Life is not a bowl of tortillas.

 

Life is not a bowl of tortillas. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Last week a registered historic hotel in Glendive burned. The night the fire was started was also the night of the first winter blizzard. Firemen from a hundred-mile radius came to fight the fire which razed the hotel and a neighboring building.

My daughter’s office is in the upper floor of a building adjacent to the hotel. Firemen battled the blaze all night and the following day to keep her building from burning. For three days the hotel fire smoldered and flared. For three days Dee Dee was not allowed into her building. From necessity she slipped through the back entrance with a big flashlight to retrieve her computer, noting extensive smoke and water damage.

Do you ever look at your kids and wonder from where they came? Found beneath a cabbage leaf? Flown in by a stork? Delivered by an alien space ship from Planet X? Sometimes I think, “That child is no relation to me.” I haven’t the backbone of steel, the determination, the pure heart to carry on under circumstances that would break many of us. She has them all. That woman is my teacher.

With the retrieval of her computer, she is back in business, seeing some clients by video. With the restoration of electric power and the okay by the safety inspectors, she is back in her smoky, leaking offices, seeing clients strong enough to brave the stairway and the conditions.

Me, I was a wreck for a full five days, from 2500 miles away. My girl is still recovering from radical surgery, from the removal of a cancerous tumor. She stands strong in her community, still helping others.

One of my good friends said, “Oh, no, she doesn’t need this.” No, she doesn’t. Neither does Acapulco need Hurricane Otis. Most of us can look at our own lives and find our own personal fires and hurricanes. We didn’t need them but they came. Like my daughter, we dealt with them the best we could, hopefully with help.

Let me tell you about tortillas. In the mid-70s I lived in California and began making my own Mexican food. Tortillas were always a challenge. I had a tortilla press. One can buy masa harina in any grocery.

My tortillas would be sticky. Or they would fall apart in the middle. Or the edges would crumble. Seldom did I make what I would call a really fine batch. I didn’t try often. The tortilla press would gather dust in the back of a corner cupboard. It is too easy to buy a bag of tortillas, all perfect, in any grocery. They never fall apart or leak.

However, periodically I would drag out the press and try again. Dough too wet, too dry, and the press went back to the cupboard. Living here in Mexico, I keep masa harina on hand for a lot of thing, cornbread, gorditas, or sopes. And I have a dandy-fine press.

Sometimes I buy a handful of masa from one of the women in the market who process and grind their own corn and with their delicious masa, I make better tortillas.

On a whim, just because I was hungry for breakfast tacos, I wiped off my press, grabbed my masa harina and made tortillas. I aced it. I made the best yummy flat rounds with plain ol’ masa.

It all had to do with intention.

Tortillas take masa flour and water. That’s all, Folks. I drizzled warm water into the flour, took my time, gave it my full attention. Then I worked it and worked it and worked it, with my hands. When the dough felt ready, it told me, because I listened. I made small balls with my dough, pushing and pressing them in my hands, with love, keeping the works covered with a wet cloth.

Instead of the usual 6 inch tortillas, I made 4 inch, like almost everybody in town makes. Cooked them on my comal (griddle), medium heat, 30 seconds on one side,  40 on the other, plopped them into a towel lined covered bowl. 

They were perfect, my tortillas, tender and fluffy, and I claim bragging rights. I already had my taco ingredients chopped and ready. Ate too many but I didn’t care.

Life, Folks, is not a bowl of perfect, bendable, scooper tortillas. Life is more like my hurried tortillas, the ones I used to make, which would split in the middle, or crumble around the edges. Messy.

When Life gives us those perfect little tortilla moments, I say, brag, shout, eat the goodness and enjoy the whole experience. My daughter taught me that.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November already!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________