Yesterday

 

            Yesterday

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We Human Beans are strange creatures, are we not? Oh, maybe not you, but me, my hand is raised. My mind works in strange ways. Take yesterday.

Yesterday, I seemed determined to feel sorry for myself. Temperatures were flirting with 100 degrees, a mere kiss away, lips smooched into a pucker. It is our hot season. Not unusual for here. April, May, mid-June. Then the blessed, glorious rains and cool perfection at 85.

Big deal, right? In July and August in North-central Montana, you will be telling me, big deal, 110 being not unusual and at least it cools off at night. Right?

Then I figured to whine about the mosquitoes which were doing a fine job of whining around my ears without my help. I dress in skin-covering clothing, hoping to escape dengue fever. However, never have I seen a swarm of mosquitoes, each the size of replicas of the Kitty Hawk, each swarm numbering uncountable thousands, anywhere but the Milk River Valley.

All mosquitoes carry diseases, all dangerous. Hard to really get down and dirty into self-pity when my mosquitoes number a few.

Then I thought to try if dust might garner sympathy. You know, the dry powdery stuff that gets into every crevice of the house, mixed with dry skin flakes caused by high temps leaching every hint of moisture out of your skin? No takers, huh?

Fires? Smoke gets in your eyes? We had a fire, yesterday, at the bridge over the arroyo behind my house, a mere 150 yards away. Quickly staunched. Not much angst with which to garner sympathy there. I was having a difficult time dredging up compassion for my own self.

Leo popped in to tell me the latest version of Covid is now in Etzatlan; several families are sick and have been diagnosed. Covid? Who cares? Am I the last woman standing with a mask?

Nobody ever tells us that it is hard work to put together a decent pity party or that it takes extreme effort to keep the party going.

Eventually I thought to ask, “What is really going on here, O Minor Master of Middling Magical Thinking?”

“Well, they all left me, didn’t they?” whispered in indoor voice.

Ah, yes. Abandoned. One by one and two by two. Abandoned again. Happens every year. Neighbors leave for northern climes, or to visit family long term, or to hie off to France for a few months, as is the destination of one couple.

Always, I feel sad when my friends wave good-by. Feelings hang around to entertain me two or three days and then I settle into my comfortable solitude. Happens every year. I even tried to sing it. “Yesterday, there’s a shadow hanging over me. Why they had to go, I don’t know, they wouldn’t say, now I need a place to hide away, now I long for yesterday.”

And that about took care of all my futile efforts to throw a blue-funk pity party. I roused myself. Walked Lola. Cut the rest of my lavender back. Laid bunches on trays to dry for sachets. Harvested my sage to dry for seasoning. Admired my one and only holly hock, white with tinges of pink.

Sat in my back yard under the jacaranda tree. This is what I discovered.

There is a pair of birds that come every year to raise their babies before the rains. They build a nest which dangles from a low twig of the jacaranda. The birds weave a conical shape with an opening on a side. They tie it together with fronds, always leaving some to dangle from the bottom like ribbons and waft in the wind. This year they tied an entire bunch of the purple/blue jacaranda flowers onto and into the top of the nest. It is the most delightful, amazing nest. That nest is a celebration of color and beauty and movement. 

These birds, they, too, friends, come and they, too, go. Every year.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Ending of April

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This is the way we wash our clothes

 

This is the way we wash our clothes 

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This is the way we wash our clothes, early Monday morning. Mid-cycle, my washing machine quit working. I mean quit. Dead in the water. I mean, dead, full of water and soggy clothes.

The machine gave up, quit, somewhere in rinse cycle. So I had to swish and wring the entire soggy mess out by hand and pin everything on the line, slightly drippy. I knew the clothing would dry quickly, afternoons hang out in the high 80s or lower 90s these days.

The day the machine quit, my go-to-for-help man, Leo, was visiting his 105 year old auntie in San Antonio, a small town north of Guadalajara, on her birthday.

That gave me a whole day to work up a good old-fashioned righteous mad. I was mad at the machine for quitting. Poor machine was innocent. I was mad at the repairman (obviously incompetent) who had fixed me up a mere five weeks previously. I was mad that I had just enough pesos in my stash for another used machine with nothing extra.

I was mad.

This was the last straw.

By the time Leo showed up the next morning, I was primed to go stomping into town. In his pick-up truck.

