Comings and Goings

Comings and Goings

            They flapped a clamor like rain drumming on my roof. The day is sunny and bright. Overhead, a gigantic thundercloud of blackbirds shadowed the sky in annual migration.

I like to imagine these are the same blackbirds I see gathering in the wheat fields around Havre in September, eating grain, preparing for the 2,500 mile flight south. I will see these flocks daily until spring, moving between feeding grounds in the valley and night perches in the hills.

Jim was here with his 95-year old mother, Juanita, for a week. He wanted her to see this part of the country he loves. We all fell in love with this delightful woman.

One day, while she and I sat in the Plaza, another wrinkled woman, one I see frequently in town, a woman near the same age as Juanita, walked over and lay her hand on Juanita’s shoulder. The two women, mirror images, leaned, round heads face to face and congratulated one another on such a long life, gabling back and forth, each in her own language, no barrier to understanding.

Juanita said she knew she would never have another chance for such a trip. She tires easily but she is sharp as a tack and loves to tell her stories. She paused in the middle of one such story, obviously frustrated. “Oh,” she shook her head. “Sometimes words forget me.”

She is back in St. Louis. We told Jim he could go home and leave his mother here. But, I know we wore her out and she is glad to be home, in her own bed. Jim plans to return in January, depending on his mother’s health, of course.

The same day Jim and Juanita boarded an outbound plane, Pat and Nancie arrived from Sedro Woolley, Washington and Julie flew in from the Twin Cities. We are wearing paths through the grass between casitas, visiting, welcoming. 

Crin has been here three weeks. She leaves in a few days. Single women, living across the road from one another, we often share a meal. Crin will return in February for a longer stay, perhaps a couple months. I will miss her. Everyone else here is partnered up.

If I could, I would send you my crop of avocados and iguanas.  My tree is large and loaded. I began eating from it in August and it still drops several a day. By the end of its crop, I do not care if I ever see another avocado. I pick dropped avocados off the ground in the morning and hike them over to the neighbors in rotation, every other day keeping one for myself.

Iguanas? They love avocados and chomp all but the seed. Often I see or hear a fat iguana, belly full, slip and fall from the tree, mouth full of pulp. My flowers are safe from foraging, for now.

 Today my great-granddaughter, Kyla, the baby, is in the hospital in Billings for a bone-marrow test. If I could, I would take unto myself the entire family pain. Instead I have my own helplessness, my confusion, my questions, my anger.

If I could I would flap wings like a blackbird, fly against the cold and snow and bitter winter winds, and like a fairy godmother or a witch, who cares which, wave my magic wand and make life sparkle.

Which one of us would not do likewise for those we love? But that is fantasy. 

Why does it take pain to motivate me to do something I know is good? I get lazy, break the good habit. Last week I began anew, beginning anew, dedicating the first hour of morning to meditation. The first hour. If I set any different time, I set up myself to fail.

The first hour, as the sun is rising, is for me, for you, for all my children. Maybe I cannot make anything different or better. But I can find ease for my own heart. Who knows? Life is a Great Mystery.

After meditation, I drink my morning coffee, pick avocados, dead-head geraniums, mop my floor, watch blackbirds, walk across the little dirt road and visit a neighbor. Some days I go to the Plaza.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November 1, 2018

Girl on Bike, Woman in Red Car

            Girl on Bike, Woman in Red Car

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            It’s a mystery. I hear Jack Webb’s voice (Sargent Joe Friday) in my ear. “Just the facts, Ma’am. Just the facts.”

            July 25, a sweltering sunny afternoon, my granddaughter Antoinette, rode her bike down Kendrick, a side street in Glendive, Montana.

            At 3:30 her Mother sat in her office, recording client notes into a file, waiting for her 4:00 appointment, when her phone rang. “Mom, come get me. I wrecked my bike. I don’t know where I am.” She was on a street she rode every day.

            A woman, whose name we do not know, took the phone and told Dee Dee that Antoinette was on the lawn of the church.

            Meanwhile the woman who had picked Antoinette off the street and helped her to the grass, laid the bike beside her, waited for Dee, got into a red car and drove off. Thank you for stopping and helping, whoever you are.

            Dee’s office was five minutes away. She rushed out of her office, leaving the door open. Dee helped Antoinette into her van, stowed the wrecked bike in the back and drove straight to the hospital Emergency Room.

            At the hospital, Antoinette admitted she remembered nothing. She rode along the street and then she was in the street, down and hurting. Obviously she had a concussion. Her right arm was broken, third broken arm. The flesh on her hand was skinned back. Road rash covered her left leg knee, thigh and shoulder. Her right knee has either a hairline fracture or severe bone bruise. And, she hurt all over.

            It wasn’t until the family got home and Chris, Antoinette’s Dad took the bike out of the car, that they realized that the “accident” was not as simple as believed. Her brand new bicycle was crumpled, the handlebars not just loosened but bent out of shape and the brake line had ripped apart. The tires and seat were twisted. Antoinette’s bike helmet has two holes in the top as well as a long scrape the length of the helmet.

            Those are the known facts. You tell me what happened.

            Antoinette is twelve years old. She’s had mild cerebral palsy since birth. Luckily her disease is not severe.  From birth she has had physical and occupational therapy and she is encouraged to stay physically active. She typically rides her bike a couple hours a day when weather allows.

