Grandma, what big ears you have!

 

Grandma, what big ears you have!

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I remember way back in the last century agonizing about my life’s purpose, as if one had only one purpose and if you missed it, you were skewered on Life’s Barbeque. Or something dire.

We used to believe such silly things. One purpose. One way. And, I love this one, “one soulmate” and he was sexual, instead of possibly a whole raft of soulmate friends, male and female, trees and pets and rocks; who could know the endless possibilities?

At the time I had a little home workshop where I repaired and recovered furniture so I could be in the kitchen when the kids got home from school. Did I not recognize that was my purpose for that time?

 Eventually, I quit agonizing, relaxed, and realized that I was having a good time making ugly things beautiful, was meeting interesting people and, dangled in front of my face, multiple opportunities for all manner of classes and workshops, trips and experiences.

As Dr. Seuss said, “Oh, the places you’ll go.”

And I did. I went. Except when I didn’t. I couldn’t say “YES” to every opportunity. Oh, boy, when I went, I went. Regrets, I have a few. Both the “yes” and “no” variety of regrets. That’s okay. I rounded up a good balance.

As opportunities tend to do, one leads to another and each road branches. There’s always more. More people to meet.  More to learn. More to love. More to receive. More to give. Those various roads, so full of enticements and temptations, have led me to where I am today, living in Mexico, living the last years of my life, more moderately happy than I ever expected to be . . . and . . .

Dumb as a post. That’s me. The longer I live, the lesser I know. So what’s my life’s purpose these days? Much as I can tell, it is mostly to keep my mouth shut and remember that I don’t know.

People tend to talk to me. I listen. That’s all. I listen. Nod. Keep my lips zipped. Don’t solve other’s problems. Don’t tell them how I did it back in ’82. Don’t make suggestions. What about sharing something similar from my past? Not always. Mostly, I just listen.

Sometimes I forget and open my mouth and generally regret that action soon enough to clamp it shut quickly. Revert to listening. My purpose. Be.

Oh, I’m not hearing huge secrets. Mostly, my friends talk about niggly-naggly little everyday irritations. At times, one just needs to unload frustrations. There are moments when more important revelations need to be hauled out into the light. None of them, small or large, require me to pass on the information to anyone else. Period. End of.

What about when I need an ear, someone to hear me? Well, haven’t you noticed? I have you.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

March 13, 2025

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Pondering Important Conveniences

 

Pondering Important Conveniences

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We few who live in Oconahua and continue to use cable internet service have just experienced three days without phone or computer services along with intermittent electricity outages.

I could not explain in a rational way why I insist on clinging to what most of my friends consider to be outdated services. I like my landline phone sitting on my desk. I have no need for whip-quick internet. My service seems plenty fast enough for me. At approximately twenty dollars a month for the combo, it’s a deal.  

I do not find it necessary to cart around a plastic rectangle in my hand. In fact, I refuse to have a cellular phone. Why should I pay for a hand-held computer load of stuff I’d never use. A phone, for me, is for talking with another person. End of. I know. Dino.

When I go to lunch with friends, I’m the only person not checking in with the latest FaceFlap or TickleTackle, some surreptitiously, most outright blatantly.

I’ve no idea why our cable service was interrupted for three whole days. Electrical power was off and on with surges that first day. Does that matter? I don’t know. It was a little windy. By Montana standards, the wind would not have been noticed nor commented upon. So, I don’t know. How can those thing affect cable?

I’m of the generation who recalls when communication meant you wrote a letter, stamped the envelope, and put it in the mailbox hoping for a reply within a month. Local telephone service was sweet although the party line was not always so great. If you don’t know what those are, ask your Grandma.

We never called long distance unless someone in the family died.

Now we don’t even have long distance.

No, I do not want the “not-so-good-old-days” returned. I just want uninterrupted cable service, slow and low as it might be.

Those three days of my own personal disconnect felt like three years to me. It would be a rare day in which I utilize more than an hour of phone and internet combined. But, Holy Canoli, now that I have them, I want them, those faithful little worker bees making my life better. Okay, so I got a tad carried away. You know what I mean. I’ve seen you misplace your cell phone and go into a panic.

