Rejected By the Only Group In Town

Rejected By the Only Group In Town

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            I’ve moved often enough to know there are certain mathematical realities. Generally it takes two years until I have an acquaintance or two, someone with whom I can attend the opera or go to a play reading, both of which I can find here in Mazatlan.  In five years I shall have acquired a friend or two, not necessarily the same first two people. That is just the way it is. Sure, I can go places by myself, and do. But it is more fun to share the experience.

            I can goose the program forward a bit in two ways, by joining a group of like-minded people and/or by volunteer work. The other day I set off to find information about a group of writers. Where better to discover writers than at a bookstore. Writers are readers. Half a block over and a dozen or more blocks up the street the Mazatlan Book and Coffee Company sits snug back in a small plaza behind a bank and a laundry.

            This bookstore, which I found the first year I vacationed in Mazatlan, is filled with used books, books in English, overwhelmingly of the beach-read variety. But by diligent probing, plucking and piddling through the stacks I can always find a few gems of literary fiction and the occasional non-fiction book that grabs my attention. Not that I’m a snob. I read trash too.

            When I left Harlem, I walked away from a 4,500 volume personal library. I brought with me a mere five boxes of books. One box contained my two-volume Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, my indispensible Strunk and White on style, which I read annually for fun, and a couple other books on style and grammar which I should consult more frequently. The rest are old favorites. I’m reduced to maybe a hundred books. I have no intention of re-creating a vast library. But I am a reader. Eventually I’ll own an e-book. But I’ll never lose my love of the heft of a book and the tactile experience of turning paper.

            Within ten minutes at the Mazatlan Book and Coffee Company, I had chosen a book on basketball (think Chicago Bulls in the ‘90’s) by Phil Jackson, a book by Coetzee and one by Achebe, not exactly beach reads, and a bag of coffee beans. Coffee and books go together like, well, like books and coffee.

            Given another ten minutes, I had swapped yarns with Jerry, a snowbird whose uncle is a beekeeper in Power, Montana and whose wife is a writer.  Then Twila came around a corner of the stacks to tell me her husband was a McPherson from Chinook, class of ’59. She lives in Glendive and knows people I know.  

            In half an hour I had gathered three books, coffee beans, stories, smiles and the name with email address of the contact person for the writers group.

            I have been known to embarrass my friends by how easily I insert myself into conversations with complete strangers. But it took two days to gather my courage and email Mike to ask about the writers group. I threw out a feeler. I’m a writer. It is a solitary life. I would like to join a group of writers. That is the gist of what I said.

            Mike replied that the group met once a week and in order to join, a writer must be committed to the group and serious about writing “fiction stories” and seeking publication of the same.

            My heart broke and sank to the soles of my sandals. I am a poet and essayist. I don’t have a single plot, story line, or fiction character cluttering up the back passages of my brain. I have been outright scorned and rejected. This group does not want me.

            I wrote back and said that if a fiction came to visit me, I’d contact him again, blah, blah, blah, making nice. Mike wrote back with more blah, blah, blah, making nice.

            So for the present I’ll hang out more often at the Mazatlan Book store. I’ll volunteer to dust the stacks at the English Book Library.  I’ll keep writing poetry and essays. Sooner or later I’ll rub up against another poet, another essayist or two.

            In a few days maybe I’ll quit plotting the murder(s) of the despicable antagonist Mike and his twisted band of followers by the rejected and lovable protagonist (heroine) who commits the perfect crime(s) and lives to tell the story.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

February 20, 2014

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Holiday Traditions—We Create Our Family Culture

Holiday Traditions—We Create Our Family Culture

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My father, who dreaded Christmas, was happy to turn all the Christmas chores over to me, his elder daughter. I was a motherless girl. We lived far from the possible help of cousins, aunts and uncles. The first time Dad took me to the store to buy Christmas presents, I was seven years old. I had to choose gifts for everybody, including myself. So much for Santa.

I was in charge of everything. Decorating the tree meant I perched precariously atop a ladder. I placed the ornaments and layered on tinsel until the tree shimmered with silver. I was a little tyrant. I insisted that each strand be pulled out of its cardboard holder one by one and placed evenly over the branches. If I had to do the job it was going to be done my way, the right way. I stayed up late nights struggling with gift wrap, tape and curly ribbon. I kept the list and wrote a personal note in each Christmas card and addressed the envelopes. For days my fingers were smudged with ink.

As time goes by we change our family patterns. We move. Children marry. Babies are born. People die. The good news is that we replace old ways with new practices, some of which stick year after year, becoming tradition. Like me, my children also spent their holidays far from extended family. Unlike me, my kids never had to shop for their own presents. In an unspoken family agreement, we keep the myth of Santa alive. Ask them. To this day they will tell you, “Of course, Santa lives at the North Pole with his elves, busily making toys in his workshop. He’ll be coming down the chimney Christmas Eve. He’ll want his glass of milk and plate of cookies.”

