To Be or Not to Be

 

               To Be or Not to Be

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I’m a “doer”. It’s the way I was raised up. My family never sat me down and discussed choices. If “be” came into any discussion, it was accompanied with a “not”, such as, “do not be idle”. Ever.

There is nothing wrong with that. It served me well. I suspect Life gives us what we need to cope.

Along the years I became aware that my life worked better if I balanced “do” with a smidgeon of “be”. Little bits at a time. Things like a day at the hot springs with the kids. Or an afternoon walk along the river. Little bits.

Then came physical challenges that nudged me to choose retirement and a whole new way of life came into being for me. I’ve never run out of things to do, things to do that I like to do. I gradually developed a “guide”, if you will, or way to approach each day.

Every morning I begin with a list, mental or written, of things to do. By one or two o’clock, I’ve pretty much finished my list. With one exception. I like to leave one of the items listed for tomorrow, sort of a seed. That leaves me my afternoon free to relax, read, putter in plants, just “be”.

It never works, of course. The list gets muddled. Opportunities for being come in the morning. I pay attention. Sometimes afternoon gives over to doing. Almost always, life brings an entirely different agenda than mine.

Take the other day, for example. I had a quite extensive list of things I intended to do. My phone rang at 8:30 in the morning. Leo asked, “Would you like to go to Oconahua for breakfast?” There is a small open-air eatery with excellent food.

“Yes, of course.” After we’d eaten breakfast, I asked Leo if he’d take me to the little hospital for a flu shot, one of the items on my floating list, and then as long as we were back in Etzatlan, I’d do a little grocery shopping. My plan.

After my flu shot I revised my plan. “I feel really good, Leo, but I’d like to go home. I can give you my grocery list.”

Doctors here in Mexico advise us to take the day, to do no work, after any kind of vaccination. It makes sense. Being a compliant patient, (here I sense every doctor I’ve ever had cringe at that outright untruth), I spent the entire rest of the day immersed in a good book. I bumped my list of things-to-do into tomorrow.

The following day, still feeling quite healthy, I also felt that I wanted another do-nothing day. So I granted that gift to myself. Bumped my list into the next tomorrow.

This went on for three entire days. Mind you, I’m not a total sloth. Lots of little things got done. Dishes did not pile in the sink. The bed got made daily. Lola got fed and walked. I took care of myself. Cooked my meals. Visited with friends, some I went to, some came to me.

Along the way, I paid attention. Little things, mostly. A pair of Western Tanagers in the bottle brush tree, surrounded by six fledgling hummingbirds, all feeding on the flowers that look like brushes. Hours out in the mottled shade of the mango tree, just watching, listening, smelling, feeling the breeze, being. I spent some hours thinking about my mother and her side of my family, felt another layer of my personal onion skin peel away. That kind of being.

Those three days gifted me. I didn’t set out looking for anything, no agenda at all. It’s hard for me to put this into words. I feel more complete. Grounded in a better way or different way. The simple moments are the most precious.

Guess what! My list of things to do did not disappear. It’s all still there for me to do. Tomorrow I absolutely must mop the floor and iron that pile of clothing before the pieces begin mating and multiplying. Absolutely must. Unless something or someone comes along to change my mind. Life. Ya gotta love it.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

December 18, 2025

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Winter, No Wonderland!

 

               Winter, No Wonderland!

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My family has returned to the Cold, Frozen North where Winter is firmly entrenched, leaving me alone down here in the cold, but not frozen, southland.

My house is empty but my heart is full.

Today I plugged in my little portable heater for the first time. Woke to pelting rain in the night.  No storm or wind. By morning, the rain settled into a steady light rain, hour after hour after hour.

I realize it is hard for you to dig deeply to find sympathy for my cold woes but please keep in mind my house is made of one layer of brick, no insulation, no heat source. I recall with great fondness my beloved Hearthstone Woodstove from my former home in Winter Wet-Cold Washington.