Which led me to thinking and you know how dangerous thinking can be.

Obviously, I rate electricity as a “necessary convenience”. I ignore any clash of definition of those two words. I remember when I lived in Dodson, okay, dark ages, my nearest neighbors did not have electricity. Nor did a whole large swath of land south of us have an electric line within double-digit miles.

We, ourselves, did not have running water, unless you counted me running from the well to the house with buckets.

I did not think it was funny when my father-in-law wanted to put running water in the barn but bypass the house.

I value all my modern conveniences, especially power and water. Interesting word, that, “conveniences”. I’ll leave you to ponder that.

I want it all, water and electricity, internet and phone, washing machine and refrigerator. And books. Don’t forget the books. Today I have all these things. What if . . .

Some days I think we are devolving. A huge percentage of my emails from friends show up with cave drawings. Almost cave drawings. None show a whole stick figure, only a round head, like an M&M. What if . . .

Tomorrow I might be climbing up the mountain to the spring to beat my laundry on rocks. Clothes? Animal skins? Will we still have animals? What if . . .

Tomorrow will my family/friends and I huddle around a fire grinding corn in a stone trough? Will we grunt and point because we’ve lost the ability to use words?

What if your cousin, who always was weird, yeah, that one, picked a charred stick from the fire pit and scratched wiggly marks with ashes on the cave wall? Things that looked similar to a water faucet or a telephone or an automobile, yeah, Flintstone era?

Maybe I’ve had enough isolation. I’m off to Laguna Colorado for fish tacos with friends.

I could not make up what happened. When I got home, we had no power in our town. Electricity was off for hours into the night. I located enough black marking pens to write the alphabet and basic rules of grammar on the bedroom wall.

Sondra Ashton

Havre Weekly Chronicle

March 6, 2025

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Life Keeps Happening

 

                  Life Keeps Happening

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Sunday morning when six of us sat around the wooden table at Molletes, sipping our drinks and waiting for our food to be delivered, one plate at a time, as is the restaurant way in Mexico, the conversation veered into the troubling elections in Germany, which meant we were one step away from becoming mired in the world political swamp.

Jim, bless his astute heart, intervened. “All I know is that right here, right now, sitting with friends in this upscale restaurant, sipping our lattes, sun shining, beginning a beautiful day, life is pretty fine. Pretty fine.”

Group laughter, shared and received, our conversations continued in a more personal vein, further cementing already strong friendship.

To backtrack, on Saturday, eight of us gringo friends had attended a pig roast feast and annual family gathering in La Mazata, about a half-hour drive from Etzatlan toward Magdalena, up in the mountains littered with opals.

Last year, Francisco and Julie moved to nearby La Mazata, where Francisco grew up and lived most of his life.

What an event! Francisco has a huge family and my guess is that everyone was there, siblings, cousins, in-laws and out-laws, all ages. Oh, my, the food, the scrumptious pig, the music, the dancing, the décor, the finery, the mingling of family and friends; all spoke of festive love and laughter. Pure fun.

Yes, Jim, life is pretty fine. Pretty fine.

All of life does not revolve around food, although much of my social life seems to center around tables with friends, a table that is generally piled with food. I call it Communion.

By Monday I begged a day of solitary quiet. However, even then, a big part of my day was filled with chopping and grating and measuring and mixing, making a filling. Let me explain.

Several days ago I’d mentioned to Kathy that I am so hungry for samosas. When we spent that month in India so many years ago, we ate samosas almost every day.

Later Kathy told me she wished I hadn’t mentioned samosas. Now they were all she could think about. So Kathy drove over to my house with printed papers in hand. “Okay, let’s make samosas. Years ago I took a class. It’s not that hard, just time consuming.”

After looking over the directions, I agreed to make the fillings and Kathy would make the dough. Fillings require a lot of mincing and chopping and boiling and frying.  

Tuesday we put our efforts together, rolled out the dough, filled the little pockets, and deep-fried our samosas. Oh, the aromas. Oh, the explosion of flavors. Oh, the deliciousness.