Our family Christmas trees have not always been traditional. Sure, we decorated the usual cedar, pine or fir; then one year a naked Alder branch, and another year, a gigantic tumbleweed. In search of the perfect tree, we tromped through the woods, ax in hand, or drove to the Christmas tree farm. Other years we picked trees from the Boy Scout lot on the corner. All were glorious. Perfect, no. I lost my need for perfection somewhere along the way. Each child decorated the branches he or she could reach in a rather random way, tossing on handfuls of tinsel. The bottom of the tree was every bit as wonderful as Mom’s precise branches at the top. One lean year, our tree was a construction paper cutout my son had made in Head Start. For decorations he had pasted on confetti-like bits. I treasured that tree. After my son was married, I gave it to him. He still has that faded tree, and in the tradition we began years ago, tapes it to his refrigerator door every Christmas season.

Once my children were grown and on their own, I enjoyed dipping into our family past at our holiday celebrations. I gathered my adult kids around me and read to them their favorite childhood nursery rhymes from Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” and Kipling’s “The Elephant’s Child”. I have made sure my grandchildren have their own copies of these treasured books.

Even when I could, I never heaped gifts beneath our tree. But each child always had a gift Santa had left on his midnight run through the heavens, usually a much-desired toy. And a gift or two from Mom, always including clothing and some item I had made myself. The paper and ribbon were never perfectly done. Today my children are as apt as I am to wrap gifts in newsprint or brown paper bags decorated with crayons.

Our most memorable Christmas, the time I chose the very best gifts, was the year I sorted through my boxes of photographs and divided them into piles for each of my children, now adults with partners. I purchased albums and photo file boxes for each, put all this into larger boxes, wrapped them and placed them beneath the tree. When assembled for breakfast, I read those old favorite stories. Then we opened our presents. My kids spent the entire rest of the day sharing their photos. “Remember the day this was taken?” And “Oh, I’d forgotten about that.” Or “Look at the expression on my face.” Each picture triggered recollections. They especially loved their baby pictures, which gave me a chance to tell them about times they were too young to remember.

We are now scattered to different parts of the country. But I know each of my children carry on those family traditions that they loved most, blend these with the customs generated from their spouses’ families, and create their new customs along the way, continually building a living family culture.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
December 1, 2011

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Lead Us Not Into Temptation

All I Need Is A Good Book
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My home resembles a library. I am a reader. Books control my life. Books line my shelves in every room. For a long time when I wanted to find a favorite book I found myself wandering from room to room searching the shelves. Finally I organized them by authors’ names. What a monumental job. It took days. Now poetry lives in one corner. Theatre holds forth in another. Fiction authors A through C are in the living room, along with most non-fiction. The rest of my fiction resides in a room dedicated solely to books. I cannot resist a good book. I buy books new. I buy books used. When I accidently purchase a book I already own, I pass it on to a friend. I read for pleasure. I read to learn. I read for the beauty of language.

Typically I kick-start my day with coffee and my current book. In the summer I work in my garden in the cool morning hours. In winter I head for my shop. When I take a break, it is with book in hand. Sometimes I read a page or two—sometimes soar through several chapters. I’m disciplined. I have rules. I don’t read at the dining table. One day while hovering over a page-turner, I discovered my plate was empty but I had no recollection of eating. Also I don’t read in bed. The first book I remember staying up all night to finish while lying in bed was “Gone with the Wind”. So I read in a chair and reserve my bed for sleep. Neither rule is ironclad. I have been known to falter and fail.

If I am not busy I often read a book a day. I read eclectically. Classical literature. Novels. History. Poetry. Physics. Art. Trash. I love it all. Therefore these last three weeks have been unusual. I actually quit reading. Cold turkey. By necessity, not by intention.

Why did I quit reading? I simply over-scheduled my life. Not on purpose. I am a busy person. In these three weeks I had an opportunity to take a financial education workshop. A three-day class reunion immediately followed. Then company arrived on my doorstep. My garden suddenly burgeoned forth with bounty. Strawberries insisted on being picked daily. Raspberries ripened in time for me to take a batch to the reunion. I had a sudden opportunity to take a trip to Washington to visit my grandchildren. The day before I took off, I picked both red and black currants, Saskatoon berries and four more gallons of raspberries. I cleaned them all and bagged them for the freezer to await jelly making on my return. Work projects needed to be finished. So many things to do and I needed to do them all.

Everything seemed to happen at once. Each morning I prepared my to-do list for the day. Each evening I fell exhausted into bed, list unfinished, too tired to read. I pined for my books. The stack next to my reading chair accumulated a thick layer of dust. I a newly arrived box of four books, lingered over the titles, ran my hands over the covers and reluctantly added them to the pile of unread books on my footstool. I prepared a bag of books to take on my trip.

When I arrived at my son’s home in Issaquah I selected the book I most wanted to read next and set in on my bed table. But life is full. We crammed our days and nights with activities. Whenever I glanced at my book I broke into a cold sweat. No time to read. In my sleep I dreamed about reading. Four days later I still had not cracked the cover.

This morning I drove to Marysville to spend a couple days with my daughter and her family. When I walked in the door she hugged me and handed me “Heaven’s Prisoners”, a novel by James Lee Burke, a favorite author of ours. “I can’t start this. It’s a library book. I can’t take it with me. And I’ll only be her two days. How will I finish it?”

“Go ahead, start,” she tempted me. “You’ll not be able to put it down.” She pushed me into a chair. My hands shook. I caressed the cover. I lingered over the title page. I could no longer control myself. I read the first page, then the next and the next. And the next. Doomed. The End.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
August 4, 2011
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