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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