After making sure our samosas passed the critical taste test, of course, we divvied up the remainders for our freezers, treats for when we must go to India again, if only in imagination. We are not sharing this batch of samosas. These are for our own selfish selves.

However, next fall, we plan to make samosas in huge batches and piles and host an Asian foods pot luck. I’ll also bring chicken adobo, a Filipino dish taught me by my daughter, who learned to make this dish when she lived in Japan. Kathy will make one of her signature Thai specialties.

Why wait until next fall? Some of our friends are already headed north. We want to share the goodness with as many as possible. And such a feast takes some pre-planning, some gathering of spices and seeds easier to find elsewhere. That’s Kathy’s task.

Life is pretty fine when we can gather around a table with friends, share good food, stories and lies. Yep. I call it Communion.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Febrero 27, 2025

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The Chicken Woo-Woo Factor

 

The Chicken Woo-Woo Factor

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You must understand that since moving to Mexico I have the smallest kitchen possible. This means that I don’t have standard kitchen helpers, not even such items that my entire life I thought of as essentials, such as a mixer, a roasting pan or even muffin tins.

Basic. Only the bare basics. I do have a hand-held can opener and a wire whip. I could let the wire whip go. It is handy for beating eggs but my eggs are generally well-behaved and seldom require a whipping.

Through the moves, I managed to hang onto some of my cast iron pots. The other day I roasted a chicken in my large cast iron chicken pot. That’s what it is called, a chicken skillet, over-sized, intended for frying chicken pieces for Sunday dinner.

I like to roast chicken in a little liquid on low heat until the chicken falls off the bone, tender and juicy. When I bent into the oven to remove the delectable chicken, done to a turn, I said to myself, “We have a problem, Houston.”

The little liquid, accompanied by the fats and juices from the roasting process, was now doubled. I stood by the open oven door thinking how easy, how horrible it would be to drop the pan. The cast iron pan, the steaming hot chicken, the near-boiling liquid, all together posed a heavy conundrum: how to get the container from oven to cooling rack on the island without damage. Damage to me, my feet and legs, which suddenly seemed to be in the way.

I talked myself through the process, slowly. Doubled the pot holders. I pre-thought every muscle movement. True story. I breathed, in and out, took a deep breath and carefully lifted the heavy pot from oven rack to the island, no steps required, merely a full-body turn. Success.

Big Deal, you might be thinking, rolling your eyes, Big Deal.  Yes, it is a big deal.

It might be time for me to retire my cast iron, search for alternative low-weight pans. It might be a wake-up call. Here’s why: We ain’t getting any younger, chickiedee.

That evening I got this note from Kathy:

               We’re dropping like dominoes.

An eight pound circular wooden cutting board rolled off the open cupboard shelf and landed on my left foot while I was making breakfast. My throbbing foot is elevated and I cannot walk.

Crin, the night before, sliced her finger open, blood everywhere, and spent seven hours in the ER.

Janet was making bone broth in their Arizona home and when she lifted the pot to drain it, one handle broke off and the scalding liquid burned both her feet and ankles. The ER gave her morphine for pain and today she is in the Burn Unit figuring out how to deal with it.

Then Nancie’s daughter called her from Washington to report that she had tripped and spilled an entire pot of beans on her feet.

You’d better take it easy with a book today. We can’t handle any more casualties.

See you in the morning for breakfast.

No kidding, take it easy with a book. Are you seeing what I’m seeing? The Woo-Woo factor? The timing? What made me, for whom impulse control has never been a defining characteristic, “stop to think it through in minute detail” before removing my roasted chicken?

Woo-Woo? Lucky? Grace? A rose by any other name . . .

I like ceremony. An offering of tobacco and oranges. A sage smudge. Incense.  A heartfelt breathing of thanksgiving for all of us.

Served with a chicken sandwich.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

February 20, 2025

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Among the Mung Beans & Family

 

               Among the Mung Beans & Family

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Mung beans have never been my favorite food bean. Pintos. Limas. Navy beans. Yum! Not mung. If you like them, that’s great. I’d rather have spinach.

Well, the other day a woman drove up and off-loaded a huge pile of vines, green and bushy. Ana looked like a tree packing the vines in her arms across our common area. “What are those?” I asked.

