To State the Obvious.

 

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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