That said, I also must report that with my new windows, my wee heater is doing a good job of keeping me from huddling in blankets all day.

Meanwhile, please feel free to grab onto all your feelings of superiority and lord it over me, the wuss of winter, griping because my house is cold and damp. I do remember, with no fondness, Montana winters with freezing rains, snow which turns to ice, cars with plug-ins sticking out the front, snow shovels, bitter winds, clunky Sorel boots and puffy parkas that turn the population into Dough Boys.

I grew up huddled in a rocking chair over a floor vent over the furnace in the basement, so, really, sitting in a chair near my little heater, book in hand, waiting until the warm comes, is not so different from old times.

Full disclosure. True, there are not that many similarities. Today is cold. Tomorrow will be warmer. We are assured of much colder days here in this rather temperate country. But the cold days are interspersed with afternoons which bring toasty warmth. And by February, most of the cold has creeped back to its den, wherever that is.

Winter. People are beginning to string Christmas lights and a few decorations. Tiendas display more toys and gifty items. I miss my daughter and my grandson. I’m grateful that we had a great week together.

Today’s rain is just that—Today’s rain. No snow, no ice, no wind. My winter.

Sondra Ashton,  HWC: Looking out my back door, December 11, 2025

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Greetings!

 

Greetings!

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Sondra, otherwise known as my mom, has decided to take a break from writing this week because she is busy entertaining my son and me.  Two months ago, I decided if mom wouldn’t come to me, I had better go to her. 

I am not known for vacationing.  It has been 6-7 years since we have seen each other except over Zoom.  We talk daily, but it truly isn’t the same. 

In case come for a visit, I will give you an idea of what it was like for me.  I got the passport and tickets, then let mom know the dates.  The trip here is rather easy until you get to the connection in Salt Lake.  Many nationalities were seen in the waiting area to go to Mexico.  The messages were only in Spanish.  Luckily Tyler has a language translator on his phone.  We caught about ¼ of the messages.  We got on the plane.  

The view over Guadalajara was so beautiful.  The mountains and trees and green grasses were lovely.  When we landed, we followed the crowd to get our passports scanned at security, declared at customs, showed our passports a few times. They will either check your luggage or shoot you through to the outdoors.  We got sent on our way.

Mom’s friend Leo picked us up at Starbucks.  We went to the car and prepared for a 1.5-4-hour trip, depending on traffic.   Leo is a wonderful tour guide.  He showed us all the new construction to sponsor the next Olympics.   The sights and sounds of the flowers, birds, trees mingled with the buildings and shanties.  We stopped at a little overhang where a family sold ice cream.  Flavors nothing like I’d had before.  I got vanilla and it reminded me of snow ice cream.  Leo got elote (corn) and it truly tasted like corn.  I decided it was best to skip the tequila ice cream.

I had asked mom not to schedule any major site seeing because I just wanted to rest and be.  My first view of mom’s home is exactly as the pictures and descriptions she has given before.  Her brick home is small and full of color and personality.  Her outdoor areas are covered in fruit trees and plants that people back home pay a lot for to have a tiny bit in a pot.  Here they grow wild.  She has a pathos on the garden wall with leaves twelve inches across and 18 inches long!  The patio is covered and has a seating area that is so relaxing.  I can look from the patio through mom’s whole house because the windows are so large and watch the butterflies flitting around from flower to flower in her backyard.   

We have done a little shopping in town, and the sights and sounds have been so fun.  I am not sure I am brave enough to drive here yet.  The roads are frequently made of cobblestones or red dirt with many sharp rocks. In towns, the streets are close together and there is little room for one car to get through.  If there is asphalt, there have been speed bumps very close together. 

We went to a cathedral, Templo de la Purisima Conconcepcion. In English, The Temple of the Immaculate Conception, which is over 500 years old!  Everything was beautiful. 

