time I get your words translated, the moment for my reply has passed onto somewhere else and left me in the mud, or in the dust, depending on the season.

The real reason I am not fluent in Spanish is fear. This goes back to childhood when my perception was that I was expected to listen to instructions and follow flawlessly. I grew up afraid of making a stupid mistake.

Today I know that mistakes are essential, are my best teachers. I plunge into all manner of things knowing I will have failures along the way. Flubbing up is easy.

Except language. My stumbling block. I am aided and abetted in my hesitation because I am surrounded by people who speak English. They enable me to speak lazy Spanish or Spanglish.

I speak basic needs quite well. I speak excellent food. Money, fairly well. If I get really stuck, I hold out a handful of money and let the seller pick through to take what he needs. I’ve never been stiffed.

Guilt can be my best friend. So a couple months ago, Guilt spoke to me, rather harshly, enough lazing around. You are being ridiculous. You have time galore. Back to the blackboard, so to speak.

My online class, abandoned long ago, had not kicked me out, refused admittance, given me an “F” for Failure. It took me right back under wing.  

For the last couple months I’ve whizzed along, learning new words, common idioms, verb forms. Ugh. Verb forms. Pronunciation. Knowing some words may never blithely trip off my tongue.

But I’m doing it. Slowly, what stumped me begins to make sense. My ear is getting better at hearing. I translate more quickly. Some things I answer without thought. I’ve even picked up a couple swear words from the guys.  

However, the other day between rain showers, when Leo was pruning my Plumbago, I donned my mask and went out to ask him about a particular verb infinitive that had me pulling out my gray hairs.  

Remember, Leo is young enough to be my grandson. But I’m brave. I ask. It has something to do with addressing people in formal and informal manner and I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the why and how.

And Leo gives me The Look. You know, The Look. His eyes get big and round. His eyebrows raise. His lips twitch. But Leo is a kind man. He is a good teacher. Leo explains in baby steps, answers my question. Of course it is simple. Then we both laugh.

Making mistakes, not understanding, is a good thing. Knocks me down a peg or two when I get too full of myself.

The rain will stop. Won’t it? I’ll be back outside, chasing the winter sun, pulling my chair along behind me, basking with my book. Won’t I?

Meanwhile, back to studying Spanish with verve if not with verbs.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

December 10, 2020

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From Big Sky to Big Earth

 

From Big Sky to Big Earth

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Perception is all. I love the Big Sky Country. I like to picture it this way: I stand and slowly turn a whole circle. When I look downward, I see the earth. When I look outward and upward, the sky is a gigantic bowl, covering and visibly encompassing, caressing the earth.

I love this new country of mine, the Big Earth Country. That’s the wonderful thing about love. There is always room for more. Here I stand and turn a circle and all around me is the earthy world, the fields and trees and mountains in every direction. To find sky, I must tilt my head upward. Ah, yes, sky.  Here, in Jalisco, the earth is the bowl holding up the inverted teacup of sky.

Moving into December with a full moon means the nightlight is as bright as daylight in the Pacific Northwest in winter.

For days around the full moon, I see a different world. After daylight comes a short hour of almost dark. The moon towers above the trees like a giant kite, dragging behind a tail of the in-between, not dark, not full day. This shaded-light-night lasts until sun-up bursts full on.

Now that I’ve waxed poetic, let’s move on to other considerations of love. This month the full moon drops November with the leftover turkey and introduces December.

Ah, December, the month of wretched excess. December, the month of guilt.

Have you written your annual Christmas letter, mailed that stack of Christmas cards shedding glitter all over the desktop onto the rug? No? Well, me neither. In fact, by the time I remembered cards, yesterday, I realized if I mailed cards today they would get to you in February, possibly.

As for a Christmas letter, maybe I’ll write one next week to send via ghost mail.

Did you slide your magic plastic and buy the children and/or grandchildren gifts that you wanted when you were that age? Gifts you would have wanted, had they been invented? Gifts that make a stack higher than the tree.

Tis the season for giving. How often we hear that phrase. How quickly we mentally translate that to “tis the season for buying”.

I suspect this year the giving/buying season will undergo adjustments by all of us.

Enough with my Bah Humbug! I got to feeling so Christmas-y that I decorated my tree already, well before Christmas week.

Here at the rancho we traditionally gather several times for shared meals. Not this year. Plates of baked goodies make the rounds. Not this year.

For me, this is a year to reconnect with friends I’ve neglected.

People email me, “Are you still alive?” And it is a real concern.

For me, this is a lingering time of deep solitude. But it is not a time to disconnect from loved ones.

My friend Karen said it best, “I will never again take a hug for granted.”

My Christmas tree is sparse, a new lime tree I planted in my postage-stamp sized front lawn. I chose to decorate my lime so all who pass by may see it and grin.

Charlie Brown lives—and loves.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

December 3, 2020

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In my garden of earthly delights

 

            In my garden of earthly delights

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My world is circumscribed by the boundaries of the gringo part of the rancho. I walk the lanes.

This morning when I arrived at my turn-around spot out by the entrance to the highway, I stopped to marvel. I saw, heading toward Ahualulco, a man on a three-wheel motorcycle, a custom job, wearing a modified helmet to resemble something from WWI, you know, Snoopy and the Red Baron.

The bike itself was black with silver trim. The front end, like an alligator snout, and I’m not familiar with biker terms, but I’d call it a “low-rider”, with high handlebars, high enough to make the driver reach upward to steer. The rear end, the part with two wheels, was made from the back of an ancient Volkswagon Beetle.

I know it sounds corny, but I had to shout my delight.

The next time I reached the turn-around, a young couple passed riding an ordinary Italian motorcycle, going toward town. I smiled and waved. “What a crazy woman,” the driver must have thought, but he looked back and chin waved.  

