New Year—Old Me

 

               New Year—Old Me

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Scraping along on the heels of Christmas, we celebrate the beginning of a New Year. Many of us regard the new year as a time of reflection, of taking stock of our lives, perhaps resolving to make changes.

For me, I’m the same old bag of skin I was last year, still filled with some sad and some glad, much joy and a hint of mad.

As for making changes, I have a note on my desk to turn on the bat light at night for the next week. That will keep the itinerant group of bats from making a new home in the rafters of my patio roof. I like bats, but I would rather they not be overhead. May they find a new home. Soon. Not a personal change but a necessary one. The only change on my agenda today.

My friends Kathy and Richard, whom I’ve known twenty-plus years, longer than anyone in our little community, are returning to Victoria, BC next week for medical tests and care for Richard. There is excellent health care here, but at home they know the doctors and know the language. More comfortable.

I’m sad they are leaving and glad that Richard, who, by the way, is a retired physician, is finally seeking medical help. His wife and friends have been worried. Richard kept saying, “It’s nothing.” The river of DeNial runs deep and strong.

Just yesterday I was telling Kathy that I, even after these years here, I can hardly believe the life I am living, the life I have stumbled upon. I could not have made this up. Remember seminars or weekend retreats when the focus was on goal setting? What a laugh, for me, looking back, thinking I could map my future.  

I’ve come to believe, based on nothing substantial, that my life is built on little decisions. You may label the consequences of decisions, if you wish, good and bad. I’ve made them all. I choose not to label my decisions. Sometimes, in my life, what at first seemed disaster turned out to be rich with blessings. Others, well, I’ve been known, out of necessity, to back up and take a different direction.

I said to my daughter, “After a life of work, work, work, I can’t believe I’m such a sloth. I’m a lazy sloth, and I love my life.”

She said, “Mom, you are always busy. It’s just that now you are free to find joy in simple things. Things like kneading bread or reading your favorite book under the mango tree.”

We are entering a New Year. I hope to keep slothing along, doing my own chores, cleaning my own house. We don’t know though, do we? Every day brings something new, new joys, surprises, grief and pain. We don’t choose what’s in the grab bag. We only choose how we deal with what we grab, seems to me.

Happy New Year and may the coming year, made up of a day at a time, bring you much joy.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

December 31, 2025

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The Sublime and the Frightening

The Sublime and the Frightening

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I would like to tell you that my trip time in Washington is all sublime, that every moment is perfection, that my head is in the clouds with happiness. You would call me out on it, right?  You might sing, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

So let me start with the sublime, the uplifting, the part I am trying to hang onto and not let go.

My time with family takes first place in my reckoning. My son Ben, my granddaughter Lexi, our talks are most precious.

How do I put into words my gratitude that my son is doing so well, is nearing four years clean after three years on the streets, a time in which we were estranged? It is not easy for him. He works hard at cleaning up the debris of his past, of creating  a new road for his life.

It does not help that I live 2500 miles from family. Or, perhaps, it does. It makes us conscious that time together truly is a gift, not to be taken lightly.

Know what has been best about being with Lexi, my granddaughter? We have several times, simply sat and talked. Nothing dramatic. Just talking. Listening.

Our passion for gardening is the glue that makes Kristen, Ben's girlfriend, easy to know. I like her. I have met her family. Good people, which in Montana terms is high praise.

Steve and Theresa, who visited me in Etzatlan in April, are putting together a proposal to offer for a casa on the Rancho where I live. So you might imagine, our time together is full of lots of plans, laughter, exchanging ideas and information.

Then the icing on the cake of my sublimity: Saturday night, as featured reader, I read my poetry at the Poulsbohemian Coffeehouse on Front Street, a monthly event, twenty-five years in the running. It has been twelve years since I have been able to read my work to an audience of poets.

With the exception of two short pieces, I read all new work, written in the past year. I stood before the mike in terror, knees and hands shaking. Once begun, I settled down and enjoyed my reading, enjoyed the responses from my audience.

I walked out that night needing weights on my feet to keep me from floating off into the cloudy night sky. It was hours before I scraped my self off the ceiling onto my bedcovers and was able to get to sleep. What terror! What fun!

Flip side. Last night at dinner with Larry and Ellen, two long-time favorite friends, I felt a foreign object in my mouth, along with my food. I fished it out. A crown from a molar. Okay, it is not the end of the world.

Got up this morning, threw a load of clothes in the washer, and somehow missed keeping aside an article that bled blue onto a favorite white Mexican blouse.

While the blouse soaked in bleach water, I worked on an article, not this one, the one I began days ago. Entire chunks of my article disappeared. I am still learning how to use this new device, but losing whole chunks, while writing new chunks, is more than disconcerting.

Meanwhile, Kristen called around to dentists. They all want to do hundreds of dollars of research into my mouth before being willing to reattach the lifted molar.

At that point, I considered screaming. But who would care, other than myself. I next contemplated throwing tooth, blouse, new tablet and my entire body off a cliff. Fortunately I have forgotten where the nearest cliff might be.

I calmed down, washed the bleach out of my blouse and rinsed it, newly white again. I threw my old article into that little trash can at the top of the page. With Ben's help, I was able to start a new document without having tablet monster eat chunks. And I just might try to wait until I get back to Mexico, where I can walk into my dentist office with tooth cap in hand and walk out a few minutes later with device re-attached for a modest amount of pesos.

Tomorrow I meet for lunch with Sharon and Gary, get the grand tour of their new home. Sharon hosted the first poetry group I joined and had a huge influence on my writing. Afterward, we will go together to Nancy's poetry workshop. I have to soak up all I can when I can.

The next day long-forever friend Vidya and I meet for lunch and a rummage through Goodwill, a favorite  hangout for both of us. One never knows what treasure one might find among the trash. I doubt either of us care. It is about being together, catching up, laughing, which we do quite well.

And, on to Montana. See you soon.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

September 13, 2018
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