The stores are not like the stores at home.   They may be 10 feet wide at the most.  On one street there was a brick maker, drinks maker, fruit stand, tortilla maker, and used clothes and shoes for sale.  Little tables are set to eat on the sidewalks. 

At a stand we went to for breakfast, I had the best refried beans I have ever had in my life.  While we ate, we watched as a man across the way whacked the tops off coconuts and prepared the milk and fruit for sale.  Dogs, cats, and birds roam freely.  I haven’t seen any bad animal and/or children behavior.

My son Tyler is more adventurous and has gone sightseeing with friends or walking to the stores for something to eat or drink. 

I lounged under the trees and chatted and read to my heart’s content.

I am writing this with the sound of birds, geckos, and wind chimes in the background.   It is time for siesta here.  I love this time of day.  I may have to bring the institution of siesta back home. 

Deborah Robart for Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

December 4, 2025

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Renta Goat?

 

Renta Goat?

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For my daughter’s visit, it was necessary for me to rent a car. Etzatlan is not the Big City. Leo, our all-around helper for anything necessary, makes a lot of the Big City Trips.

A few years back Leo quit driving his own car for the back-and-forth airport runs. Around town, hey, no problema. His car has aged out of the long trips. Kind of like me.

Several years ago an enterprising local entrepreneur in town began purchasing automobiles for rental purposes. He started out with a multi-person van, seats ten. We rented it with the driver the year we had our class reunion here in Etzatlan. These days he has a fleet of rental vehicles, a very small fleet.

Leo took me to the rental garage, way out on the west end of town, to see what cars were available. I wanted one large enough for four long-legged adults to ride in comfort.

The Rental Man had a quite large storage building. I don’t know how many cars he has in total. The day I went to look at those available, he had three cars plus three large ten-to-twelve people carriers plus empty spaces for other vehicles.

In the back of the garage, he had a stable with two horses and a goat and an area for chickens. This is not Hertz or Enterprise or Budget.  

Leo and the Rental Man entered into what might have been haggling but was more likely something like this: “How’s your Dad doing these days?” “Pretty good for an old man. You know, some days good and some days harder.” “Your brother still working in Fresno?” “Oh, no, he’s in Phoenix these days, managing a gaggle of Auto Zone stores.” “Say, I heard your Grandmother passed. My condolences.”

This kind of conversation can go on for hours and often does. It is the polite way of easing the way into the real business. We Americanos are rude. We just say, “How much and where do I sign?”

I have just enough Espanol to be rude and not enough to be polite.

I wandered over to talk to the horses and goat while the men conversed.

After a while, Leo took me aside to see which car I wanted. I eyeballed one of the big people carriers just to watch Leo blanche. That’s my kind of vehicle. Then I chose the larger car, the one with the most leg room.

I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if the goat pulled a cart.  

Sondra Ashton HWC: Looking out my back door, November 26, 2025

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Under the Mango Tree

 

      Under the Mango Tree

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I am happy to report that I’m back in my proper domicile, which is no longer a sieve, newly windowed, and I revel in the changes.

The five weeks it took to achieve the changes left me discombobulated. When my house is out of order, I am out of order.

My home with wraparound windows, with hardly any walls between them, has always made me feel like I live outdoors, beneath the trees. Without the iron curlicues dividing up the window spaces, my views are even more unobstructed. I like that opening a window does not take up indoor geography. I like that when windows are closed, wind, noise, dust and rain stay outside.

 During the weeks my life was a mess, my new favorite place has become in the back yard, under the mango tree. I planted the mango my first year here and now my tree reaches to shade a sitting area no matter the sun’s place in the sky.

November is heading toward December at lickity-splickity pace. The Fresno trees, like the Cottonwoods up north, are either dressed in golden yellow or naked. The Fresnos stand tall and straight, unlike the tortured-looking Cottonwoods.

The Jacarandas are beginning to drop their seed pods, which resemble clam shells on the beach. The African Tulip Trees are in full orange bloom, as is my Magnolia.