I’ve talked about how I formerly, in my youth, full of p and vinegar, less wise, used to approach many aspects of life like “killing snakes”. Okay. I back slid, fell off the wagon, reverted to type, however you want to say it. I was ready to bury my poor washer in an unmarked grave, may she Rest In Peace. I mean, I was geared to go and buy a new used machine. As in, I want it and I want it now!

Understand, this is the same washer I’d lovingly had “fixed’ just five weeks previously by that same really nice and super-competent repairman. He had replaced that whole top part, the brain, or whatever it is, with one snaggled from another machine. This is an old machine. In other words, mechanically fixable, for most problems. That’s why I buy used. Fixable in Mexico.

Leo is the epitome of the type person who mulls things over, thinks them through. Drives me nuts. He is much too young to be that sensible. Don’t you hate people like that?

Leo talked me into calling the washer-fixer man and have him take a look. Then, as Leo put it, I’d at least know for sure if she had died, or is there still life in the old gal. I paraphrase.

The man showed up within an hour. Poked around two, maybe three minutes. Hauled away my washing machine.

Another hour later, he returned, hooked the hoses up and told me that something underneath had come unhooked or unhinged (other than myself). He said I still have a good washing machine.

The nice genius fixer-man charged me 300 pesos, somewhere around $18 USD.

My load of sheets are hanging on the line, happily sun baking.

I surely would feel better if I could hang my chagrin on the line to sun bake. Between impatience and righteousness.

If I was a washing machine in a laundromat, I’d be the one down on the end. The one with scrapes and scars. The one cobbled together with parts from this and that other machine, like Johnny Cash’s Cadillac. I’d be chugging along, grumbling and growling, a little lopsided, my cycle running slower than the others, but I’d get the job done.

 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Well entrenched into April

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Happy Secret Birthday, Me

 

Happy Secret Birthday, Me

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Remember when you couldn’t wait? When each additional year brought joyful anticipation, jumping up-and-down glee? What? When you were six. Then ten. Eighteen. Even, in a different way, twenty-one. That was then.

I have a dear friend who still gets that excited. For years she has extended birthdays from The Day to The Birthday Week and celebrates herself every day. She’s healthier than I am.

Me, I skulk around hoping nobody remembers. I don’t want any fuss. So I keep schtum.

I also have friends who keep track of everyone’s birthdays. This is good. They let me know when to send best wishes. We are scattered distances. No fuss, just good feelings. I enjoy their birthdays. I enjoy their greetings to me. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Last week I turned a daily calendar page and grew another whole year older. It is no secret. But, I didn’t run around singing “Happy Birthday to Me”.

In a way, this birthday which sneaked up on me is a surprise. It won’t make sense to say I never thought I’d get to this age. Here I am. Fortunate and blessed. I don’t take any medications. Most of the friends my age gulp a daily dose of pills the size of a packet of M & M’s. My blood work is good. My problems are mechanical, annoyances, like a flat tire or the left back wheel locked up. They slow me down.

“Slow down” is a good thing for a woman who approached life most of my years “like killing snakes”, so I’ve been told by those close to me.

In my own little ways, I celebrated my birthday. My party began with a huge dish of steamed asparagus, seasoned with butter, salt and pepper. A dishful. Not two spindly spears like one gets as decoration in an upscale restaurant. I love asparagus. 

Mid-afternoon John came by to share some news. He left my place to go see Kathy and Richard. I said, “I’ll tag along.” I filled Lola’s dog dish but left early, took my dog; left my gate open.

Crin was in her garden, dragging a fallen palm leaf, so we hailed her and said, “Join us.” On her way through her gate, Crin saw Lani and said, “Let’s go to Kath and Rich’s.” “Be there shortly,” Lani replied.

We got settled. Kathy brought out glasses and a pitcher of water, which is the perfect drink on a day in the 90s.

Sure enough, shortly, Lani and Ariel appeared. Ariel carted in a beautiful chocolate cake.

All I can say is that it was perfect. It’s my birthday. And my friends gathered for an unintentional celebration complete with cake. I kept my secret close to my heart. No focus, no fuss. Just good cake with good friends and it was all the more special to me.

Let me tell you the side story. Lola used to sneak into Josue’s yard and scarf up Snowball’s dog food. Snowball is like her name, a little bitty thing. Lola liked Snowball’s brand of chow better than her own. There was nothing to do but change my dog food. So I bought a bag for Snowball and a bag for Lola.