Even though I am bound to Rancho Esperanza by the rampaging pandemic coronavirus, I am aware of activities in my outer community.

Every community can be identified by its odors.  Of course, smells are dependent on seasons. This morning when I awoke, I thought I smelled cane fields burning. Now, six hours later, spirals of black ash fall onto my patio.

Cane harvest-time has arrived early this year, by at least two weeks. Leo told me that a week ago he saw engineers from the processing factory in Tala walking the fields, collecting stalks to take to the laboratory to test for sugar content. Our early harvest is a result of a dry, dry year.

In town, this is the day all the bands in Etzatlan gather in the Plaza to play in honor of Our Lady. In turn, the musicians receive special blessings for making music. This year is different though. The bands march in and play, are blessed, and leave. No parades. No marching horses. No crowds of people, dancing in the street. No vendors hawking wares.

It is still warm here in this high valley but every day I drag my chair to a different spot chasing the shade. The sun seems to hug the horizon all the way from up to down, close to a twelve hour spread between light and dark. This is our winter light, low angles from now until February.

A small flock of yellow-heads, blackbirds, flew over, the first I’ve seen. Last year we saw hardly any. In former years, flocks blackened the sky with a prolonged loud whooooosh. I’m glad to see the small flock, hopefully a forerunner of more to come, flocks rejuvenated, the lost brought back into the fold.

Our gardener Leo brought me the last mandarinas and the first figs from Julie’s garden. Julie is in Minnesota, like many of us, awaiting a vaccine before travel.

My nose tells me the baked beans are ready to take out of the oven. I baked fresh bread this morning.

My son called to get directions to make sopa seca de fideo so I know he truly is recovering.

My grandson raised a 35 pound turkey. How will they shove it in the oven!

It is enough cause for Thanksgiving.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November 26, 2020

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I have nothing to say

 

            I have nothing to say

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Some weeks are like this. Nothing happens. My mind is either too restless to settle or too restful to notice.

My son Ben and his girlfriend Kristen are recovering from the Covid virus. That doesn’t mean I don’t worry. He told me only this much, “We are getting better but have no energy.” I am grateful for all your prayers and best wishes for my kids. Beyond that, I have nothing of importance to impart.

This week nothing more obnoxious than silverfish has invaded the intimate spaces of my wee casita. I can tell no stories of daring-do and danger.

It is autumn, in this, my Mexican home. The Fresno trees are shedding their clothes, getting naked for winter. What a silly backwards world.

Kiskadees and various varieties of finches and of tanagers have arrived and are building nests, competing for food and tree limbs with homebody birds which neither come nor go.

But that means nothing to you, huddled around your wood stove or shoveling drifts from your driveway or scraping ice from the windshield, gritting your teeth at my flaunting descriptions of paradisiacal delights.

I don’t blame you. Put the page down and go brew a cup of steaming coffee, a better use of your time.  

Charlotte tells me she imagines me in my “Secret Garden” and there is some truth to that. My yard is walled around and while not secret, only I am aware of hidden nooks and history. Only I notice the large-leafed climber I planted two years ago, the one which merely survived for a year and a half, is now lustily climbing the wall and soon will have spread into a gripping stronghold.

Only I know where the colorful glass hearts are hanging against the brick, entwined with tiny leafy vine I planted, again, years ago, to cover my new bare-brick wall.

Visitors ooh and aah but mainly see a sprawl of green with vivid paint-like blots of geranium and hibiscus flowers. Rightly so, for my visitors’ focus is on telling their stories. I listen.

If you are still with me, please, don’t bother. Truly, I’ve nothing to say.

I suppose I could mention my on-going supply of bucket tomatoes, more than I can eat, but I’ve already run that tired horse around the track too many times.  

Today the wind blows, not a storm wind, not a Montana wind. A mere eight or nine mph.

Today I shall be as a Fresno tree, and stand tall and full in my Secret Garden, lifting my arms for the wind to blow away the leaves, curled brown, papery dry and lifeless. 

See, I warned you. Today I have nothing to say.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November 19, 2020

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The creature from the white lagoon

 

                The creature from the white lagoon

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My son and his fiancé are both sick with the dread coronavirus. I had not heard from him so I hounded him, knowing something was wrong. Ben managed to send me a two line email letting me know they were home in bed with a nurse coming regularly.

Aside from that, I know nothing except they are too ill to be in communication with me or with anybody else. I understand all they do is sleep. Sleep is good. Washington State has good health care and I hang onto that as a life line.

It’s been at least three weeks now. And I really don’t know when Ben and Kristen began to be ill. But Ben was sick on his birthday, unable to call. To say I am worried sick is the understatement of my year. By the way, “worried sick” is not a cliché. It is a reality.

Worry is a mother’s prerogative. In the last two weeks I’ve aged another ten years. By definition I am nothing but worry contained in a wrinkled bag of skin.

To stay healthy, I’ve barricaded myself within my garden walls. Now I’ve added a wellness check to my morning routine. I understand that symptoms of the coronavirus include inability to smell and taste. So when I wake in the morning, I open my mouth and huff. So far, each morning—ewwww—I’m assured that I am still relatively healthy.

While I keep occupied with a variety of daily activities, I suppose one could say that my mind is preoccupied without let up.

Still, life dishes out a measure of excitement. I live in Mexico, a country rife with creatures. Each morning I shake out my shoes, hoping if a scorpion has crawled inside, he will fall out of my shoe before I insert my foot. When I lay out my bathmat in front of the shower, I do so carefully, aware of the wide variety of spiders. I scan the shower before turning on the water, looking for cockroaches I hope not to see.