“Mung beans. I’m going to cook them now.”

“I’ve only had the dry beans; I’ve never eaten them green and fresh,” I responded, wondering if the difference would be huge, like the difference between green limas and dried lima beans. “I’ll bring you some,” Ana said.

Indeed, she did, indeed. Ana showed up with a serving bowl heaped with mung beans steamed in their little husks. She showed me how to pinch open the husk and eat the bean inside. Hmmm.

I meant to eat a few to be polite. I ate the whole bowlful. In one sitting. I returned the bowl of husks to Ana for the chickens.

What I’m saying is, that you might give fresh mungs a try. It might mean you must plant a patch of mung beans. Harvest them green. Steam them tender. Yummy.

I lost another person from my life this last week. Over the past few months I’ve thought a lot about the importance of Family, Friends, Community.

The woman who died was not close to me but she was a constant in my life. Loss, all loss, hurts the same hurt. I met her at a CYC dance when I was in high school. Then later knew her at three very separate times in my life. I liked and respected this woman.

At my age, Community, sharing feelings of solidarity, being family, chosen and by blood, matters. I cringe to say that with age it “matters more”. At any rate, I think about these things frequently, ponder the importance of people in my life, love them more.

Take yesterday. Ana and Michelle had a BBQ Potluck at their home. There were eight of us, a small group, comfortable, easily able to converse around the large oval table.  

Steve and Judy, their friends from Seattle, were strangers to the rest of us. Three of the group are friends of mine. They know Ana and Michelle, but not well.

We came together that afternoon as a mixture of strangers, acquaintances, friends. You might say each one of us was an individual mung bean in our husk. It is rarely, in my experience, that the magic spoon stirs us around as it did yesterday.

By the time we sat down at the table to eat, plates heaped with deliciousness, we were friends, one and all. By the time we left the table, we were family. I don’t know how else to say it. It is a rare and beautiful magic that melded us.

Later, I wafted across to my casa, feet never touching the ground, while the rest of the group settled down to watch The Game.

I avoid the Super Bowl, avoid it assiduously. The last time I went to a Super Bowl party, I married the man with whom I went. Dangerous things, those Super Bowls.

I’ve had a whole week of mung bean wonderfulness, letters and pictures from family, visits from friends, all of us connected with heart threads, Community.

Yes, at my age, I watch as people I know and love make their exit. Magically, I also watch as new friends enter my life and cement in as family. Magic? Natural? Grace? Who cares? I don’t question it. I love it.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

February 13, 2025

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Incarcerated by Dude and the Domestic Gene

 

               Incarcerated by Dude and the Domestic Gene

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Not really, not incarcerated. Looks a little like Ft. Knox with my muchly reinforced boundary fence to keep Dude out of my patio. I am not Dude’s keeper. Ana’s brother Lito is Dude’s keeper while Ana is gone on holiday.

The first couple of days that my friend have been gone, Dude, the dog with a neurological disease plus dementia, chewed through several feet of chicken wire. Lito soon reinforced those vulnerable areas. A little like Ft. Knox. Without any gold. No razor wire.

I discovered something about myself. While I battled to keep Dude in her own space, battled mainly out of concern for my new screen doors, which to Dude would be dessert, I found that pushing her out with a broom handle for forty-five minutes made me physically sick to my stomach and psychically ill.

I cannot fight Dude. It doesn’t help her. It makes me sick.

After consultation with my daughter, who knows more about behavior modification than I ever knew, I quit force-feeding Dude her “relax” pills. I had to teach Dude that I am no longer a source of goodies. I had been blithely stuffing them in the same mouth that chews wire. I really wanted to stuff them into my own mouth. R-e-l-a-x!

I decided the screen doors were not that important if she eats the screens, she is the one who must digest them, not me.

I closed my doors and opened the windows for sun and air flow and determined to stay inside my house, out of Dude’s sight lines.  This is not forever. Next week we will revert to normal, whatever that is.

Fortunately, this decision to stay inside my house activated my long dormant Stepford Wife Domestic Gene.

