It’s a Doggy Dog World

 

                        It’s a Doggy Dog World 

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My friend Peggy used to ask me, in her booming voice, “What’s your motive?” She caused me to examine stuff I’d really rather have left swept into the bulge under the rug. Peggy is gone these many years. But Peggy’s big Irish voice lives on, in my head, whenever I make a decision, large or small. “What’s your motive?” I hear as if we are sitting at the table, coffee mugs in hand. Voice followed by laughter.

Months ago I began thinking about getting a pet. Motive? Not that I necessarily wanted a cat or dog or goldfish, but, with my enforced solitude due to this on-going pandemic, my isolation, and hesitancy to travel, perhaps a pet would force me out of my comfortable selfishness that seems a necessary component of so much alone time.

Motive? I hear Peggy ask, “What’s your motive?” I don’t really want a pet. I don’t really want to be juggled out of my comfort place. So what is my motive?

I need somebody with whom to talk, selfishly, with whom to talk whenever I want to talk. Because I’ve been talking with myself entirely too often. All hours. Middle of the night. Talking with myself. Commenting on all manner of things. Having two-way conversations.

Back toward the end of May I put out a feeler to Ana and Michelle, the girls from Oconahua, friends who rescue dogs.

Cats? I adore cats but cats are out of the question. My neighbors next door have six cats. If I had a cat, either it would slither over the wall and abandon me or I would be inundated with visiting felines. No cats.

Besides, I rationalize, having a dog is a requirement to living in Mexico and I’m not sure how I’ve avoided detection this long. It’s a wonder I’ve not been picketed or had a doghouse burned on my lawn or some other kind of retribution.

“So,” I ask, “Do you have any dogs in your collection who might want to live elsewhere, one who is not comfortable in the pack, one with a quiet disposition?”

My friends looked at each other. “Lola?” they echoed.

“What size is she? I want neither an ankle-biter nor a huge dog who tends to lean on legs.”

This is the Reader’s Digest Condensed version of our several conversations which actually spanned weeks.

On Sunday I prepared a brunch feast of scones with fruit and heavy cream, soft-scrambled eggs and grilled ham steaks. My friends, dog in tow, came for the initial home visit, a meet and greet.

Today, Lola is mine, living with me on a test-drive, trial run, money-back guarantee, no-questions-asked try on for size.

Lola is a medium-sized mutt, street dog, rez dog. The best kind. Within an hour she found her own observation post, where she can watch the goings on in the neighborhood.  

Already Lola has run to the gate to bark at Luna, a neighbor dog who got too close. She growled at a man walking by on the lane. She seems to have taken possession of my yard and patio.

Whew. Now perhaps I can stop talking to myself, stop talking with inanimate objects, and at least have the positive feedback of a cocked ear and a tail wag. 

I think I have a new dog. Or is the other way around?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 22, 2021

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How many times have you said . . .

 

            How many times have you said . . . 

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If only I could live my life over knowing what I now know?

Well, guess what. If you woke up this morning still breathing, you can indeed. Live your life over. Start right now.

What? You think you need a special invite? A ticket? An epiphany?

I’m not preaching to the choir here. I’m preaching to myself.

After a miserable few days of standing knee deep in the mud of an alligator swamp, of feeling like I should be more Important, like I should be Special, maybe better educated, or with some kind of polished halo or something to set me apart from the madding crowd, I talked to my daughter.

She said, “I noticed but thought I’d just ignore it.”

As generally happens, she made me laugh at myself, an exercise I recommend, one that is great for balance.

One of the first poems I memorized because I liked it, not because Mrs. Berglund made me learn it for English class, was by Emily Dickenson. “I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know.”

That has never left my mind and often has saved me grief. “I’m nobody.” Which gives me freedom to do a lot of things important people don’t dare try because they might fail and if one is important, one dares not fail.  If you are Somebody, you must be very careful. If you are Somebody, it is not so easy starting your life over.

I’m a very fortunate person, I believe. If I were to write my memoirs, and don’t worry, I’ve no intention, they would look like a thick book of short stories, written by a woman with “the seven year itch”. It would have that many chapters, each telling a distinct and separate story.

I don’t have a long string of initials after my name, highfalutin titles, but I surely do have a handful of life experiences, some of which I’d rather erase and forget, but those are the ones that might be the most important. I’m an ordinary country person who’s done a lot of ordinary things, learned a lot along the way, laughed and cried in equal portions. My wealth can be neither weighed nor measured.