Snowball has a new friend, a four-month old pup, Hunter. Hunter has paws the size of saucers, so you get an idea how big he will grow to be. Though taller than mid-size Lola, Hunter is a pup. 

When Lola and I got back to our house after having chocolate cake at my secret birthday party, I saw first thing that Lola’s just-filled bowl was empty. Not just empty, but licked slick and shiny.

I did laugh as I refilled Lola’s bowl. Hunter had come bounding into our open gate, sniffed out the bounty and helped himself. Retribution.

I think the Universe does like balance. I turned 78 and got an unexpected party with friends and cake. Hunter ate an extra meal, payback for all the times Lola ate little Snowball’s food.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April, after birthday, after Easter

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Life Wants to Live

 

Life Wants to Live      

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John stopped by and plunked a book the size of a dictionary onto my table. When we get together we invariably weave words into a maze of history, philosophy, politics: world situations as we see them.

“Ah, just what I need,” I said as I scanned the title. “A large dose of depression.” 

He and I speak a similar style of tangents, so John rejoined with, “I read an article in the WP yesterday that implied we are lacking one main element in our outlook.”

“Intelligence?”

“Well, a little more subtle than that. Hope and Joy.” (Which are two things but I kindly chose not to quibble the point.)

“Ah.”

John told a story about a vibrant Cardinal (bird, not baseball). ‘Tis the season for both, baseball and a Cardinal named Joy. I thought about my mint patch and eyeballed my one hollyhock. Hope and Joy.

Everything you need to know of Hope and Joy, you can find encompassed in a garden. Any garden. Flower pots on the balcony. Herbs in the windowsill. A two-acre spread like Uncle George used to tend.

My own garden grows in various pots, 5-gallon buckets and garbage cans. Squash is on its second planting for the year, astonishingly, as we’ve just broken into April.

Native plants flourish. Of course they do. But even the Spanish Conquistadors brought all kinds of seedlings to this New Country, some which natives and emigrants now think are native, such as the jacaranda, early in bloom this year, purple umbrellas lifted to the skies.

I fill my yard with hibiscus. Birds plant lantana. Tomatillos and lettuce grow under the lime trees, seeds windblown. Tomatoes remind me of the never-ending water buckets of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, threatening to drown me in a river of tomato juice.

Not all is joy. There is a native flower that flourishes in every yard but mine. I asked Leo what the problem might be. After silence of much thought, he told me, “I think it doesn’t like you.” After the third death, I quit trying and filed that beauty under the heading of No Hope.

Another plant fail, whether native or transplant, I don’t know, but I cannot grow begonias. They flourish in gardens around town. Three neighbors display overflowing pots of these delicate blooms. I avert my eyes from begonias when I visit, just in case my gaze be lethal.

We gringos all smuggle contraband seeds into the country. A friend brought me a much dreamed for rhubarb. I planted the dried, shriveled rootstock and waited. After a year plus, I harvest a stalk or two at a time, chop it for the freezer, surround my little plant with love and hope. Hope to collect enough for a pie. Hope it keeps growing and maybe next year might flourish. A familiar hope to those of us from Next Year Country.

Another friend gave me three hollyhock seeds, which I planted last year. Of the three plants which grew a foot high, one survived, tall and overloaded with buds; this week burst into an astonishing stalk of pink joy. Now I want more colors!

I nourished my comfrey with much hope and fuss-about. I now have two lovely bunches and spreading. There may be native comfrey around since it is either weed or healing herb. I don’t know. But I’ve not seen any. I share my seeds. If it is not native, it soon will be. Birds love the seeds.

So, yes, I find joy and hope tending my garden. I don’t tend your garden nor interfere with my strong opinions. I pull my own weeds.

More than any of the above, even the tomatoes, what gives me most hope, what flooded my heart with joy, is mint. Years back I planted mint along my brick wall under a flowering bush of unknown name. I watched the mint spread, move out along the wall and eventually disappear.

I planted another mint in a different garden area. It moved, like a glacier, but it moved. Eventually it also disappeared. I gave up, planted mint in two pots. “Ha! Now you will stay where I put you!” Yesterday I found a new patch of mint, sprung up where I planted my first mint.

Mint tells me life really does want to live. It tells me hope and joy and love are strong. It says we will survive. Now, where did I hide John’s book.

Looking Out My Backdoor

Sondra Ashton

First week of April

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