Life in the slow lane

Life in the slow lane  

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Life is such a mixed bag of tricks, isn’t it? In the morning we slide out of bed, make coffee, check the obits to see if we made headlines, put our two hands (some of us are greedy) in the bag and pull out the tricks of the day. Such a mix.

Michelle from Oconahua up the road wrote, “Ana’s Mom was hilarious. Always cracking people up in town. She was quite the outspoken young person, the youngest and last of eighteen. She was the favorite of her father. He was a strict and honest man. He had the first store in town and we have stories that we will share about him one day.

“Monica is now laid to rest with her husband. Many people came to the funeral and people sent the loveliest flower arrangements.

“It’s always a bit upsetting to see a dead person in their casket. But I prefer to remember her funny (and blue) joking along with her sitting in the garden with hummingbirds buzzing around.”

I heard my cowbell jangling out at my gate, poked my head out the door. A masked man in an unmarked delivery van held a box. Grabbed my own mask and went out to sign the invoice slip and take possession of a package from my daughter that arrived in slightly over two weeks, a whole week before estimated time of arrival, a possible world record from Montana, perhaps a miracle.

These days even time seems to mosey along. Some of us, we like it. Others fuss and fume.

Next thing, Leo arrived with my grocery order and two pieces of mail from my local PO box, posted from Montana on the 17^th and 20^th of April. Go figure. Two months.

Everyday mundane stuff, isn’t it. Nothing earth shattering, just life as we live it. It’s the mundane stuff that keeps me sane. For me, it’s where I need to keep my focus.

There is beauty in the sadness of death, wonder in a box with my new keyboard and lap blanket and jigsaw puzzles, delight in snail mail, more so for the time it took.

That vulture gliding overhead against the backdrop of cumulus clouds atop the mountains is every bit as beautiful as an eagle in flight. Is an eagle beautiful because of the grandeur we invest in it? If one really looks, the eagle is ugly as a vulture.

As is the iguana on top of my brick wall, ugly, that is. I’ve made my peace with iguanas, come to terms of tolerance. There is no other option. Iguanas will eat my best flowers and most tender sprouts of lettuce. They aren’t dumb. They ignore the oleander, deadly poison.

Iguana possibly looks at me with disdain and thinks, “Human. Ugly. Not edible.”

My cousin Nancie, whom I dearly love, wrote that she cancelled her three week trip next month. I wrote back with genuine relief, “I’m so glad you are not coming. It’s too dangerous. You’d have to self-quarantine two weeks. I’d go nowhere with you. We could only visit with distance on the patio after your quarantine. This situation is not forever.” And I hope she understands.

Now that rains are here for the season, every afternoon the sky talks up a storm. Last night was a seven-towel storm. When wind drives rain horizontal, I lay towels to sop up water which seeps through the bottom of window panes and beneath the doorway. Booms so loud, with such impact, I had to scrape myself off the ceiling twice. I love it.

Speaking of love, and I am speaking of love, aren’t I? Another friend wrote that she is fed up with reckless prognostications, outrageous opinions and useless speculations. Me too. I understand.

I walk outside, touch my corn, silking out in flower pots, my mango tree, caress living plants, smile at my hibiscus, to keep me grounded.

I know, truly know, very little. But this one thing I do know. It is easier to love than to hate. And if you don’t believe me, come talk with my iguanas.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 25, 2020

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Never a dullish moment

            Never a dullish moment      

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In quiet desperation, this morning I joined the ranks of those who cut their own hair. Using nail scissors. I do not recommend it.

If anyone should ask, I’ll say my favorite hairdresser trimmed it—she’s blind and used a machete.

Wind sifts a daily cup of dust through the screens into my casita during these dry days. I scan the sky for clouds, an exercise in futility, while grabbing the mop for the frequent cleanup. I vigorously shake the mop before I take it inside the house. Mop shaking is also known as Scorpion Patrol. Today’s wildlife, a tiny black lizard. One of thousands scittering around my patio.

Sugar cane farmers frantically harvest the late ripening crop. I sympathize. They pile high, overload, double-trailer trucks to carry the cane to the factory in Tala. They want the dry days to continue.

I want rain. Every day, the sky looms, a blue bowl upside down. Though a rousing storm the other night had me, in an uncontrollable startle reflex, hiding my head under covers. No rain. 

Ana’s mom, almost ninety, not well and barely eating, said, it will rain the 14^th. Sure enough, in the afternoon, clouds gathered like a flash mob and by 5:00, rain pelted down. Ahh, beginning.