This afternoon while reading on the patio I felt the call of nature. I sashayed into the bathroom unzipping as I went, when I let out a blood-curdling scream. (“Blood-curdling” is not a cliché; it is a reality.)

I am not given to hysterics. Paralysis in the face of danger, yes, but not hysterics.

Head to tail, there was a two-foot long beast in my biffy. Sleek and black, half body, half tail, with big grasping iguana-style feet, my own personal loch mess monster.

I ran for the phone and called Leo, whom I thought was working at a neighbor’s. “Leo, where are you?”

“I’m in town. What’s wrong?”

“There’s a dragon in my toilet.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I went back to the bathroom to make sure I was not hallucinating. Two feet long and lounging like a tourist with an umbrella drink in a resort pool.   

Back to the living room, I propped open my screen door for Leo so he would not have to touch it to enter. Even in emergency I am careful about my coronavirus safety. Back to the bathroom to stand guard. What would I do if the creeper crawled out?

Leo came. Leo saw. Leo went next door for help.

Josue was in his shop welding. Soon both men returned. Josue, masked in welding gear and wearing huge welding gloves, with a long-handled grabber in one hand, assayed the situation.

Though I wasn’t willing to put my own life at risk, I couldn’t understand why one of the guys didn’t just reach in and grab it, until they informed me that the critter had big teeth and could bite hard.   

With armored gloves, Josue plucked the dragon creature out of the pond and carried it away.

The juvenile iguana had climbed down the open (now screened) top of the vent pipe for my sinks and toilet, crawled all the way into the septic tank where, given how skinny he was, he’d been trapped a while. Eventually the monster doubled back and found the outlet into the toilet. I don’t even want to know how the guys figured out that progression.  

Dragons being an endangered species, perhaps Josue let it go. Perhaps the creature came in attracted by my morning dragon breath. Perhaps I’ll not soon enter the bathroom in the dark of night without flicking the light switch.

Remember when we carried a lantern to the outhouse to check for rattlesnakes before entering? Remember chamber pots?

Ben, my son, please get well soon. Have I got a story to tell you!

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November 12, 2020

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Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end

 

            Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end

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The Governor of Jalisco pushed the Emergency Button. Only food stores and pharmacies are open for business. The numbers for Covid infections and deaths have doubled what they were a couple weeks ago and are rising daily.

Like elsewhere, people were getting careless and complacent. Out here in the hinterlands, every day we hear of nearby deaths. Today, five in little San Marcos, just up the road. How is that possible?

I feel like Joe Btfsplk from the long gone comic strip, Li’l Abner. Not that I drag disaster in my wake but that I walk with a black cloud hovering heavily over my shoulders.

Trying to make the best of a horrific situation in which none of us are exempt, I carry on as normally as possible.

My kitchen is filled with steamy aromas of spices and vinegar. The local people don’t eat pickles so I can my own. Jars of bread-and-butter pickles with an added Mexican touch of red chilies, cool on the counter. Pop, pop, pop sounds announce successful seals.

My second bucket garden promises more lima beans, turnips, parsnips, and beets. Cabbage and peas are possible. Garlic is sprouting. In the house I’ve herbs drying, in hanging clusters, loosely in colanders and large bowls.

There is no “normal”, of course. Normal is an illusion, a dream story we tell ourselves.

Time like a river flows around us, changing continuously, bringing changes to us, to our environment. There is no making the river stand still, nor can we push it backwards. Rivers run dry and rivers flood. We cannot make the river run where we want it to run.

What can we do? We ride the river as best we can. At any rate, that is my solution.  All my worries climbed in my boat with me, I cannot deny them. Worries about my family and friends, especially those with health complications. Worries about money. Worries for my country. I’d drown those worries if I could.

Strange how with the lockdown, in the absence of ‘normal’ ever-present highway noise, the silence is loud. When we operate under ‘business as usual’, I don’t even hear the cars, background that fades into nothingness.

I finish my collage and begin scribbles of what I hope will become a picture of sorts, though it starts as a mushing together of colliding colors. Next to the table, a length of silk draped over a bench waits to tell me what it wants to become.

Outside my bedroom window the lantana bush, (planted by bats—I now have four; four lantana, not bats!) feeds two dozen robin-like thrushes. The birds are workers, harvesting berries that look similar to blackberries but certainly are not edible.  I tried. Pftuie.

My back yard has never been more beautiful as trees and flowers and bushes planted two and three and four years ago come to maturity. Even if I wanted, I could not stay away. Pruning shears in hand, I sit in my ocher-painted metal rocker and revel in the lushness.

In little ways, I fill my days. Little things I do. Little things I notice. Little things I give thanks for simply being.

History tells me there have always been times of disaster, of turmoil and upheaval on every front. Somehow, we keep going, stubborn people that we are.

There is no turning back for us, no return to former times. Life doesn’t work that way. Nor would we want it, if honest with ourselves. Every day brings changes. Some make me want to stuff my head in the sand. Some changes give me great joy. Pain. Disgust. Laughter. Fear. Anticipation. Like rocks in the river, each different, each simply there. If there be any true definition of normal, perhaps this is it.

As I sit in my rocker after pruning back the flowering ginger, finished flashing its beauty for the season, I notice a strangeness in the air, along with a foreboding of our winter. Strange in that cool air currents mingle with the warm currents, each separate, yet together.

Be safe. Be calm. Be kind with self and with one another. Peace be with you.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November 5, 2020

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Aging Exponentially

 

            Aging Exponentially 

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A couple weeks ago I wrote Kathy, “I have aged ten years since I had surgery in January.” Today Kathy wrote me, “I’ve aged twenty years since this coronavirus pandemic.” Since Kathy is close to ten years younger, that makes us about even.