“How dreary to be somebody. How public like a frog, to tell one’s name the livelong day to an admiring bog.” Thank you, Emily.

When I got out of bed this soggy rain-drenched morning, I knew I could start over, still knowing what I’ve learned all these many years, even though I frequently forget, even though I falter and fail.

It’s a beautiful day, somewhere the sun is shining and somewhere there’s a tie ballgame. An iguana ate half my new Comfrey plant. I found slugs. Slugs? How can that be? I’ve had occasion to laugh out loud, full-belly hoots, twice before noon.

I’m starting over with baby steps. Nobody defined “starting over” in marathon terms.

All this nonsense came about because I realized I have nothing to say. Truth. There is nothing I can say that you don’t already know. Perhaps, like me, you frequently forget. I hope you have somebody in your life who will laugh at you. Laugh is another word for love.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 15, 2021

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Birdsong, Toe trucks, Garden buckets and other lore

 

            Birdsong, Toe trucks, Garden buckets and other lore 

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You know how I love the rains, right? As with grandchildren, I love them more when they behave. You know. Sunshine days and rain in the early evenings. Another morning listening to rain pound down while the stupid birds are singing at the top of their lungs, “Here comes the sun”. Stupid birds. There is a lesson in here somewhere.

After a leisurely trip visiting relatives along the route from Mexico to Minnesota, John and Carol wrote that they are home, having been towed the final 125 miles of their trip, when their elderly VW camper, Vincent Van Go gave up the power steering and sulked to the side of the highway.

Tow trucks bring me mixed memories. The iconic bubblegum pink Toe Truck in Seattle, with the likeness of a huge human foot atop the cab, advertising towing and recovery services, now resides at the Museum of History and Industry. I loved driving past the Toe Truck when I lived in Washington, although it grabbed one’s attention so strongly it might have been considered by the glum and grumpy to be a road hazard.

Riding in a tow truck is a unique experience. My own earlier, memorable and equally iconic tow truck ride happened in the fall of the year during hunting season. Iconic, I say, because I’m sure nothing much has changed.

Even then, when I was still young and not yet crippled, climbing up into the high cab was a stretch. We were returning from a week-long hunting trip in the mountains, and in retrospect, we might have been every bit as “ripe” as the driver, who reeked of cigarette smoke, stale beer, grease and slopped gasoline. Please forgive me, Mister Driver, if you are the exception.

The floor of the cab was ankle deep in clumps of mud, iconic Montana gumbo, of course. The dash cluttered with invoices, candy wrappers, empty cigarette packs, tattered maps (no GPS in those days), crushed aluminum drink cans, wrenches, and other everyday detritus.

The driver cheerfully delivered our ancient pickup truck to the repair shop and us to the bus depot where we sat on the curb, waiting for the Trailways arrival. Memories are made of such as this.

Also heard from my longtime friend Jerry from Washington, who lives on a high bluff overlooking the Hood Canal. He and a buddy went clam digging. When they’d filled their bucket, they walked back to thank the landowner, sitting in a wheelchair on his deck, who’d given them beach access. Jerry noticed tomato plants in nursery pots.

“May we plant those for you?” he asked. The gentleman graciously accepted their help and directed them to the greenhouse-garden shed and for the white five-gallon industrial buckets. Jerry immediately thought of me with my own Bucket Garden tomato crop. 

I told Jerry that when I next travel to Washington, he will have to introduce me to my Bucket Garden soulmate so we can hash over our gardening successes and failures.

While friends in Washington and Montana are sweltering, it’s hard to believe, but in this cool damp weather, mid-afternoon when the wind brings rain, I want my lambs-wool slippers, which are showing signs of falling apart. I was muttering to myself about things not being made to last when I had a vivid memory flash of the day I bought the slippers.

While on a road trip from Harlem back to my home in Washington, I stopped in a favorite restaurant/tourist haunt in Hungry Horse for huckleberry ice-cream. This place, like the Toe Truck, is long gone. 

I remember picking up the slippers, sinking my nose into the wooly softness because I like the scents of wool and leather. I put them back with a sigh because of the price tag, wandered around the store, dashed back and bought the shoes before I could change my mind. That was at least twenty years ago.

I feel chagrinned. Poor slippers, much stepped into and upon, should be falling apart. Much like John’s ancient Van Go and the Seattle Toe Truck, we all have a limited life span.