This week, in honor of an Oregonian friend going through hard times, I immersed myself in the old-time and new-time music of Linda Ronstadt. Her golden voice sooths my soul.

I hurt my back. It is futile to figure out how. I excused myself from morning exercises for two days, a slippery slope, I know all too well. Today, just for today, I forced myself back at it. I give myself permission to skip tomorrow, should I still be breathing. Tomorrow always turns into today, that’s the trickery.

Every morning my gardener Leo comes to my patio to check on me, “Senora Ashton, are you still alive?” I grin. It’s a comfort. Today he brought me the sweetest pineapple I’ve ever tasted, picked ripe from a field outside Puerto Vallarta.

Friends, Kathy and Richard, are waiting out the pandemic in sister, Crin’s, Victorian house in, where else, Victoria. They live in a couple rooms with kitchen privileges, a shelf in the fridge, a portion of cupboard. They use the backyard at different times. Living separately together.

Kathy wondered, “Is this what it is like living in a nursing home? I’m not ready.” She pines for her own space, her own dishes and routine in her home around the corner and across the lane from me.

My friend Carol writes from Duluth that John is staying with her, helping her. They’ve been together for years but each with their own house, living together only when in Etzatlan. She said, “It’s nice to have a man in the house to fix things, help with gardening. He cooks meals and brings me morning coffee while I’m still in bed.”

However, she said, her nose is often out of joint. She is territorial. Dislikes when he rearranges her possessions.

Julie, who married Francisco in September concurred; said they’d found layers of things they’d never faced before marriage. Humor helps.

Their words swung me back to January when I needed full time nursing. My home was invaded by friends the first week and then my son lived here three more weeks. I was helpless. Moody. 

Frustrated. Nothing was in its “right” place. Quickly realized it didn’t matter and accepted it.

Julie and Carol are right. It was especially lovely having Ben bring me coffee in bed and cook my meals, sweep my floor. Full time? I cannot imagine—I’ve been alone too many years, though at times I yearn for that elusive connectedness.

I comfort myself with my bucket garden and sewing projects.

Corn and beans and squash and tomatoes are flourishing. I eat my own lettuce and use fresh herbs in all my cooking. Three buckets produced weeds. Others are still a mystery since I never marked what I planted. My garden shows great promise as long as the iguanas, squirrels, rats, ‘possums, leaf-cutter ants, and assorted bugs, worms and viruses leave my crop alone.

Over the last few weeks I sewed a dress and six blouses, all different styles, all without patterns but with much measuring and planning. Challenging and fun. I like my new wardrobe. I’m all dressed up with no place to go.

And I’ve used all my dressmaker fabric. I find myself eyeballing my sheets. One only needs one pair, right? Wash, line dry, make bed, repeat.  

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 18, 2020

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Wonders of my world

                                Wonders of my world

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Outside my big front gate, the one used for truck delivery and such, a clump of lantana took root voluntarily. Lantana wears one of the world’s most beautiful flowers, like rings on its fingers, small circles of purple, pink, yellow, with an orange center. Lantana, an invasive weed, can grow taller than me, and will fill the entire yard if left to its own devices.

Back when I had asked for lantana, David at Vivero Centro only shook his head, raised eyebrows and muttered something that sounded like “Crazy Gringa.”

So I stood in my yard and mentioned to the sky that a little lantana would be a nice thing. Birds in the sky picked up my request and dropped a few seeds, by the gate, at the base of my big avocado tree and by the hose stand in the back yard. When I feel discouraged, I can lose myself in the sweet scent of the tiny lantana flower. How wonderful is that!

It’s the craziest thing. My big twenty-five feet tall avocado tree has no fruit this year. None. This tree produces Fuerte avocados, by the bucketsful. Every year I eat my fill. I give away hundreds of pounds of big beautiful bright green, smooth-skinned football-shaped fruits. Now what?

A year ago, in the middle of my back yard, I planted an avocado tree of the Haas variety. It’s not as tall as me, is spindly, appears fragile. Branches hang weighted to the ground with fruit which should be ripe, my best guess, within another month, if the branches don’t break from the strain.

Why? I wonder. What’s the deal? Is the big tree taking a sabbatical? Is the little tree working overtime?

I love living in this high plateau in Jalisco, surrounded by mountains, some as near as up the hill and some far across the valley. Nothing is predictable. Every day presents a different experience, something to cause wonder.

For weeks I’ve been predicting an early rainy season. I’m no good at weather here. No matter how my joints might ache, no matter how strong the scent of water in the air. Every day launches a deep blue sky overhead. Giant drops of dew dot my corn stalks. Temps consistently spike between 95 and 100. I’m teaching myself Celcius because 38 C. sounds cooler than 100 F. 