Fears, worries, lack of solutions, illnesses, deaths, feelings of isolation and helplessness—all take their toll, on our bodies, minds and spirits.

It was March before most of us realized the dangers which surround us. March when we began to hunker down and discover the benefits of solitude. Here it is the end of October and it looks like we are in for the long haul. No wonder visible aging accelerates day by day.

It helps neither my peace of mind nor the image I see in my mirror that my baby, my youngest, my son, had his forty-third birthday this week. I just felt forty-three more wrinkles latch onto my face.

Meanwhile, over at my little dining table, surrounded with children’s art supplies, I make a wind-back-the-clock discovery. I have two projects going, one a collage and the other a . . . uh . . . a creation, sorta, using crayons and water colors.

One thing that is liberating about using simple crayons and scrap paper is that I’m not wasting expensive oils and canvases in practice sessions destined for the trash can.

A more important liberation—no rules. I don’t have to color in the lines and if a fish appears in the treetops, who is to tell me it is wrong! After all, if the fish wants to be in the tree, who am I to tell it, “Shoo, go away.”

Last wintertime when I was bed-bound, another friend gave me a coloring book for adults and a set of colored pencils. I thumbed through the elaborate designs. Some deep instinct held me back. I couldn’t do it.

Sure, the pages were pretty and required a good sense of color combinations but also required one to stay within pre-set lines. I gave the book and pencils back, with awkward thanks.

As a meditative practice, I know the coloring book has value. It’s simply not mine, not for now.

When I am coloring with a grandchild, I might color a hippopotamus purple and my small companion thinks nothing of it. And if I add wings and boots to the hippo, we both giggle with glee.

Grandchildren are long ago and far away though I have three little great-grandchildren who would more than suffice if only visiting was safe. So I content myself with playing with my own little girl, an inside job. 

I dabble at my ‘art’. It’s not a job. There is no deadline. The table stays littered with scissors, paper scraps, crayons. Nobody is coming to dinner.

My snips and scribbles gave me an ‘ah ha’ moment through a buried memory. Back in Mrs. Brown’s first grade class I reigned the undisputed best with scissors, paste and crayons. While coloring a picture for a contest, the sky was blue, the grass green, tree trunks brown, none of my colors dared wriggle outside the lines.

I don’t recall every detail in the picture except a seemingly vast expanse of grass, which I filled in with horizontal care. Until the final three square inches, which I made strongly vertical.

I remember Mrs. Brown’s expression of horror, “Why did you do that?”

What could I have answered? I remained mute. Adults ask the vilest of unanswerable questions to six-year old children.

If I could time travel I would fill the sky with fishes, and plant a purple hippo with red mud boots and a flowered straw hat in that final plot of green grass. Just for fun.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

October 29, 2020

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A shift in perspective

 

A shift in perspective

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This morning Leo brought me a box of twenty-four jumbo Crayola Crayones and a pad with a dozen dry cakes of water colors. Along with the requisite brush. Just like we used back in first grade. Oh, also a tube of school glue. Little girl stuff.

Things change. When I was six, our water paints came in a tin.

The crayones smell similar but I know from coloring with my grandchildren that some essential ingredient is missing because the colors are not as vibrant as they used to be and the crayons do not slide across the paper with the same ease.

And we used jars of white paste that the boys licked off their fingers. Scissors? Check. String? Check. Plus a book with thick glossy pages I am willing to destroy and donate to the cause.

Funny you should ask. Yes, I do have a project in mind. I’ve been ‘guilted’ back into a stab at the visual arts. Tongue in cheek, I thank you, Nancie for asking why I’m not painting and thank you, Pam, for sending me Carolyn’s newsletter. Grrr. Ouch. Bit my tongue.

First, let me rewind time and tell you a little story from long ago. I had survived a rough and rocky patch of life, not unscathed. When I emerged, I could not tell you who I had become, what I wanted, what I liked, what I believed. I could only tell you what I thought you wanted to hear. I had erased the woman I was, with help, but that is beside the point.

I’ve no idea how the solution came to me. Sometimes we receive gifts from an Unknown Source. I thought back to when I was eight years old. I took a look at how that little girl spent her time. I saw what clothes she liked to wear, watched her with her friends.

Taking clues from that girl at eight, ten, and twelve, remembering how I felt then, I rebuilt my life. Not all at once. It is a process, still on-going in fits and starts. Lifetime warranty.

I made simple changes. Dressed for comfort rather than to impress. Quit trying to make my straight hair curl. Took more walks along rivers and in the woods. Found new friends.  That kind of thing. Little girl stuff.

Fast forward to this summer. When I moved to Mexico, I brought along art supplies. I pictured me painting in my retirement. The artist supplies never came out of retirement. Until one day this summer I dragged the boxes out of my bodega, set up my easel on the patio, cleaned my brushes and created a space in which to dabble.

To say my first effort was a travesty is a kindness. It was so bad that I threw the canvas in the trash, re-boxed my supplies, and stowed everything away in the bodega. I gave up.

This reaction isn’t like me. I’m a great believer in making mistakes, doing a job poorly, learn, make a new plan and go at it again. Something about the experience felt vaguely familiar, in an icky way.

Gifts are strange and sneaky things, they are. Some arrive, no extra charge, whether we want them or not.

 Even guilt can be a gift. My guilt came in the back door, niggling doubts about my raft of reasons for throwing my canvas in the trash and quitting. That ‘essential tremor’, a misnomer if I’ve ever heard one, had flared up. True. I had sewing projects I wanted to finish and one led to another. Also true. I’m not good enough so why bother. True but what does that have to do with anything? I am really not interested in painting right now, maybe later. Right? That excuse didn’t convince me either.