What rather stuns me is my Fuerte Avocado tree, which now sports a full head of blossoms, completely out of season. This year there was no fruit during the normal time for fruit. Now it is near winter and the poor confused thing has flowers?

Another change, that bothers me greatly, is that there are hardly any yellowhead blackbirds, whose flocks in the thousands always darkened the ground with shadow for minutes at a time. We seem to be right in the path of the flyover and watching their movements, morning and evening, was pure joy. It is painful to see a hundred or so, some days maybe two hundred, some days none. What happened? Where are they? It’s a mystery.

My Lime trees are filled with fruits in various sizes, true to their season. My new Fig tree, still baby small, has baby fruits, maybe ready to eat in a month. My Lavender Tree, otherwise known as a Grapefruit, has sixteen marble-sized fruits!

Bees, birds, butterflies and me, under the Mango tree, watching fruit and flowers grow. Life doesn’t get much better than this.

Sondra Ashton, HWC: Looking out my back door, November 20, 2025

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Reboot My Brain

 

               Reboot My Brain

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We are not talking about windows this week.

We can mention weather, which is the usual here for December and January but my calendar says this is November. I might be wrong.

Why didn’t God or First Impulse or Great Spirit or Whatever make us with zerts in our joints to which we oldandwornoutones could lovingly apply a grease gun and then be able to move on these cold mornings?

What I can tell you with some certainty is that even from the depths of my frustrations and disappointments, I knew that I needed to reboot my brain.

I dragged my oldandwornoutbody over to my cousin Nancie’s and invited her and our other neighbor in residence, Lani, to the fancy coffee shop in town for cappuccinos and breakfast croissants. My treat.

To me, this is rather a special place. I don’t go often because I want it to remain special. I always enter the shop with one of their yummy cakes in mind, but by the time I’ve eaten most of my breakfast croissant, I no longer want cake. More’s the pity.

Last time I visited this coffee shop was in April. Nancie and Lani agreed that it is indeed a great place and maybe we could go a little more frequently and still honor the specialness. I concur.

I’ve things to do, things I want to do now that my brain has had some laughs and a smidgeon of gossip and fellowship with friends, in other words, successful reboot. Maybe, just maybe, by this time next week I will be living back in my casa, watching butterflies through my new, you know, those glassy things in the walls.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

November 13, 2025

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My Walk On the Dark Side

 

My Walk On the Dark Side

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When I began writing this column, I determined to be as honest as I could be, that if my life took a grim turn, I’d say so, not pretend everything is whirly girly.

Most of you know the legend of the wolves but I’ll give a brief recap. A wise man told his grandson that within us, we all harbor two wolves, who vie for our attention. The gray wolf encourages us to love, to respect, to give honor when due, to do good. The black wolf revels in hatred, rage, despair and all dark deeds. His grandson contemplated these words several days, returned to ask, “How do we know which wolf wins?”

“The one we feed,” Grandfather answered. The other night my black wolf grew sleek and fat, sated.

It’s all about my current project of replacing my old-style, sieve-like, windows with a modern version which keeps out the wind, rain, and a goodly portion of dust. After three weeks camping out in my bodega, I hoped to be able to tell you this week that I am back in my sparkly clean house. It’s not to be.

I had had a sleepless, pain-filled night but that is no excuse. This kind of night cycles through my life periodically. Usually, the following day is different.

After three weeks, the bottom portions of my windows are in place. Mr. Window Man has to go to Guadalajara to form the arched top framework using specialized machinery. He took templates of the arch of each window.

In Guadalajara, a city of over 6,000,000  people and more ways in and out than the entire Montana State (unverified), that morning, at about 10:00, corn farmers instituted a protest at the government-set price of corn, and blockaded every single entrance into the huge city with multiple layers of farm machinery. That evening, Window Man borrowed a scooter to get home, leaving his truck hostage with my window frames in The City.

As an aside, I support the corn farmers, no matter my inconvenience.