Rain? It’s like it no longer exists in my world. In the afternoon a few puffs of white appear, disappear. It is raining in Tequila. It rains in Ameca. It rains in dry-as-dust Amitlan de Cana. Ana’s Mom up the road in Oconahua says it will rain June 14. Weather.com says it will never rain again. I give up.

Not all wonders are created equal. Take the bean bugs. Really. I wish you would.

 Take them. “What is this?” I asked Leo. “Look in your beans,” he answered.

I did not have to open the jar to see tiny black bugs crawling around inside the jar, crawling over and under and through the strangely pitted beans. Obviously the bugs could squeeze their Houdini bodies past the screw top lid. Obviously I had to clean my food cupboard and inspect every container with suspicious eyes of a shrewish fishwife, (I always wanted to say that).

All my dry goods, pre-packaged or not, I transfer to glass or plastic containers. Despite my care, I discarded two jars of creepy beans and two kilos of crawly flour. 

“What causes these bugs, magic or something? I’ve never seen them before.”

“No. They live in untreated beans and come out when the beans get old.” “Oh,” I said. I bought those beans out of the back of a pickup truck on the street outside a corner eatery in town, back when I thought I’d better stockpile some basics.

Leo assured me that I did not have to buy beans in bulk. “Buy beans a half kilo at a time and you will not see those bugs again.”

I hear a ruckus out at the highway. Ah, ha. Cattle bawling, men shouting, sound of hoofs clacking against the asphalt. If I stand at my back gate, I can watch the vaqueros herd hump-backed cattle of every color through town on their trail up into the mountains for the summer months.

As long as I’m outside, I’ll sit under the jacaranda tree a while. I’ll take off my shoes. I’ll look up into the sky. Watch the birds, butterflies and bees. Listen to the cicadas shrill their song. I’ll take my hand drum and see if together, we can bring down some rain.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 11, 2020

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Looking for love in all the wrong places

            Looking for love in all the wrong places

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He’s not feral. I assume the stranger is a him. He’s not a rack of bones. He yowled around beneath my bedroom windows three nights before I glimpsed him in his white coat with yellow patches. Voice like a diesel tractor with defective brakes.

I know why he’s hanging out in the neighborhood. Janet, my next door neighbor, just a few feet over that-away, brought five felines (all fixed) with her when she and Tom moved here from Washington a few months ago to become more-or-less permanent residents. This intruder sniffs the presence of these fur-lined new-comers, tucked into their beds asleep like good little kitties.

Now and then, when I open my door, I catch a glimpse as this hair-ball spitting, night-prowling, sleep-robber streaks from my yard, shooshes around the corner into Janet’s yard. Looking for love or looking for a brawl?

Blame sleep deprivation and a stray cat on my devolvement into fantasy. That and meddling friends.

When Crin and Kathy in Victoria, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, heard about my trip to Durango via imagination with stationary bike, they jumped on the idea and invited me to a brown-bag lunch with appropriate social distancing in Crin’s back yard at her big Victorian house in the city.

Together we set the day and the time. Since neither friend wanted to cook, we chose drive-through take-out. I placed my order: hamburger with mustard, fries with ketchup and a vanilla malt, double thick.

I rigged my bike, named Rocinante, with a huge umbrella, purple with red gecko print, against the elements, took off in plenty of time, which is to say no time.

One nice thing about a virtual road trip is one may eliminate traffic, pit stops, diesel fumes, road construction, up-hills, down-hills stray cattle and border crossings.

As I mounted Rocinante and pedaled along my chosen route I felt like Champion from The Triplets of Belleville, a must-see film if you haven’t yet. From time to time I checked in to let my friends know my progress.

When I attached water wings for crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I let them know it was almost time to go pick up the greasy food.

Crin warned me that men with jackhammers were tearing up one side of her street so be careful of potholes.

When I left the water and wheeled through the park on the island, pedaling down the street to Crin’s house, Kathy said, “I can hear you singing at the top of your lungs and that is strange because I know you don’t sing.” “I’m wearing my mask,” I replied. “Even I can sing behind a mask.” 

We had a fun visit, munching and slurping and talking over and around one another, agreed that our next visit MUST be in real time.

I pushed ‘delete’ and found myself home, examining my bucket garden. Much as I’d like to blame the yowling, howling feline and lack of sleep, in honesty, the fault is all mine—I forgot to mark my buckets. So I have to wait for plants to appear, to mature to a height I can identify.