My rationalizations all held a bit of truth and a measure of dishonesty. I’ve had the tremor for years and it doesn’t stop me from threading needles. I’ll always have sewing projects, none on a timeline. This summer I threw away two that didn’t work and each time, cut out the next length of fabric and kept going. ‘Good’ has nothing to do with enjoyment. And “I don’t want to paint” sounds like a toddler’s tantrum.

Hence, back to the crayons and children’s art supplies, to do something that does not have to be ‘good’, does not have to meet any criteria of excellence. Little girl stuff.

Now and then I misplace my sense of humor. I get full of myself, my ideas, judgements, opinions and desires. My problems and solutions, big or little, in the end, don’t matter.

I always fall into a trap when I take myself seriously instead of being content to take life as it comes, scribbles and all.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

October 22, 2020

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Day by Day by Grateful Day

 

Day by Day by Grateful Day

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On Canadian Thanksgiving Day, Kathy wrote with questions about our US Senate and House of Representatives. Basic ‘how does that work?’ questions.

I’d been in the kitchen preparing a more-or-less traditional Thanksgiving Dinner in sympathy with and support of our northern neighbor’s celebration. In the past many years, I have managed to celebrate two annual Thanksgiving Days, with friends in Vancouver, in Victoria and in northeastern reaches of Saskatchewan.

While chopping ingredients for stuffing is more fun, I took time out of food prep for a short class in Civics 101. At the end of Kathy’s questions, she wrote, “We do not understand how your government works.” At the end of my 101 basic lesson, I wrote, “Neither do we, Kathy. Neither do we.”

Back in the kitchen I laid three chunks of chicken atop a bed of savory stuffing, flanked them with carrots, a small sweet potato, split, and topped the chicken with slices of apple, all in one baking dish. I’m cooking a meal for one person, remember. I slid the clay casuela into the oven to slowly bake the feast, a grand meal plus a couple days of leftovers.  

Kath went on to say that at their own Thanksgiving meal, which they had eaten a day early, they spoke much about their father, whom she described as having one of “the rudest and most inappropriate flapping mouths on the planet. Why did we talk about him?”

That’s what we do at Thanksgiving, isn’t it? We remember. The good. And the cringe-worthy.

My worst Thanksgiving memory was a huge dinner with my step-mother’s family; my daughter then a two-year-toddler. The only person who didn’t shun me that day was my Dad and my gay step-brother.

My Dad took me aside to tell me my tree had fallen. I walked into the woods along the Milk River to show my daughter ‘my tree’, an aged cottonwood, whose branches had sheltered me through many teen-age storms of angst. She’d finally toppled over while reaching her branches ever closer toward the water.

My favorite Thanksgiving Day was any Thanksgiving with family and friends following that one day of disappointment. My daughter-in-law once told me she used to hold her breath waiting for me to announce the time to share our thoughts of gratitude, a family tradition I had instituted, a tradition which elicited many groans but good stories. She felt shy about such open and sometimes mushy statements. Well, Shea, neither did I grow up with a tradition of thankfulness.

Meal prep and memories were interrupted when Leo heaved two bags of produce onto my patio table. Leo shops for me. I give him my grocery list and cloth bags and wait to see what wondrous provisions he brings. Today Leo returned with the loveliest little aubergine and half a papaya as well as everything else on my list.

I miss shopping for myself. Our agreement is that if an item I listed doesn’t look good that day, Leo skips it. When he sees something wonderful that isn’t listed, he brings it to me.

With no impulse buys, seldom do I end up with more than I can use simply because the oranges smelled so good or the squashes tripped me up on my way out the door. If I forget something I want, well, that item tops off the next list.

Today I feel rich. My refrigerator is full of vegetables. Bowls on my island counter overflow with fruit. Smells of the chicken and dressing waft from oven to my nose, taunting me that it soon will be ready to eat.

Eager to share a couple of winter gardening ideas with Leo, I headed out to the back patio to corner him where he held an open hose over the patch of kalanchoe. A dragonfly, pure Crayola purple, swooped back and forth through the stream of water, for a drink, for a bath. I have never ever, ever, ever seen a purple, alive, vital, purple, dragonfly. What a fine gift.

Dinner met my expectations. I probably gained forty-‘leven kilos. I forgot to make dessert. But all is not lost. Ice cream was the last item on my grocery list.

Next month, when Turkey Day rolls around, I think I’ll have a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

October 15, 2020\

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Oh, yes, I’m the great offender

 

Oh, yes, I’m the great offender

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“My need is such I offend too much. I’m lonely but no one can tell.” Ah, they were a great group, back in my time, The Platters. “Pretender” is the real word of the song, not “offender”.

“Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal” so rather than pretend I took a deep breath knowing I was setting out to offend a friend.

I stuck my foot in the sludge, big time. I have strict self-rules to protect myself from the Covid virus. Since I live on a walled property with hardly anybody around, and never go to town, it has been relatively easy for me to stay safe, a recluse in my casa.

When a few weeks ago Cousin Nancie and Pat flew in from Washington, I explained we could visit after they’d put themselves in a two week quarantine. Any travel expands risks, none more so than air travel.

And they did—quarantine—from me. Which is what I asked, right.

But not from any other person or place. During those two weeks they played cards and traipsed the walking path in town, shoulder to shoulder with friends, shopped, made trips to the City. Went about on the ranch unmasked.

Nancie has a large house and lovely garden area. To my thinking, she would have no problem staying content in her area a mere two weeks. Pat had maintenance chores to attend. Easy-peasy.

I lay in bed, sleepless, devising imaginary scripts of what I needed to say. Part of my quandary, I realize, is that I cannot, I wish not, to control anybody else’s behavior. So what do I do? What can I do?