All traffic into and out of the City was at a standstill. In our little town, people went into a panic, drained every drop from the two gas stations and cleared shelves of groceries.

Me, I went walking on my dark side, black wolf by my side, wagging with encouragement. My thinking, flawed, went something like this: If it takes three weeks to remove ten windows, replace eight of the bottom portions, minus screens and caulking, how long will it take for the tops to be made.

Do the math! Certainly, do the math without adequate information. I’m skilled at this, by the way. The blockade is of unknown duration. If my windows require four trips to Guadalajara, that might well put us through November into December. I have family visiting the final week of November.

I’ll spare you the details of most of my figuring, the imagined days sitting in my bodega, wrapped in quilts, icicles hanging from my frozen nose, while birds flew in and out the open windows of my unusable house. I managed to drag the project all the way into the new year. My family arrived and we spent each night in a hotel, lived on street tacos. I created an entire drama/tragedy while my Black Wolf smiled.

The entire following day, aware of what I had done, I was as useless as a wrung-out, dirty, wet dishrag.

By mid-day the third day of the blockade, the farmers and the federal and state governments had negotiated a significant raise in price, allowing the farmers to begin harvesting.

The next day, Window Man installed three of the arched tops of my windows. I’ve not seen him since.

I’m still holed up in my bodega, living life on the small side, hanging out by a fingernail around the farthest edge of bright. I’ve been assured that my windows will get installed and I’ll have time to clean my house of concrete chips and brick dust before family arrives. While I’m not that confident, I’m determined to not be seduced by my Black Wolf, much as it hangs about, wanting me to pet it.

For me, this is a mere inconvenience. I’m not starving, homeless, nor scared. I still have a bed to sleep in and that is no small thing.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

November 6, 2025

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What Was I Thinking?

 

               What Was I Thinking?

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I know it is a good idea. It is. However, it is disrupting my entire life. Chaos for an unknown period of time. If only I had headed to the coast for a month of vacation, taken myself out of the mess. Oh, right. Limited funds. Vacation on coast versus new windows of the modern kind. Choice made.

Windows won. Winter’s coming on. My casita is one of the oldest here in our little compound. I love the aesthetic quality of my old wrought iron enclosed windows. Large, arched, drafty windows which wrap around my entire house. No walls, just windows. Wind and rain enter my house, not at will, but freely and frequently, if only during windy storms.

Living in Oconahua this past year of seasons, in a house with modern aluminum framed windows, I discovered that they are better at insulation, at keeping out rain and wind and dust and even the heat in the hottest months. I’ll still have all the wonderful light. With a mental boo-hoo, I choose to trade aesthetics for comfort.

That’s why I’m camping out in my bodega with a minimum of necessities. My poor house is overrun with men with hammers and chisels, overrun with chips of concrete and brick dust and bits of broken glass. (Men with hammers equal broken glass.)

In the mornings I go to my house early and make a pot of coffee. Everything is covered with sheets, including the kitchen stove and sink. Leo brings me street food mid-morning. My only real meal. Today it is tacos barbacoa. Yummy. The rest of the time I forage, which means cookies and such. This is not healthy. In the afternoon I opened a packet of tuna and ate it, as is. When an unadorned packet of tuna is appealing, you know you are at wit’s end. And this is only day three.

The hardest part for me is not knowing when I can “go home”. Home will mean days of clean up, laundering sheets and towels and tablecloths filled with dust, putting furniture back in place, washing every surface. Daunting. Yes. But preferable to lounging with cookies and my kindle all day.

Came day four, no men showed up. What? When will they be back? Maybe three, maybe four days. Shrug. After all, it is the last three days of October Fiesta. I uncovered my kitchen and cleaned like a mad woman.

Eight of my ten windows have the large bottom section installed, that is minus the arches which are made separately in Guadalajara. Those spaces are open to birds and bugs, lizards and scorpions. However, I spent the day shoveling debris and sweeping and clearing my kitchen space. Face planted into a filet of salmon.