Thinking of my own limited life span, I have determined that perhaps in my solo life, I’m getting to be too selfish. (Does selfish have a scale for measurement?) After consulting with my Oconahua friends who rescue abandoned street dogs, I’ve arranged to take Lola for a test drive. I’ve not yet met her, but she sounds like we might be a good match. She’s a black-haired mutt with a nice smile and an overall disreputable look about her. You know what they say about dogs and their humans!

What does this have to do with selfishness? I have heard that what Lola wants, Lola gets.

Here comes the sun and the whistling ducks just flew overhead.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 8, 2021

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Some like it hot; some like it not

 

            Some like it hot; some like it not 

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My back yard is full of baby doves foraging. Worms? Could be any number of bugs. They have a huge, juicy selection. All sizes, all colors.

Last night we had a Bing-Bang-Boom-Jingle-Jangle-Whoop of a storm, precursor to rains tonight, all courtesy of Hurricane Enrique. I had to get up in the night and put rugs in front of the door and towels on the window sills to soak up the water. Did I tell you my house is anything but tight?

When I went out to survey my kingdom I found a lot of tree debris, leaves and twiddly stuff, but no major damage.

After I hung the sopping towels to dry on the line, I walked the lane and oh, my, a different picture outside my wall. A lot of broken branches. So Leo, Josue, his daughter Stephany and I filled several wheel barrows with downed deadfall.

On the way back to the house, Josue with his broken foot and me with my cane, had a race to the finish line. Stephany became the judge and drew the line in the gravel. I won by a foot and a cane tip. He lost by a toe. It was a classic example of “The Tortoise and The Tortoise”. With laughter.

An hour later, edging toward afternoon, I stood on my patio and shook my fist at the sky. “Not yet,” I yelled. “The towels aren’t dry.” The sky shrugged.  

Throughout June we had rain at least once during every twenty-four hours except for two days. Maybe three, since one day might have gone twenty-six or seven. I didn’t track that closely. Straight down rain, even with the storm effects. I love straight down rain. No waterfalls cascading off my casa windows.

Gray days later: This morning with great trepidation I turned on the hot water in my shower. After five sun-less days, I took a deep breath and geared up for a quick hop in and out of lukewarm water. My water heater consists of solar pipes on the roof. Amazingly, we’d had enough glare, not sunshine, glare, yesterday to keep my water boiling hot.

My shower is the only thing hot. Temperatures have been steady in the 60s—lower in the mornings, higher in the afternoons.

My friend Cheryl, who lives on the Oregon coast north of Tillamook, wrote me about Portland topping out at 116 F yesterday. She and her husband just built a retirement home and mere days ago, decided to install a heat pump. It’s not as hot on the coast, but, still. . .

Cheryl went on to say, “I feel a bit spoiled, especially when I think of you, Sondra, not having air conditioning or heating in your casita.” I’ll write back that I’m happy she is feeling spoiled. I’m spoiled in other ways.

My son Ben, along with a friend, escaped Seattle, where the streets and highways are broiling and buckling. Sunday night they flew out of the country to Belize.

Ben wrote, “Belize is a country of contradictions, hot and cold, democratic and socialist, poor and rich, third world and civilized. We had baked breadfruit for dinner, dipped in cilantro hummus. Ever had it? It’s crazy. It’s a fruit but it tastes and has the consistency of fresh bread. Wacky. What a wonderful world we live in.”

My daughter, when living in Japan, had a close friend from Belize. Her family lived in primitive conditions yet had a factory that bottled habanero salsa, among other spicy treats. Dee Dee and I are having severe trip envy. How we would love to be there sharing adventures with Ben.

I said to Leo when he came to work in my yard, “Maybe I could get a ticket and fly out tomorrow.” He wisely responded, “Maybe Ben doesn’t want to see his Mama this week.”

Meanwhile cloudy days reign. Enrique, now downgraded to a tropical storm, is blustering its way into the Pacific, having rearranged two-thirds of the entire Mexican coast. The sun will shine again. Rains will pour down. After all, this is the rainy season and when one hails from Montana, every rain is good rain.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 1, 2021

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And the rains, they came.

 

And the rains, they came. 

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To the tune of “Just another manic Monday”, the rains, they came, “just another rainy Monday”, Tuesday, Wednesday. Every day, the rains, they came. I’ve no idea why that old tune came to me. There certainly is nothing manic about my life. I am the definition of life-in-the-slow-lane.

Sunday, for the first time in a year and a half, I went out to lunch at a restaurant, the Etza Grill in town. Ate a meal I didn’t prepare myself. Sat with friends at a table and added laughter to cement our friendships.