After agonizing for days, I wrote and said, Oh, my Dear Cousin, You did not quarantine. In quarantine, one stays in the house, no guests, no visiting neighbors, no trips out and about. I feel awful, but I am the only person who can look after my own health. We cannot visit under these circumstances.

Continuing, I explained my thoughts about our ‘bubbles’.  My bubble is small, consisting of myself.

Each person who enters my bubble brings along his or her own bubble. Until this whole virus thing is contained, I need to be, I am, overly cautious, allowing few bubbles to intersect with mine.

I have regular contact only with Leo. Leo’s bubble is large, containing all who are on the ranch, his family and friends.

He and I are extra careful about keeping a distance, washing hands, not touching same surfaces, sanitizing. I even have my own dedicated gate (Don’t touch my gate!) and pruning shears! My home is sacrosanct. I am the only person in and out my door. Don’t touch my door!

I said all this to Nancie, at length and gently. I hoped my words were heard as gently as they were meant.  

Days passed with no reply. My heart felt broken. I was scared I’d lost my cousin whom I love. Finally, she wrote that she was not offended, only saddened.

I’m sad too. “I’m wearing my heart like a crown, pretending that you’re still around.”

Next, I had the opportunity to offend Lani. She jaunted (Is that a verb?) over with a gift of garlic bulb in hand. And I, cringing mightily, had to say, please, don’t visit until two weeks are up. Her husband had just returned from a trip to Progresso on the Gulf Coast.

Lani rolls her eyes at how rigid I’ve become about isolating, about wearing a mask when talking with others, about keeping safe. I’ve told her my rules. She accepts graciously. We laugh about our differences.

Several days later, re-extended quarantine days, I sanitized and arranged at adequate distance, chairs on my patio, the open air part. With masks in place, Nancie and neighbor Janet and I visited. Nancie admitted she had gotten complacent, easy to do in this protected place, and had slid into denial about her precautions.

That made Nancie my hero. It is a gutsy, unusual, woman who can reassess her actions and make changes the way she did.

To my great relief and joy, our friendship survived the dent, and was not irrevocably shattered.

It’s not just about keeping myself safe, selfish though I am. I don’t know how I could live with myself if, because of my carelessness, you or your friend were infected with the coronavirus, and carried after effects for life, or died.

I will continue to allow not more than two other bubbles to intersect with mine at a time, out in the open air. I’ll wear a mask, sanitize everything I touch and wash my hands until raw if need be.  

“Adrift in a world of my own, I play the game but to my real shame, you’ve left me to dream all alone. Too real is this feeling of make believe, too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal. Oh, yes, I’m the great offender.”

In the fall, keep it small. Be kind, be calm, be safe.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

October 8, 2020

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Double Bubble Toil and Trouble

 

                        Double Bubble Toil and Trouble

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In these perilous times we must make our own fun. In the interests of pleasure and economy, aided by an unusual (to me) scientific bent, I set out to boil up some chemical experiments.

A huge tree with giant orange flowers lifts arms to the sky just outside my northern wall, an African tulip tree, common in Jalisco. I gathered a bowl of fallen flowers, dumped them into a large pot of boiling water.

What I hope for is a natural dye, a color in light shade of brown, to dye a pair of white cotton pants. I’ve tried the powdered dye available in farmacias in town to mottled results. 

If I want brown pants, why not buy brown pants, you might ask. I would if I could find loose brown cotton pants in Etzatlan like the white pants I buy at the Mercado in Mazatlan. The pants, in a way reminiscent of the Model T Fords, are available in Black—or White.

In my little country town, most women wear modern synthetic clothing, not touristy cotton beach wear. Synthetic fabrics make my skin crawl. And in our mild climate, I can wear these cropped cotton pants year round. When in Mazatlan, I stock up on white cotton pants and then figure out how to give them a squidge of color.

What did pioneer women use to dye their cloth? Leaves and seeds and twigs and nuts, right? Surely they must have experimented. That is what I am doing, experimenting. Science. Sort of.

One of the unknowns in this experiment is whether the fumes from boiling the flowers might be poisonous. Cautiously, I take a chance.

 Actually, so far, the mess burbling atop the stove smells rather inviting. I’ll cheerfully nosh on pansies, nasturtiums and squash blossoms. However, I’m not willing to eat this flower until I see somebody else eat it. And survive.

This is not my first go-a-round with natural dyes. It takes a lot of tea to knock the edge off white. From experience, I prefer coffee for dye and find instant coffee easier to work with by far. Take my word for it.

After a few months of line-drying in the sub-tropical sun, my pants have sun-bleached back to original white glare and need a renewing dip.

I simmered the flowers a couple hours, cooled and strained off the liquid. Threw away the brown sludge flower goop and poured the dyed water back into the pot. Added one pair of pants and brought it back to a boil. Put a plate on top of the pants to hold them underwater. After the water cooled again, I rinsed the pants in vinegar and salt water. Hung them up to dry.

Why couldn’t high school science have been this experiential and this much fun? Grant you, I cannot explain the chemical transformations which just took place. In my day we memorized the periodic table of elements. All I recall is NaCl. But isn’t that two elements? Which means I don’t remember a thing. Or retained very little.  

1.      African tree tulip flowers: observation--results similar to using a box of tea bags and cheaper.

In similar fashion I boiled the thick hard brown seed pods of the jacaranda tree. Amazingly these gave off the aroma of asparagus mingled with beets.

2.      Jacaranda seed pods: observation--results similar to a large jar of instant coffee and cheaper.

3.      Eucalyptus bark: Ah, earthy, scent reminiscent of mushrooms, hint of floral mystery with a delightfully sharp edge. The resultant color is a ruddy beige. You might drink it at your peril. I took the pledge. Just now.