The first day of self-jail I whipped up a piecework tablecloth. Quite nice, I say.

I found my blouse pieces I had cut out back in September, made some modifications, and shall have that finished tomorrow. The blouse is piecework, patchwork.

I whipped up two batches of bread-and-butter pickles and a batch of dills. That filled all my empty pint jars. I’m grateful that I can order things such as cucumbers, fresh, and the size I want, from my local fruteria.

Today I jammed a batch of mangos, jars now cooling on my kitchen island.

Stepford or not, I’m not without diversions.

Leo took me out for a big shopping trip one day. We ate out. I stocked up with food from the Pepe’s Fruteria, the Mini-Super, the herb and seed shop, the cremeria, the dulceria and the Bodega. My larder is full. I also bought an assortment of threads to feed my sewing machine.

Kathy, Lani and Nancie and I had lunch another day at the new taqueria at the entrance to Oconahua. What a fun time, good food, lots of stories and catching up.

My friends who are exploring pyramids, swimming in cenotes and riding the Mayan Tren, will soon be home.

Then I’ll be spending my days in sloth, puttering with my plants, reading on the patio, wondering what happened to the Domestic Dynamo.

Just call me Sally Allie Apron.

Looking out my back door

February 6, 2025

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Dude, the Dementia Dog

 

Dude, the Dementia Dog

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Poor thing. She’s elderly, has hip pain, a neurological disease and dementia, which is also neurological, I’m told.

Who knows what goes on in a dog’s brain. As if the above were not enough, Dude thinks I’m hers. I wonder who I was in her past life, or who she thinks I was.

She is a large dog. In size, comparable to a Labrador or German Shepard. This gal is long-bodied and blonde. Perhaps blondes do have more fun. She would be happy if she could sit in my lap all day. I shudder to think.

Most of the time this is not a problem. My area is private, a “one-dog yard”. My fence is a clever blending of various discarded sections of wrought iron rescued from a junk yard, painted white.

I share a common area with my neighbors and landladies in which their dogs, Dude, Paco and Monkey, run and play with my dog, Lola. Lola lives with me. Not on my lap, but in her doghouse on the patio. Lola goes back and forth, from home ground to the common area.

The first time Dude breached my fence, she squeezed between openings in the wrought iron, through space logically impossible. (Open space is X wide. Dude is XYZ in width. Do the math.)

Once in my patio, getting Dude to move out was logically impossible. Dude is impervious to pain, curses, pushes, pulls, ropes, cajoling, pleading and prayer. She simply splayed herself onto the ground as if locked in with Gorilla Glue, looked up with big brown eyes and said in dawg, “I wuff you.”

A generous application of chicken wire secured the breached section of fence.

At the time of day when Sundowner Syndrome takes over Dude’s brain, I am usually on the patio, relaxing with a book. Back and forth, back and forth, Dude paces, just outside my fence, with an occasional whimper rcombined with gazes of adoration. I harden my heart.

One day she discovered that if I sat in a certain chair and if she stretched her neck to the ultimate length, salad-plate paws atop that section of fence, she could lay her head on my shoulder. Think 1950s love songs. Dude is not Paul Anka.

Dude, being a dog of little brain, took a couple weeks to figure out that if she scrabbled one hind leg up just enough to imbed her claws in chicken wire, this section of fence also being reinforced, and, remember, she is impervious to pain, the fourth leg would eventually follow. Up, up and over. Once, twice, thrice. Easy.

Ordinarily, Dude would not dominate our lives. However, Ana and Michelle have planned a needed vacation, a Mayan Train tour up the Yucatan, with friends. They don’t want me to have to lap sit Dude the whole time they are gone.

Hence, extraordinary activity these past days has included reinforcing my privacy fence with tall sections of heavy wire-grid panels. The panels do the trick while enhancing the look of the place.

Raising the fence necessitated moving my rotary clothesline, which had been wired to a fence post. Not a problem. Back to my Plan A which was to imbed the post in a large trash can filled with concrete. Works like a dream.

Changing location of the clothesline also meant changing location of several of my potted herbs and mini-garden. The entire arrangement is more pleasing to the eye, which is more pleasing to me. Wins all around.