After we’d ordered, Michelle asked me, “What have you been doing these last few days?”

“Not a blessed nor a blasted thing. Housework, making meals, puttering in my garden when it’s dry enough. Jigsaw puzzle. Solitaire. Reading. The epitome of an exciting life well-lived, hmmm?” That was a conversation stopper.

My Oconahua friends had the grace to laugh. Then admitted it was much the same at their place, though they also had planted trees in their reclaimed “new” back yard.

As we finished our hamburguesas and ensaladas, the sky, that lowering gray ceiling, turned upside down and became a river. Even after three weeks of rain, we still feel an excitement, an appreciation that this is good.

Needless to say, in the dash from the restaurant to the car, we got drenched to the skin.

We, in this dry country, are grateful. The earth soaks moisture like a sponge. Trees and bushes and all manner of growing stuff lift their heads and open their mouths and drink. Dead grass revives and in days is a tangled foot high and bushy tailed. It is good.

It’s not ALL good, of course. The rains brought all manner of bugs, especially the beetles. Brown beetles and black beetles and green beetles. Bugs. Black beetles have decimated my hibiscus blossoms. Green beetles prefer the creamy magnolia. Brown beetles simply are everywhere.

Bugs seek to share my domicile, especially the earwigs which are creepy. Flies, mosquitoes, centipedes and millipedes, all want to live with me. “Off with your heads,” I say. Sorry, if you love bugs. Creepy crawlers don’t pay rent. They bite. They refuse to listen to reason. Just say no does not work.

My son called. He’s working two jobs at present. Said he had to look at his life, make a list of all his activities and cut back some of his commitments for the present if he valued sleep and sanity.

My daughter called. She lost her secretary. A client called late in the night with an emergency situation. Dee Dee got up at midnight and took her to a safe house. Her oldest granddaughter, visiting her father in Washington, was bit in the face by a large dog. Everybody around her seemed to be in crisis. To top it off, the fox got in the hen house.

It’s situational. These things will pass and their lives will smooth out again.

But I’m reminded of a time when I ran my own life on the crisis-of-the-minute plan, fueled by adrenaline.

Fortunately I had a friend strong enough and sassy enough to call me on my choices. “You must like to feel miserable,” she said. “You keep doing things to hurt yourself.”

Whew, did I ever get angry. I hated her. But she had cut through my defenses. I saw that she was right. I went back for more good council when I cooled off.

Thinking about my kids’ problems of the moment and certain friends on rocky roads, I could put my mundane, boring, tedious, flat, dull, prosaic life in perspective.

Hey, I’ve got a good life. It’s a good week. Leo replaced two spigots and the float valve to repair the leaks in my tinaco (water reservoir on my roof).

The black-bellied whistling ducks returned. They come every year and nest in the trees. Yes, in the trees, where they lay eggs and hatch their babies. My closest pair nests in a long-ago storm-blasted Guamuchil tree within a hollow they find perfect for their summer home.

This handsome couple waddles like ducks but they don’t quack like ducks; when they fly over my head, their call is an unmistakable whistle. Amazing. Ducks in trees? Who’d a thunk it?

I watch zucchinis grow, faster than grass, faster than paint dries.

I made a squash-blossom quesadilla for breakfast.

It is raining.

Doesn’t get much better than this.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 24, 2021

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“Make love to me . . . “

 

“Make love to me . . . “

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“Ba ba ba ba boom. Take me in your lovin’ arms and never let me go. Whisper to me softly while the moon is low.”

I woke in the night with the inimitable voice of Jo Stafford as she swayed in her chiffon dress, singing at the mike, complete with the “Ba ba ba ba booms”, the band members behind her, all in handsome suits, well, handsome for that nugget in time.

“Hold me close and tell me what I wanna know; Say it to me gently, let the sweet talk flow.”

Remember when all the band members wore suits? I remember, perhaps a memory loop from “The Ed Sullivan Show”? I could hear individual trumpets, the drummer whishing brushes against the cymbals, could hear the entire music in my mind. Don’t forget the “Ba ba ba ba booms.”

“Come a little closer, make love to me.”

And I lay in there in bed, in the dark night, feeling totally and completely loved, listening to the rain patter on the roof, on the palm tree outside my window, smelling the wet mist.

This morning my daily Rumi poem, to paraphrase loosely, said, “The sky poured out love and the earth opened to receive it.” Amen, I thought, amen.