For color depth and richness, the seed pods and bark win out over the tree tulip flowers. But this is only the beginning. Who knows what mysterious results my cooking pot might conjure before I’m done.

I wish I could teach history again. Every class would be experiential-experimental-interactive. I lay awake two nights thinking how, ways and means, to conduct my classes like a scientific historian. Regret is futile, yes, and please allow me to regret. Why cannot wisdom be a gift of youth?

I’m ready to start round two of this newfangled science stuff. One experiment leads to questions begging for answers. What if I boiled the seed pods longer than two hours? Would the resultant liquid be darker? What if I let the cloth soak longer? What would be the difference in using cotton, linen or wool? Ah, the wonder of it all.

I’m wearing my conical tall black hat, am half hidden in the roiling steam, muttering mysterious incantations with occasional gleeful cackles. Let the good times roll!

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

October 1, 2020

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The “Real” meaning of life and other silliness

 

The “Real” meaning of life and other silliness

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When I sit at a blank page with no idea what I want to write, I go through who, what, when, where and how of the past several days to see what might pop up and out.

My life is simple. I read a lot. A lot. I read the phrase, “explains the real meaning of life”, in a book blurb. Blurbs operate as the worm on the end of the line that is meant to hook me into choosing to read that book.

“Real meaning?” I kid you not. Is there other meaning of life? Several meanings? Isn’t life simply life? Of course, I’d not choose that book, just on the basis of the blurb alone. But I laughed. It is funny.

A week later, still giggling over the phrase. I spread it out, applied it to include the “real” meaning of such disparate things as socks, wealth, peaches, truth, compassion, and other “reals”.

Take socks. When I wear athletic shoes, I want socks. Can’t stand sweaty feet. Athletic socks, short and tight. Girl socks. Stretch out to here but fit my feet like Chinese bindings.

When Dr. Cruz Armenta X-Rayed my body in preparation for surgery last winter, he tsked, tsked, and said, “You have arthritis in every joint of your body. Look here and here and here.” Until that moment I had no arthritis. Now arthritis plagues me, especially my feet, with tight socks.

Leo went to Costco Saturday in the Big City. I asked him to get me real socks, boy socks, socks that would let my toes stretch out. See, the “real” meaning of socks.

I gathered all my worn girl socks to throw in the basura. Leo asked, “May I take those to Julio’s mom. She is real poor. Real poor.” His actual words. Of course, I handed them over. I pass on my discards when they don’t fit well or were a poor buying choice. I would never have thought anyone else might want my old socks.

Peaches? For several years every peach I’ve bit into has been woody, tasteless, no juice. Finally “real” peaches showed up at the Mercado. Delicate, bursting flavor, juice to run down my chin. I bought a bounty.  Sliced a bunch into a pie, oh, my, a “real” peach pie. My favorite, uh, along with rhubarb. But rhubarb doesn’t get imported to Mexico. Not that I’ve ever seen.

Friday night a situation was staged that had an impact on me. I was angry. I need not qualify angry with any adjective. Because another person is involved, I won’t reveal detail. I could have stomped over and demanded justice. Or recompense. Or revenge. I was that angry. I chose, because I’ve learned the hard way, to wait three days, to let reaction cool down to action, appropriate, if necessary.

I simmered down, decided to let the dispassionate universe (slowly ticks that clock) take care of the situation. The other person is, with a soul sickness, mowing down any who get in the way. Confrontation would of necessity be painful, most likely painful only to me.

I am a notorious chicken. I’d like to say I’m inspired by Gandhi. Or did I just bury my head in the sand? I don’t have an answer. This seems right to me today. What is truth? What is cowardice? What is compassion?

It is possible the “real” meaning of life is different for each of us.

Perhaps, for you, life means high excitement, bungee jumping, cliff diving, conquering Annapurna.

Life to me seems to be an ever-changing book of many chapters. My chapter today is pretty simple. My floor needed to be swept. I swept my floor. I hung a load of laundry on the clothes line. I fed myself a bowl of veggie/fish chowder. And a slice of peach pie.

Each of these simple tasks I did with a small sense of satisfaction.

Clouds are darkening the sky.  I’d better bring in my laundry, surely dry already in this hot sunshine. I’ll probably grab a book and sit on the patio, read, look up now and then to watch butterflies. The huge white ones I call “bedsheets” have returned.

I’ll probably never figure out the “real” meaning of life. If you do, please let me know. Meanwhile, I live a simple, satisfactory life.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

September 24, 2020

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Why I’m not a real writer

 

            Why I’m not a real writer

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 Several years ago I attended a prestigious writers’ conference in Seattle. It was time. I was committed. I paid a bundle.

The conference offered a chance to mingle with real writers, to talk with agents and editors, to attend numerous workshops; an immersion in the literary world.

Already I knew I was not a real writer. I did not set a schedule to write daily, come fire or flood or dark of night. When my babies were babies I did not lock myself in the bathroom with my portable typewriter at 3:00 in the morning to write undisturbed by night terrors or pounding of tiny fists by little creatures who seemed to think the best time for intimate conversation was when mommy perched on the throne. Real writers do such things.

I wrapped myself in the fantasy that I was ready, ready to commit hours of each day, sitting at my computer, composing fiction peopled with characters I already glimpsed and loved. (By then my babies were independent people.)

Oh, I wrote poems. See how far that will get you in the world of real writers. But I had ideas, notions, for short stories, perhaps even a novel or two. So I sailed across the waters of Puget Sound to the conference rooms of an imposing high-rise hotel to rub shoulders with my kind of nobility. Real writers.