One more positive thing out of this whole emotional mess is that we have discovered that Lola has therapy dog qualities. When Dude is anxious, Lola helps settle her down.

My friends and guests are off on a Train adventure. I’m not Dude’s caretaker. Laundry is hanging on the line. I’m listening to Paul Anka sing the lyrics to “Put your head on my shoulder.”  What could possibly go wrong?

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

January 30, 2025

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It’s not on the map!

 

                                             It’s not on the map!

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Kathy is my friend who first introduced me to Mexico. I am Kathy’s friend who first introduced her to Etzatlan. Beware introductions. We both ended up moving to Etzatlan.

Kathy and I have known one another twenty plus years. Those years translate into frequent opportunities to share experiences, get lost, explore places we should not have poked our noses. In other words, we know how to have fun.

Since mid-November I’ve been settling into my new casita in Oconahua, enjoying exploring the country ‘round and about.

Kathy drove over for a visit with a purpose. We were going to head into the center of this little town to see just what is available in the many little tiendas. I was almost out of toothpaste and needed tomatoes and bananas. Purpose.

We turned left instead of right. No, we were not lost. The property on which I live ends at an arroyo, deep and wide. Directly across this canyon is San Rafael, not a city, but a hacienda, private property on which so many people have built homes that it has become its own small community.

I wanted to show Kathy the tiny, beautiful church as well as the smallest schoolhouse I’ve ever seen. Surely not more than a dozen students could crowd inside. But it is the prettiest little school you’d ever want to see.

“Where does this road go?” asked Kathy.

“I don’t know. I suspect it dead ends at a rancho. I’ve never been further than this. But I know that past San Rafael we leave Jalisco and enter Nayarit.”

That’s all it took. We had to know. The street became a narrow highway, mostly paved, mostly pitted, but not too severely. Narrow, winding, up hill and down dale. Through the loveliest country, ever higher. We wandered along slowly, entranced, taking in the ever-changing vegetation, colors, bushes and trees, winding ever higher and higher. We wended through corn fields, meadows with cattle, and climbed high mountain vistas.

We reached the top of the pass and way, way, way down there, nestled like a chick in its nest, an impossible tiny village, a fairy land of forty or fifty buildings.

There was no decision to make. We had to go see.

(In the interests of full disclosure, if you are going to make this trip, be sure to take water and strong stomachs. Motion sickness possible.)

At the bottom of the road, and I do mean the bottom, with trepidation we crossed an ancient stone bridge over a dry river bed, smack into the middle of town. We drove every street, short streets, most of which ended in someone’s yard or field. We saw the plaza, the school, the health center, the church. That was it, this tiny town out in what we deemed the middle of nowhere in Nayarit.

“Let’s find a tienda de abarrotes. I need a drink.”

“I need a snack.”

The tienda, closed, that we first drove past coming into town, several minutes previously, now had an open door. An open door is like an open road, right? One must go inside.

All the sidewalks (here and in most towns) have impossibly high steps up from the street. When the rain comes, the streets become fast-running waterways.

I indicated to the gentleman who came out the door to greet us that I needed help. He gave me his hand, helped me up the step, and introduced himself.

Senor Moses Gomez quickly scoped out the we are gringos. He spoke impeccable English, had worked construction in the US for thirty-five years. This man said to us, “People are good.” In his actions he demonstrated that yes, indeed, “People are good.” I needed to hear that.

We had a delightful conversation, bought our unhealthy drinks and equally unhealthy snacks and inquired if there might be an alternate route back we could explore.

Senor Gomez hesitantly told us we could go to Amitlan de Cana and back to Oconahua. He poked his head out the door to see what we drove. “Return the way you came. The other road is not passable. Nobody uses it.” We assured him we treasured his advice, said our “adios” and back tracked across the stone bridge and up the mountain.

The little town of about 200 folks at the end of the road is named Jesus Maria. If you want to go, you won’t find it on the map. But Kathy and I are delighted to be your tour guides.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

January 23, 2025

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How We See Ourselves

 

               How We See Ourselves

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Every time I thought of my cousin, who had just had heart surgery, I found myself angry. I mean spitting angry, upset, because it seemed the man was not taking care of himself, was ignoring the sensible cautions, being a he-man gorilla, invincible.

