To State the Obvious.
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Life is hard.
I’m fortunate. I never had to go through the shock of ease
ripped away. Life for me was always hard. I thought that was normal. I still
think it is normal. I’m aware of how easily we rewrite our own histories,
making them fit some drama-trauma of excuse. I try to hold myself to standards
of emotional honesty.
I’ll give a hard life credit for my ability to find beauty
and peace and love in small moments. Ease and comfort have never been my goal.
I’m quite capable of choosing the rockiest road all by myself.
Having said all that, I’ve never faced a tsunami of mud or experience
my house shatter around me in a tornado or live with fear of Eboli or live in a
cardboard box under the bridge, although I’ve had the fear of being under the
bridge in the cardboard box with starving children.
I used to pace the floor, telling the Great Mystery that if
the box under the bridge was next, okay, but I’m not going alone. I told the
Great Mystery, whatever that means, that he-she-it would need to be there with
me. Somehow, some way, a job popped up, rent got paid, the power wasn’t shut
down, we had food to eat and work to see us through to the next bridge.
See, I’m fortunate.
For me, life is winding down. I’m in my 80s with all the
pains and age deterioration that goes with waking up another day.
Life is hard.
I just got word that another close friend has cancer. First,
I told him, as I’ve told others, “No. I forbid it.” Sure, that helped a lot.
Then I wrote a long letter letting him know how important he is in my life and
how much I’ve always cared for him.
Life is hard.
We just got ripped with a destructive hailstorm accompanied
by wind from four directions and two inches of rain in two hours. The part of
Mexico where I live is lush with vegetation, greenery abounds. Amazingly, here
on the rancho, none of our houses were seriously damaged. No trees were
uprooted.
Everything was shredded. Thick skinned plants such as my
Madre plants, succulents, my pineapple, the papaya, all look like they
contracted small pox. The papaya fruits which are close to ripening look like
they are bleeding with small pox. Tree and plant debris cover the ground.
The following days, every morning, my back yard hosted sixty
or seventy birds, foraging through the grass and debris, searching out goodies
all kinds.
For some reason, the ants proliferate. All kinds and sizes
and colors of ants. The leaf-cutters have obliterated my oleanders and
dancing-skirt plant and crepe myrtles, among others, leaving naked stalks and
branches. I feel itchy crawling on my skin and generally find the culprit to be
one or another of the ants, which I crush without a qualm. No Zen from me
toward ants. Having said that, I let three different kinds of spiders live,
with a shrug of kindness. I don’t claim to understand myself.
Life is hard.
I hurt. My insides are a mess. My outsides are rusting, broken,
missing parts, falling apart, out of gas. I could bore you with physical
complaints, but, they bore me more. I figure I’m past eighty years so I should
hurt. I do.
I’m fortunate. I woke up this morning, got out of bed, had
coffee, measured the night’s surprise of rain fall, let my dog slurp all over
my hands, baked a batch of cookies.
Life is good. Hard
doesn’t negate the good. I learned in my early years that I could choose to
find goodness or to live in despair. To me that choice is a no-brainer.
Sondra Ashton
Looking out my back door
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