One is undoubtedly, undeniably squash, but how did the bean seed get into the squash bucket. I planted beans with corn in flower pots on the other side of the patio. Three emerging green stuffs look similar, perhaps parsnips and turnips and a mystery. Is that Swiss chard? This one is either beets or weeds. Others yet to be identified.

And I report my first failures. Potato and sweet potato, rotted in their respective graves. I got tired of waiting so dug my fingers into the dirt. Ick.

Despite yawns of a size to lock my jaws, I hope to sleep through and/or despite, the cat-erwauling.

If only he were bilingual, I could explain to him that he is at the wrong address, the cat-house next door is full, no room at the inn, please go home and let me sleep.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 4, 2020

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Back to the future?

                                    Back to the future?

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One must make one’s own decision, must do what each figures is best for self and family and community. As for me and many of my friends, we choose to continue staying home, having no touchy-feely (sigh) communication with others. 

We are retired. It is easier for us to hole up, to forego the little extras, the advantages of modern life to which we’ve become accustomed, as if those things are our due.

Have any of you elders noticed how living this pared-down life in self-isolation is similar to life in the ‘50s?

Listen up, young’uns and I’ll tell you about it.

I think the main difference between now and then is that we had more alone time. We did not have organized summer sports or year-round activities such as yoga or martial arts, Zumba or pedicure parlors. Gym was at the high school. We swam in muddy water. We did not dare get bored. We had parents watching every nuance.

We got in trouble. You did not invent fast cars, booze, cigarettes or sex. We had the drive-in theater.

Can you imagine, those of us who are older, imagine our parents motoring through Hot Shots to order a daily dose of skinny salted-caramel latte venti, double shot at $5.00? I can see my Dad’s expression as if he were in front of me as I ask that question, a mix of incredulity and horror.

We lived on a farm. A daily shopping trip would have been incomprehensible. Even for town dwellers, shopping demanded thought and planning, picking up necessary groceries for a week, that item at the hardware store and socks for Junior, all in the same trip on “sale day”.

Trip? A trip for me was to ride my bicycle down the mile-long lane to the mailbox.

If we ran out of an item in the kitchen we did without. Not that we ever ran out of any staple. We bought baking soda before we emptied the box, flour in fifty-pound sacks.

The only emergency requiring an unscheduled trip to town was when a piece of farm machinery broke down. Dad taught me to drive at twelve so I could make those trips, unlicensed, terrified of being ‘found out’, in a community where eight-year old boys regularly drove to the parts store or the John Deere or IH garage.

Dining in a restaurant? That was a luxury my family never enjoyed. A special dinner meant Sunday roast or fried chicken, after Mass.

A vacation? A weekend jaunt to Glacier Park? Not even in my family consciousness.

Do you see how rich we have become, how we live with a wealth of possibility?

A piece of my own going backwards to go forwards is my new bucket garden. Never thought I’d be planting vegetables, other than year-‘round herbs, lettuce and a few stalks of corn. Not me! I plant flowers. In hand-made clay pots because I am a clay-pot snob. No plastic for me!  

Since my investments evaporated and with prices of everything on the upshot, I’ve gone practical.

Pinto beans have doubled in price in two months, from twenty to forty pesos a kilo. Frugality rules.  

Josue helped me collect a gathering of buckets, empty of paint and building materials. Plastic, ugly, practical. David from Centro Vivero delivered bags of tierra. Leo drilled holes in the buckets, filled them with rocks and dirt. With hope, I planted parsnips, squash, turnips, beets, chard and cabbage, carefully settling three or four seeds in each bucket. Potato in one, sweet potato in another.

Michelle brought me mystery-tomato starts garnered from their compost heap. Leo begged pepper seeds from his neighbor who works at a greenhouse. With farmer’s luck I’ll be regularly supplementing my meals with my own produce.

Don’t let anybody fool you that life in the ‘50s was paradise. It was not. It was differently miserable and differently wonderful.

Living here in this paradisiacal piece of Mexico You might say my everyday life is a vacation. And it is. But I’ve spiced up daily drudgery (PT—ugh) with imaginary road trips on my stationary bike. 

Today I pedaled to Durango without leaving my patio, crossing that engineering marvel of a bridge between Mazatlan and Durango. Tomorrow I’ll go from Durango to Monterey. Mountains are no obstacles in day-dreams.

I admit, my tablet is a handy aid to imagination. Back in the olden days I used to pull “Around the World in 1,000 Pictures” from our bookshelf and dream of travel to foreign lands. You might say I still dream the same dreams.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

May 28, 2020

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