Finally, after a full couple of weeks of growling, I asked myself, “Why so angry?”

Well, that question stopped me in my tracks. After some deep digging through my own rubble heap of rationalizations, I realized that I was afraid. I don’t want to lose my cousin. We all go sometime, but, please, not to foolishness, not when a little care might mean years of good life.

You know what? My cousin’s decisions are none of my business. I can care and do care. But maybe my cousin has his reasons. I realized that my anger was a cover for grieving.

I was reminded of my feeble attempts half my lifetime ago to present myself as always calm, serene, at peace. I wanted others to see me in this perfect picture but even more, this is the way I wanted to see myself. I was devouring self-help books back then, one after another. Ommm.

The truth was that I was a mere breath away from a panic attack most of that time. I was trying to cover up, to bury my real feelings. I was a right wringing mess.

A perceptive doctor, a good counselor and a circle of friends not afraid to laugh at me and with me pulled me through that foolishness. Not overnight, mind you. It took years. Obviously, I’m not done yet.

I pretty much no longer care how other people view me. Pretty much. I do care that I view myself with honesty, no matter what. That pretty, perfect picture I used to dream flew out the door long ago. You might have seen my shadow fly over!

Over the years I’ve learned we seldom see ourselves as others see us. Yes, thank you, Mrs. Hunter, I do remember the poem. I always loved Robert Burns. He had a sense of humor.

“O, wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us,

An’ foolish notion.”

This last year particularly, I have lost too many good and true friends.

Grief. Anger. Self pity. Tears. Shocking language. Along with compassion and love. I wear it all, for anybody to see, to hear.

So, yes, I’ve lost a lot of friends. But, mercy me, look at the friends around me. They still love me or at least, tolerate me.

Just yesterday Jim came over to hang doors on my kitchen cupboard. I waited and waited and waited for the young local workman to do it when finally I realized he was being Mexican polite, saying yes, not to offend me, putting me last on his “maybe” list.

Jim shooed me out onto the patio, out of his way and got to work. Within an hour I had the rare chance to ask, “How they hangin’, Jim?”

Today John and Carol are coming over, bringing a pot of bean soup. They want to visit before taking off for Pacific beaches. I’ll make a salad. Michelle and Ana from next door will bring tortillas and some other delight.

Tomorrow, Kathy and I are going to explore some of the wee grocery stores here in Oconahua. She and I have long history and experience for making fun with mundane chores. I simply want to know what I can get here and what I need to put on my list for Etzatlan.

I hate to run off but I need to sweep the leaves off the patio and set the table. See you next week, my most tolerant friends.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

January 16, 2025

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The Last (Wo)Man Standing

 

The Last (Wo)Man Standing

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The last three years I have lost too many friends, good and true.

There is an expression that’s been making the rounds. “Today is a good day to die.” Where did that nonsense come from? The Lakota? The Greeks? Personally, I blame Hollywood, easy to blame, a nonentity, an imaginary force with a lot to answer for in the Grand Scheme of things. That’s what I think.

If I am to lay blame, I guess I blame all of us who dance to the Hollywood Tune like lemmings running to the sea, “Come on baby, let’s do the twist”.

I say, “Today is not a good day to die.” I miss my friends. There are few of us left with like experiences. When I count the few, it makes for very lonely feelings. My lost friends show up in my dreams. Then I wake up and remember.

Yes, I am awake and I am glad to be alive this day. Not that I felt like I was going to die. I feel healthier than I’ve felt in the past ten years, truth to tell.

However. Funny, there is often a “however”. Here’s mine. However, I had a typical woman-scare last week, one I share with many women. Made an appointment to see a gynecologist. While I had no thoughts of dying, I had thoughts of invasive procedures, of surgery, of long recovery. Okay, I was scared off my tree limb.

In the olden days, when I was younger, I would have gone through this whole scary thing by myself and told my friends all about it later, after it was over, whatever “it” was. Not today. I immediately wrote to all my friends, those of my generation as well as those much younger. I gave details for which you will thank me that I spared you. I would have told you as well but this whole process took very little time.

