We Come Borrowed

 

        We Come Borrowed

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If I were to find myself in front of the Great Judgement Seat, in which I don’t believe, I’m pretty sure the first question (Picture black robe, powdered wig, furrowed brow, huge eyebrows, glaring eyes.) she would ask, would be, “What did you do to enjoy yourself today?”

I have an answer. “I rode my tricycle. Wah-hoo!”

My morning starts early with a chorus of birdsong, which pretty much goes on all day, with the accompaniment of roosters, peacocks and a donkey, except for that strange moment of silence as the sun peeks over the horizon. Once birdsong resumes, I’m out of bed, dressed and out the door for a trike ride with my dog Lola running alongside.  

I’m old. My trike is a simple, one-speed, three-wheeled joy machine. If, after sixty years of not riding, I were to try to ride a bicycle, I’d be a danger to myself and a danger to you. Once I find my center of balance on my trike, it balances me.

This makes me feel happy. Actually, I’ve a better word. I feel joy, deep inside, simply from riding my tricycle up and down and around our lanes, Lola trotting alongside or racing to explore scents along the edges, breeze fluttering my hair, birds swooping around me.

“Venimos prestados”, “we come borrowed”, a Spanish phrase I recently heard, or as I prefer, “our lives are lent to us”. My friend Bob often said, “We are here to experience, to experience, all that life gives us.” I like that.

So, why worry so much. We all worry. I worry too, always about something over which I have no power, but I’ll worry it to a frazzle until I can come to acceptance.

A friend told me about a fundraising event held in her town last week. The weather was windy, stormy, nasty. There was a flurry of complaint in social media, the chief question (complaint) to the organizers being, “Why did you pick such a horrible time to hold this event?”

Really? Think about that question a minute. If that makes sense to you, I’m sorry. But, what do I know? That may be your pleasure and not for me to judge.

Now that my Jacaranda tree in the northwest corner of my yard is full and leafy again, I’ve moved my chairs from beneath the mango tree, back to the Jacaranda tree for my afternoon sit-and-read. The mango is still shady but as the fruit grows big, I grow uncomfortable, picturing a full, pointy fruit, falling on my head. See, I worry.

I experience my full share of fear and disgust and apprehension and all the so-called negativities. I experience them just as fully as the joys. Then I let them go or put them on the back shelf in a closet of my mind, if they need to be dealt with later.

The experiences I choose to give most attention are the joys, hedonist that I’ve learned to be. I’ve had a lot of years and experience in which to learn which is what and how.

This afternoon, I’ll lounge beneath the shady Jacaranda. I’ll read a little, swat mosquitoes, pick ants off my legs, watch the mangos and the papayas begin to glow with color, ripening before my eyes. I’ll try again to track that bird I hear but never see. More pleasure.

I’ll bookend my day with swallows. We’ve always had swallows when the mosquito season comes in its fullness. This year I see swallows in great numbers. I love to go out in the evenings and simply watch them, fifty or sixty or seventy swallows swooping and arcing overhead, flying along criss-cross lanes invisible to me, their pleasure giving me pleasure.

Maybe it’s kind of like riding tricycles through the sky lanes. It’s hard to be bad, mad, or sad when one is experiencing pleasure. But, what do I know!

Sondra Ashton

Looking out my back door

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