Day five, back in the kitchen, making more food to carry me over the next invasion of men with hammers and chisels. Ginger chicken feast today.  

Day six, not feeling so frantic. Grind beans for coffee. Make two liters of agua fresca. Bake cookies. Mornings are cold in my house of many openings. My homemade tomato soup today, more food prep. I dislike having no estimate of when chaos will be finished, although I know the foolishness of depending on an estimate.

Last night was the last night of the annual ten-day October fiesta. Close by a horde of barbarians made noise from near dark until first light of false dawn. I hesitate to call the clamor music. Loud, it invaded even my cave of a bodega.

Day seven. Leo and Eddie will remove the final two windows. More mess. Progress. I yearn to clean. Some of the arches may show up tomorrow. How long will cauling take? These windows are huge.

Perhaps, perhaps, next week I can return home. Perhaps I’ll have lovely new windows. I’ll let you know. Meanwhile . . .

What was I thinking? I should have gone to the beach for an extended vacation. But, I have to be here to physically hold back any wandering storm clouds. It’s a tough and daunting job but somebody has to do it.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 30, 2025

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October is the Best Month

 

October is the Best Month

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Finally, sunny days are here, every day a sunny day. I know. Next week I’ll be grumbling at dragging hose to water vulnerable plants every day. Today, I celebrate the Sun. I celebrate October, my favorite month, (well, along with some others).

 These days I gravitate to my back yard, my current favorite spot, beneath the mango tree. She welcomes me to her shade. I’m not a sun bunny despite my yearning for sun, any sun, on a cloudy day. Some days I take a book. Some days I read the butterflies. Birds. Bugs.

October in Etzatlan is also the month that ends with ten days of Festival, a time of feasting and blessing, parades, celebrations in the streets, dancing and singing, especially a time of thanksgiving, giving and forgiving. The streets are humming with people, filled with laughter.

Yesterday Leo took me to the Cathedral to see how beautifully it is decorated. I no longer care to be out at night, walking the plaza, taking in the music and festivities. I like to go sit in the Cathedral, adorned with thousands of cut flowers, this year’s theme colors green and gold. I simply sit, sit and soak in the love and give thanks. The people who handle and arrange these flowers cannot help but be awash in love and the flowers give it back to us.

These past several days I’ve given a lot of attention to the hundreds of folks in southern Mexico who have lost their lives, families, homes, businesses, their everything in the torrential rains and mudslides and to those in Alaskan villages facing the same losses.  

These kinds of horrendous disasters stop me hard, lead me to take note of my own life. Now and then I get down on myself because of past decisions I have made. However, by my own choices, I have changed my entire way of life. Today I own absolutely nothing of any value. Yet, I have so much.

I have shelter, food in the refrigerator, enough pesos to pay the monthly electric bill, to keep the propane tank topped up. I have friends here and around other parts of the world. I have people who care about me and about whom I care. I often realize, even more particularly now, that I am among the richest women in the world.

I have a dog who walks me two or three times a day. My neighbor brought me a slice of her homemade loaded pizza, I have a mango tree waiting to shade me. I am wealthy beyond belief.

Give thanks, whatever you believe or don’t believe. Give thanks for sun, for rain, for cold and snow, for they have their places too. Give thanks for breath of life, for sustenance, for your neighbor, even the neighbor you don’t like very much. Give thanks for love and if you think you don’t have enough, go give some away.

As for me, the sun is shining. I’m rich beyond belief. On top of that, October is the best month.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 23, 2025

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Predictable Patterns

 

Predictable Patterns

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You probably are different. In contemplating my life, I find myself to be much too predictable. Oh, I’m flexible enough. I change plans on a whim, daily. My major patterns, however, can be easily predicted.

Every year, the first week in September, I begin to grumble that the rainy season is over and done. Oh, we may get one more drenching rain, but, predictably, the rains run elsewhere and our dry drags in rolling dust along the way.

