Making Home
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In the third week in my new casa just up the road a ways
from my old casa, I am making home. In ways this is like baking a cake. It is
not a one-step process. It is not a box mix. The moving van (non-existent) does
not pull up, put boxes in marked rooms, and roll on down the highway while I
make the bed and go to sleep.
Oh, if only it were so simple. Bit by bit though, this cake
batter of a home is coming together.
While there is still a lot to do, let’s call this a complicated cake, it
is coming together in ways that blend efficiency, ease of use with beauty and
comfort. Keep adding ingredients and mixing well and the batter eventually pops
into the oven and becomes cake. Home.
Yesterday John and Carol, snowbirds from Minnesota and
friends who also have a casa in Gringolandia, which is what we in Oconahua call
the little enclave of residents at the Rancho, came to visit, to see my new
home.
I watched the looks of wonder on Carol’s face as she took my
tour, kept exclaiming, “Oh, Sondra. Oh, Sondra. This is so nice. This is so
perfect for you.”
Before John and Carol left, she whispered, “Now I won’t
worry about you any more.”
I don’t know what she was expecting but I my imagination of
Carol’s imagination knocked on the door of a tiny hovel, one room with bed,
bath and stove. The end.
Leaving the cake in the metaphorical oven, let’s segue to
Goldilocks and know that the home I make is just right. Just big enough. Just
beautiful enough. Just roomy enough. And, bonus, I still live a goodly portion
of my day outdoors on my just-right patio surrounded with just-enough plants.
To borrow from days of Radio yore with Paul Harvey, so
what’s the rest of the story? Because we know, there is more to this than
everything is “just right”, right?
No internet. No phone.
That’s not all bad. Think about it. Three weeks with no
news, no horrors, no news, no sales pitches, no news. Not all bad.
But, oh, the inconvenience. The lost touches with friends
and family. We are so used to instant access. I am so used to instant access. I
want my Telmex and I want it now!
I don’t get what I want when I want it. Instead, I get the
clipity-clop as men on horseback ride past on my narrow street. I get the daily
sound of the water truck delivering drinking water. I get dogs barking and
chickens clucking and my neighbor across the way practicing his trombone and neighborhood
children laughing.
Guess what? I want my Telmex and I want it now!
Sondra Ashton
Havre Daily News
December
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