How often have you heard somebody exclaim, “I should have been born a hundred years ago.” All my life I’d wanted only one thing, to write fiction. However, all my same life I made decisions which took me different directions.

Of course, olden-days are a fantasy too. Earlier times meant submitting manuscripts to enough publishers until finally an assistant set one of my manuscripts on an editor’s desk with, “Take a look at this. It’s good.”

The conference soon disabused me of that dream. Times they were a changing. Book publishing as historically known soon would be a thing of the past, taking place alongside other dinosaurs. E books had arrived. Self-publishing an option chosen by many. By most?

I attended workshop after workshop after workshop. I talked with agents. I talked with editors. At the end of the conference I rode the Washington State Ferry back home, settling my mind into acceptance.

A real writer in our brave new world must also be one’s own publicist, promoter, designer, formatter, stylist, typist, copywriter attorney and financier.

Writing that novel can easily take second place to the business of getting that book out in front of enough eyeballs and page turners to enable one to take time off to write a second novel while juggling the on-going financial and promotional aspects of keeping that first book moving up, up, ever up in sales. Made me breathless.

If one has buckets of money, one can hand all the business aspects over to those who know what they are doing. If one is a pauper, it still costs buckets of money to do what one doesn’t know and to do that poorly.

Comes down to choice. On my ferry ride home from that Seattle conference, I made a wise choice for my own sanity. I am not a real writer. I simply write.

I write when my muse whispers in my ear. I write poetry. I write because I must. I just wrote this poem. And if you see any irony between my piece on cognitive dissonance, that mental pretzel we create when our actions and words don’t line up with how we like to think of ourselves, and what I wrote above, so do I. So do I.

Cognitive Dissonance

Doesn’t matter what side

Of any fence you find yourself

Either side is chaos.

Either side is convinced

Their view is righteous, ethical.

Reasonable, logical, the One.

Think about it.

Take away the fence.

You have a field,

An entire field

In which to play.

 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

September 17, 2020

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Topsy and Turvy

 

                Topsy and Turvy

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Last week Crin wrote that she saw two full moons. I shrugged. That fits. The earth is flat, thank you, Pam. And the sun gallops around the earth at an unprecedented rate. The world and all its people have gone topsy turvy.  Karen in England says, “What a bunch of miserable.”  

Restless, irritable and discontent. I rarely have these kind of days. Tomorrow will be different. Today is sniffles and sneezes and low-level weariness. A mild summer cold.  And sadness. All will be different tomorrow. I think that is a prayer.

Thus September ushers in a change of season. Shade and sun change places. Fires, floods, winds, snows, plagues and people rage. Topsy turvy.

This week was to be our class reunion, a gathering we HHS Class of ’63 look forward to all year long. And for me, reunion meant my annual trip to the States. We cancelled months ago, of course. But the dates are marked on my desk calendar, staring me in the face with empty.

All will be different tomorrow. Perhaps we’ll see a full moon every night. Perhaps we’ll plunge off the edge of the world. Already the sun whirling around us at the wrong angle has chopped one third off September’s days.

Now that I’ve established a pseudo-scientific basis for life, let me tell you about the leaf mold. Overnight. My squash, second planting, coming along beautifully one day, the following morning, white with mold.

In a panic I contacted Master Gardener Karen in Floweree. Soapy water and vinegar. I cut off the most affected leaves, watched spores float everywhere, and drenched the remainder. Next morning they were bright and beautiful. But mold covered the itty-bitty cabbage and Brussels sprouts as if each leaf wore gloves. Sprayed everything again. Thank you, Karen, problem gone away.

That made me feel so good I dug all the potatoes from my potato bucket. I harvested enough to feed myself at least half a dozen meals. In fact, I felt so good I simmered a chowder in which all ingredients, all but the sea bass and cream came from my garden.

Hmmm. I wonder if one can grow sea bass in a bucket. In a really, really big bucket?

Several times a day I walk around my casita just to watch plants grow. It calms my mind and spirit. Already I see new potato promise. And peas, which failed me the first planting. Timing? And peppers—third time a charm?

Most days I feel contented, surrounded by grace; I cannot contain myself. Is something wrong with me, that I am satisfied being alone, sitting under my tree, watching clouds and birds while that pesky squirrel cha-cha-chas between my feet?

And why not. Why not feel like I am the center of the universe, just for a few moments, and watch that puffy cloud amble across the sky just for me.

However, days like today, when I feel low, I want touch. I miss skin. A hand shake, a shoulder bump, any touch from another that says I see you, I know you are here. I’ve not known touch from another human since March.

No, I lie. One day David from Vivero Centro came to deliver a new lime tree and bounded across the yard with a big smile and outstretched hand. I know I stared at his hand with horror for a microsecond, reminded myself I cannot be rude, and let him take my hand. It felt so good. As soon as he drove away, I scrubbed soapily, soapily. With a smile.

Enough! Enough whining. Enough whinging! Enough self-indulgence. It is a new day. The earth is once again roundish, revolves around the sun even if I want yesterday’s angle. The full moon is come and gone, only once. Science is restored. The world and all its people are still topsy turvy. Well, that’s just the way we are. 

Here comes Princess for her afternoon petting. That dog patters over with a smile. She doesn’t jump on me or beg. She comes to say, hello, here I am, pet me, and then she leaves, home to Stephany. Every day.

If you think life isn’t full of love, let me assure you. I have carrots growing in a palm pot. I don’t even own carrot seed. I have floral sweet peas in the squash bucket. Didn’t plant those either. Something yet to be determined has emerged in the asparagus fern pot. And a funny-looking orange flower is coming up throughout the yard. All planted by birds. If that isn’t love, what is!

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

September 10, 2020

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