Yesterday Leo mowed my lawn and trimmed the edges. After letting my backyard orchard go brown over the dry, dusty winter and searing hot spring, a couple rainfalls and it looks like a park. Tomorrow, after another forty-eight hours of rain, the same lawn will look like a shaggy dog.

The gray-brown foliage on the mountains looming just across the highway, seemingly overnight mirror a vista of the hills of Ireland. Some of my plants have burst into flower like songs in the night. Some are waterlogged, blooms drooping to the ground.

Memories are strange. Now that I’m older with time on my hands, the time in my mind dredges up memories long forgotten. What I find strange, is that I have a clearer view of events in my life now than I had back when a lot of the memories were freshly implanted.  

I think I’m fortunate that some of my memories did not transform into cast iron monuments that then ruled my life. I had good teachers along the way.

People tell me things. One of my early customers had me transfixed by her tragic story of how her husband abused and left her. I couldn’t imagine how she could begin to want me here with her, contemplating a job. Innocently, I asked her when this happened; her story was so fresh. I couldn’t understand how she could function. “It was twenty-three years ago next month,” she replied through clenched teeth.  

“Oh.” Oh was all I could respond. That poor woman had lost twenty-three years of her life. She chose to stay in that moment. Realization hit me like a hammer. I never wanted to do what she did, to plant myself immovable in a past pain. I had not done so but it was still a good lesson to hang onto. I made my excuses and left.

I suppose some people don’t have ugly memories. I have plenty. And the uglies visit from time to time. Yes, I did that. I’ve sabotaged myself. I’ve made choices I knew would end in disaster to myself. Yes, that happened. Fortunately, today I can see details that I chose to ignore at the time. Those outer details make a difference.

As the more clear and complete picture emerges, I can see how to change my perspective. Painful memories aren’t as hurtful. The bad wasn’t all bad. Pieces of denial float away. The good wasn’t all good. “Ba ba ba ba boom.”

A lot, if not most, of my most cringe-worthy memories were made while looking for love (in all the wrong places). Like there was the time, ooh, naw, let’s leave that story on the shelf in storage for now.

Ironic that I live in semi-isolation, alone, among people, with whom I have little in common, and frequently have these strange experiences of feeling utterly and completely loved.

“Ba ba ba ba boom.”

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 17, 2021

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Testing, Testing, Testing

 

            Testing, Testing, Testing 

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Funny how some things never change. Remember back in school days when you had a big test coming up? Perhaps you went to bed worried and woke queasy, not wanting breakfast? I’m sure we all approached tests differently yet we each felt tinges of apprehension, dreadlocks of fear?

I did well on tests, especially essay tests. I disliked multiple choice, gambler’s choice, because I had a tendency to overthink the possibilities. I could generally reason out how A, B, C, and D could all be the correct answer. So which one is more correct?

Why so much fear? We all want to do well. We do not want to be counted a “failure”. Some people test well and some don’t. Think about those whose pre-test anxiety renders them unable to even understand the question. Think about those students who are dyslexic. I know a man who can take any oral test with ease yet is paralyzed by the written word.

Think about students who can’t see well, or who have trouble hearing, or aren’t properly fed, kept warm, or perhaps have to work after school and fall into bed at night, exhausted.

Do you still think school testing is an equitable measure of ability and learning and knowledge? I can make a sensible and logical argument to eliminate testing in schools. I believe it to be a false measurement. Those of us who easily “parrot” answers sail through while others, more intelligent and able, get Velcro-ed with negative labels, some of which never fall off.

When I first moved to Mexico, I signed up for an on-line Spanish language class and worked it diligently for a few months. When one day I realized I had dropped out of class, I rationalized that I was learning more from simply being in my neighborhood. Oh, I’m good at rationalization.

I’ve been in Mexico a number of years now. As far as language, I get by. But I’m far from being as fluent as any two-year-old toddler.

I’ve no idea what motivated me, but several months ago I opened the teaching site on my computer and began again, from scratch. Guilt? Shame? Embarrassment? They all are great motivators. If they work, why argue.

I sailed through the first months, diligently working every day, surprised at how much I had actually learned.

Then, of course, lessons began introducing concepts beyond ordering food and locating the nearest bathroom. I struggled through, wanting to know why this and why that. Finally, I said to myself, this is not a language learned by English rules. A basic concept that I was slow to pick up. I learned to just keep going and eventually I began to understand, a little, of the hows and whys.

There is a pattern to these lessons and when I saw that I was coming to an end of this particular pattern, I never gave it a thought. What I didn’t know, was that to unlock the next set, I had to pass a test.