My good news, now that I’ve seen the specialist, answered ten million personal questions and had an exam, is that I don’t have to have an invasive procedure of any kind. I don’t have to have surgery. For relief, I need to do simple exercises. The rest of my life.

I woke up this morning. Today is a good day to live. I did my exercises. Today is a gift.

One of my young friends says that to her, any day after one reaches fifty years is a gift. It wasn’t that long ago in real time that fifty years was an old-age goal.

Am I afraid to die? Well, I don’t know. I haven’t experienced that yet so how would I know? I am afraid of surgery. I’ve been under the knife seven times. That’s seven times too many. My body is a mechanical mess, thanks to a car wreck when I was a mere twenty-three years. Otherwise, I feel pretty dang fine.

I’m glad to have this shivery winter day. Today may be a good day to die. I’ve no guarantee.

On awakening I realized the past few days I had felt like I was on hold. None of my normal activities appealed. Oh, wait. It was my own finger of fear that had hit the pause button.

But this one thing I know—today is a good day to live.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

January 9, 2025

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Calendar and Curmudgeon

Calendar and Curmudgeon

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My friends roll their eyes and tell me they think I am nuts. I don’t argue. Every year I draw out a calendar by hand, a page for each month, an empty box for each day, in which I can note in cryptic form those things which I wish to remember, such as CBD80 (Crin’s birthday-80) or Lola-rabies or annual water bill due.

When I draw my new pages, I review the old, plug in necessary annual items and leave blank the other boxes to be filled in as each day passes. My year-end review is bittersweet. I note the day we went up to La Mesa. I note the day Al died. The day I moved my bed and stove and dog into my new casita.

And so it goes. Ah, yes, that was a good book that came in June. Oh, do I ever recall the day my rotary clothesline finally arrived. Mundane, yes. Some days stay blank. But most days bring up memories.

I grew up on a farm with the kind of calendar, free from the Farmer’s Coop or State Farm, each page with a pocket into which one stuffed monthly bills, also with space on each day to write important notices. Few of my notices are important. My calendar marks time.

My friends have all their information on their I-phones. I watch them scroll through hundreds of apps. I prefer my piece of paper in its stand next to my computer. We each use what works for us.

Usually I dread Calendar Day, in which I gather pencil, papers and ruler, ready to draw lines, horizontal and vertical. I generally look for distractions, ways to procrastinate prior to and during the process. Some years my calendar-making stretches over two or three days. This year I found it sweet, done Christmas afternoon, a gift of memories.

One year my cousin Nancie brought me a beautiful calendar, big blank boxes for each date, just the trick. You must realize that Nancie does love a good bargain. I used that calendar three days before I realized it was for the two years previous. The laugh was on me and I never told Nancie.

Today I am marking in the first blank boxes of my new year, hoping for the sweet to continue.  

The Curmudgeon I speak of is me. I’ve crashed bang against the wall. Surely, I am simply tired from months of packing, purging, making decisions, changing purposes of various furnishings, making the actual move, unpacking, more purging, more decisions, more painting, more building, more, more, more of seemingly everything!

I’m almost to the end of work, almost done, almost. Unless, I have one more storage cabinet built for my bedroom. Unless I re-arrange my under-stairway storage—which I suspect will be necessary before the rainy season.

This entire grouping of holiday days has been filled with friends visiting, pot-lucking, dinners, picnics, nearly every single day. Fun, yes, and I love it. But, whew!

Never have I been so popular. Certainly, I saw my friends frequently at the rancho, five minutes here, ten minutes there, sometimes an hour over cups of tea. I’m still the same me, not prettier nor richer nor more powerful. Older. Yes. Older.

Ah, the alure of change. My new setting. No longer a neighbor next door, now I’m the hostess. I’ll best be the hostess with the moistest while it lasts. Soon I’ll be old-hat again, rumpled and crumpled and comfortable.

Today, however, I am a curmudgeon and turn away all comers.

Happy New Year.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

January 2 in the New Year

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