This year, the entire month of September was wonderfully wet, rains nearly every night and some days. The first week in October I had to stand on my tongue to keep from grumbling, enough, already. I’ve plans for the dry.

To add to my burden of dissatisfactions, cloudy days drag me down into the mugdumps while sunny days lift my spirits inordinately. October is historically, here in this part of the world, sunny and dry and windy but calm by Montana standards, with cool mornings and warm afternoons. Perfect. Usually. Mid-month and I wonder if November might be dry.

October, despite the never-ending rains, still smells like October, spicy and earthy.

Not all patterns make me grumble. This one took me a while to notice. Every morning Lola and I walk out our gate and down the lane, around the corner and up to the highway, turn about, return. We do this two and sometimes three times a day.

What I didn’t notice, or perhaps misinterpreted, is that if Puffer, Josue’s pup going into doggy adolescence, doesn’t hear my belled gate open, Lola goes into their patio and gets her. At first, I thought Lola was checking out any leftover food (dogs don’t leave leftover food) that she might scarf up.

It took me a while to realize Lola was getting Puffer to share our walkabout. Once Lola rouses Puffer, who doesn’t take much rousing, she pretty much ignores her. Puffer is a pup and Lola is getting to be an old woman. Pup she is, but Puffer is an amazingly gentle and quiet pooch, for a pup. I attribute that to Lola’s teaching.

As predictable as they generally are, these wets and dries can fool us. It happens. Take the rainy wets, for instance. What if, while meandering past on their way elsewhere, Rain becomes enamored by the Trees, waving kisses at the clouds, making winds that grabbed them and corralled them back around to stay awhile. Ah, love, powerful is love.

You do know that is how wind is made, right? The trees wave their branchy arms and winds begin small, grow and mature and whoosh around the world, sometimes creating havoc, sometimes creating romance.

Or perhaps  Dry stops in at a local bar for a quick Coca-Cola, plunks a quarter in the jukebox and someone shoves a Tequila Sunrise in its hand and just like that, without thinking, Dry begins drinking. One drink follows another down the dry throat and next thing you know, fighting breaks out, and our dry hero is incarcerated in the local hoosgow for a period of dry contemplation.

Eventually, time served, our Dry will show up, dry again. Romance of rain and trees will wane. Rain, being of a wandering nature, will flit off elsewhere, in search of another love.

What is also predictable, is that two weeks into our dry season, late as it is, I will be grumbling and wishing for June to hurry to bring back our lovely, life-giving, love-giving rain.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 16, 2025

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Childhood Deprivation

 

Childhood Deprivation

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I survived a deprived childhood. We had none of the things that my great-grandchildren have today. We did have two things that my great-grandchildren do not have. We had a daily newspaper with a great-fat Sunday edition. And, we had phonics.

 I grew up reading. I don’t remember not reading. Sunday morning I devoured the comics, reading aloud to my Dad, sprawled on the floor, paper open before me. My favorite was Pogo. At five years old. At five years do you suppose I understood Pogo? At some level? Nancy and Sluggo? Dagwood? Mary Worth? I read all the words.

I read everything. Cereal boxes. Can labels. “Popular Mechanics”. “Successful Farming”. What would you like to know about raising pigs in the 50s and early 60s? Or the contents of Cheerios? I read every magazine or book I could find.

My favorite place to hang out, as I grew older and was allowed to ride my bicycle to town, was the library. By that time I had already sneaked through my Grandma’s book collection, including some on the banned book list. Do you suppose I really understood the depths of “Le Rouge et Le Noir”?

My own children never had a chance. I nursed each baby with two books close at hand. I read to them until they fell asleep, carefully put the children’s book on the table and carefully picked up my own book while I continued to hold and rock my baby, holding my breath that he or she would stay asleep. Those moments were doubly precious. Holding my sleeping babies were the only times I got to read adult fare. With a baby awake, reading goes on “hold”.