So I took a big gulp, and with heightened blood pressure, muscles tightened into knots, held breath, and bathed in sweat, I began the test. Unlike the lessons, there were no little hints, no clues, no helpers. I passed. Don’t ask me how. I moved onto the next set of lessons.

The difference now is that when I saw that I was coming to the end of the set, and this took months, I knew what monster lurked around the corner. I slowed my pace. Rather than aim for 120 points a day, I slid down the ramp to 60, to 45, to 30. Eventually, of course, I hit the blank wall, nowhere to go.

I took the test. It was a bugger. I was introduced to words I’d never heard, never learned, and from context, had to figure the answer so I could move forward. By the end, I was parched, exhausted, dry-mouthed and felt like I’d run a marathon. But I broke the ribbon—I aced every question. Put it down to blind luck. That’s all I can figure.

My competency level moved upward on the scale. I was given all kinds of kudos and atta-girls. I unlocked the next set of lessons and can move forward again without fear, hopefully, for several more months.

All I want to do is become more competent in the language. I don’t care about the kudos and gold stars and good marks. Nothing is worth the heart-pounding fear generated by those tests. I’ll keep going, motivated solely by my own desire to learn. And, yes, no doubt my pace will slow to the frozen trickle of the Milk River in January when I spy the next test on the horizon.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 10, 2021

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The Things I Do and Don’t

 

The Things I Do and Don’t

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A couple thousand years ago, somebody famous, broadly paraphrased, said, we do things we know aren’t good for us (or for others) and don’t do the things we know to be good.

Well, what can I say? The shoe fits. Oh, I can always say more. Not only do I do what’s not good for me, but I lie to myself and convince myself that it doesn’t really matter.

I’ve worked hard at catching myself and changing my mind before rip-roaring into action. About forty years of hard work. And it is hard work. No floating about on a pink cloud for me. Dang it. But I still am quite capable of stabbing myself in the foot, so to speak, and convincing myself it doesn’t really hurt as I bleed out on the floor.

For example, take physical therapy. I mean, take it. You can have it.

Despite my disparaging attitude, I’m a master student of PT. I’ve had six major surgeries on my legs, the resulting damage from a car crash when I was a mere young’un.  After each surgery, I underwent the tortures of physical therapy with master craftsmen. These men were good.

I was bad. Once I got to where I could function relatively well and they released me out into the wide world, I asked each of them, “How long should I keep up the exercises?” Each time I asked, I hoped for a different answer. Each time, the reply was the same, “For the rest of your life.” Each time, as soon as the therapist released me from servitude, I quit the routines.

Until this last time. I reasoned that this surgery gave me a new life and I’d best take care of myself. So after a few weeks of therapy when the current plague ramped up, I released the therapist but kept up the routines, even increasing the repetitions of each exercise. Atta Girl!

Until one day, after more than a year into my routine, I quit, without conscious thought. Truly, I never made a decision to quit. I’m not sure when this happened, maybe January, February. The routine wasn’t hard. It didn’t even take that much of my time, certainly not too much time in a Covid world in which I struggle to fill my days with tasks meaningful to myself.

Here’s where the lies come in, right? I still feel good, I tell myself. I don’t miss the routine, boring, or at least, mindless. Weeks passed. I seldom thought about my old morning pattern. When I did, I continued to say to myself, lying like a rug, I feel good. See, it doesn’t make any difference. I’m okay. I’m fine.

I have no explanation for what happened recently. One morning I was lying in bed, my new morning routine, listening to the birdsong, greeting the morning, accompanied by the shrill cacophony of the cicadas.

And just like that, for no discernable reason, I began to do the leg lifts. Did a couple sets, in fact. I had given this no conscious thought; didn’t think about it at all. Just started in on my physical therapy routine, greatly surprising myself. Humph, I said to myself. Wonder what that was all about?

Next morning I did the same, repetition without thought. Now, I may lie to myself but I won’t lie to you. I haven’t continued with the entire-whole-every-single-exercise-physical-therapy routine. Just the leg lifts, which are the hardest and what I dreaded the most. Oh, and one other thing I do that Miguel said is good for blood circulation which I had never quit. That’s it. Two out of a half-dozen simple exercises.

And so it goes. Maybe it’s the new me. I’ve only racked up a few mornings so far. But, I have to confess, I feel good. I feel better. And this time, I don’t tell big porkies to myself.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 3, 2021

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