“Do you remember Friday nights when you were a kid and we . . .”   I asked my daughter, but she interrupted me before I could finish my question.

“Of course, Mom, I remember. Friday nights were the only times we were allowed to read at the table. We’d all have a book beside our plates, eating without even looking at the food. Those Friday night family eat-and-reads were great.” She laughed.

I was a mean mama. I never let the children bring books to the table except for that one night a week. The rest of the time, we ate and we talked.

When I go out to dinner with friends, the thing that makes me grind my teeth, and at my age, my teeth are precious, is that every one of them has an electronic device beside their plate and no matter the intensity of our conversation, the device rules.

If you come hunting for me when I’m out with my friends, you will recognize me. I am the one whose cell phone is at home, on my desk, but I have a real book beside my plate, open.  My current book is “The Dancing Wu Li Masters”. It’s about, well, physics. I have a tiny understanding of some of it, enough that I like the book.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 9, 2025

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It Must’ve Been the Arthur-itis

 

It Must’ve Been the Arthur-itis

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I never had a mom but there was a woman who birthed me and with whom I had a strained and tenuous relationship, that mom.

I was four when my Mom was committed to the State Hospital in Madison, Indiana. She never left the institution until the late 60s or early 70s when those institutions were pretty much shut down and residents parceled out into group homes, each with a shopping bag of medicines. Yeah, I’m biased.

I remember almost nothing of my early childhood except the “last straw” in which there were threats and violence. I know that my Mom had to leave home because me and my baby sister were endangered.

When I was seven, our teacher, Miss Naomi, introduced us to letter writing. I began my correspondences to my mother and her sister, my Aunt JoAnne, which correspondences I continued until the deaths of each woman.

Aunt Jo’s letters always delighted me and we became close. I dreaded finding each missive from my Mom in the mailbox because I never knew if the letter would be intelligible. She always told me she loved me. Some part of me believed her and I continued writing.

I lived in Missoula in the mid-80s when Aunt JoAnne called me that my Mom was back in Madison and that she was dying. I had a working vehicle, no memory of how I financed the trip because I had no money, and I drove non-stop through Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, through Illinois into Indiana and on to Madison, stopping only for fuel and cat-naps at rest stops.

I was so ga-ga from driving that I had to go to the police station to get help to find the motel where I stayed with my Aunt JoAnne.

Every morning for a week I went to the hospital and spent hours with my Mom, mostly in silence, but we communicated love in depth. In the afternoons Aunt JoAnne and I walked the banks of the Ohio River and talked and ate hot dogs and ice cream cones. I had that last week with my Mom and I am forever grateful.

One morning I overheard a woman in the room across the hall, another visitor, saying these words, “It must’ve been the arthuritis.” The woman’s accent was pure hill-country and the word “arthuritis” had more syllables than I can imitate. Her words and the lilt of her soft voice have never left me.

I smiled and in my mind her phrase became my code for the unexplainable and the inexplicable. I also use the phrase as a prayer, to cover a sadness, and to make me smile.

Hurricanes, floods, fires, quakes, bridges down, airplanes crash: Must’ve been the arthuritis. Confusion, anger, messes of all kinds around the world: Must be the arthuritis. Climate change: Definitely arthuritis. When I hear the siren of the ambulance passing through on the highway: Must’ve been the arthuritis.

My three papaya trees get curly leaf and die: Must be the arthuritis. Ant invasion in my kitchen: Must be the arthuritis. When the bread doesn’t rise like I know it should: Yep, the arthuritis.

When every joint aches and walking is painful, I know it is the arthuritis. Personally, I think everyone should have a handy-dandy all-purpose catch phrase to use in those moments of frustration or anxiety or feeling hopeless. For me, I lay blame on the arthuritis and then move on to the next step, even when that step is still invisible.

Even when the leaves get chomped to smithereens on your best papaya tree and suddenly you find seven pupa of the beautiful giant pine hawk moth, yep, must’ve been . . .

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 2, 2025

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