It is a month later and Antoinette still has no memory of what happened. She has intense headaches and still suffers high levels of pain.

            Glendive is a small eastern Montana town, population about 5500, just off the freeway. Everybody knows everybody.  They are good people, just like our neighbors. Kendrick Street is not a main thoroughfare. Nobody reported the accident.

            Obviously Antoinette didn’t hit a rock in the road and lay down her bike. Who hit my granddaughter? I have many questions and no answers. We’ll probably never know.

            I’ve un-intentionally laid my bike down on the rutted gravel roads I rode around Harlem more than once back in the day. Worst I ever suffered was skinned knees and gravel bits welded to my palm. Something is really wrong in this story.

            It’s a good thing Dee Dee is a bike-helmet tyrant. (Dee said moms of CP kids tend to be tyrants.)  If she weren’t, I might not have a granddaughter.

            I know it seems silly to our generation. None of us ever wore a bike helmet. There was no such thing. But if you don’t have one and can’t afford one, I might know somebody who’d get you one.

            Schools are back in session. Kids are walking and biking, laughing and talking. It is up to us to be alert. Please, please, please, watch out for our young ones.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 30, 2018

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Mall Madness at Kiddie Playland

Mall Madness at Kiddie Playland  

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     I will do anything to avoid any mall in any large city. I don't know what possessed me to suggest the mall. It was a nice day. My five-year-old granddaughter Lexi and I could have hung out on the waterfront.

     For twenty-five years I had lived within ten miles of the Silverdale Mall. Frequently two or three years would pass without me needing to mall shop. But I wished to buy one more thing for my trip. A store there carried the exact underwear I wanted.

     There is a "playland" center at the mall next to the Food Court where small kids can hang out while Mom or Dad dash into a store for that essential something-or-other. I figured Lexi could enjoy playing while we waited for her father. We three had plans for our day. He had phoned to let me know he would be late.

     Mind you, I had never paid attention to this or any other play center. I'm truly a novice at taking a grandchild to the mall to "play". When my own children were small I never once said, "Let's go play at the mall!" Perhaps even now they are spending thousands of dollars in therapy due to my benign neglect.

     This particular playland has a sea theme. That makes sense with the bay a half-dozen blocks away. So the play toys include a submarine, a whale, a sea monster, starfish, a boat, an "underwater" cave and other vaguely fishy objects. A low wall with a seating area for parents surrounds and defines the area. There is one entrance and hence, one exit.

     Lexi hit the entrance running, her shoes flew off her feet, and she clambered atop the submarine, jumped down, ran circles around, into, through, over, under and out of every obstacle, leaping from high onto the padded deck wherever possible.

     I picked up Lexi's shoes, and inched my way through the entrance and sat at the edge. I wanted assurance I could make a quick get-away if necessary. There were perhaps a dozen children of various ages playing, all at full tilt. I tried to track Lexi around, into, through, over, under and out of the maze. The motion made me feel slightly sick to my stomach.

     Within minutes, it seemed the play center  held two hundred writhing, leaping, flying creatures. I know that is not accurate. It seemed that way.

     The youngsters ranged in age from a tiny girl just barely able to walk who climbed up the back of a knobby sea monster and slid down, back up, then down for a solid hour with the help of her bigger brother, to three or four kids who were entirely too old to be playing on this equipment. The older ones didn't stay long.

     The whole scene reminded me of a model of an atom with the sub-atomic electrons, protons and neutrons whirling and twirling like dervishes. I found myself holding my breath, afraid Lexi was in danger of losing life or limb or, worse, of the whole center exploding in a nuclear cloud of smoke.

     All I could figure is that there must be an unspoken code, rules that these children are encoded with at birth. I saw not one collision. Not one accident. I could see no discernible pause or pattern. Believe me, there should have been tangled limbs, blood and mayhem. Well, to my eyes, there was mayhem.

     By the time Ben arrived I was a wreck. My stomach was in knots. I had a headache. My last nerve had exited an hour earlier. Lexi was fine.

     I would rather bungee jump into the Grand Canyon, parachute over the Himalayas, or swim shark infested waters than take a grandchild to the mall play center.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

October 31, 2013

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The Special Ordinary Visit

The Special Ordinary Visit

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My granddaughter Jessica tootled in on a Thursday in February for a short spur-of-the-moment visit. Jess is my first grandchild. She will soon be twenty. Last fall she married a young man in the Navy. They live near Oak Harbor, Washington. This was not Jess’s first visit to Grandma’s house, but the first since she had left the terrible teens behind.

I entertained a brief moment of dismay, a flutter of what-will-we-do. When people come to visit, I enfold them into my daily life, whatever that includes. Grandma’s house is admittedly not a hotbed of lively activity. I scanned my week for something fun or exciting. My list included three trips to Havre for physical therapy, water the house plants and bake bread. Rousing, right? I wanted Jess to take home special memories. I concluded that she would have to make do with whatever came along.

So we had ordinary days. Two evenings we watched Netflix movies, neither of which Jess would have looked at on her own. One was a French spoof on the 007 James Bond films. It is hard to beat a spoof on a spoof. We laughed, we cackled, we looked at each other, we snorted. The next night we watched the classic, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. “Thank you, Grandma, said Jess. “What a great movie—one of the best I’ve ever seen. I need to call Marcus and tell him we have to watch it together. What was the name of it again?”

Jess seemed quite content to putter around with me. She helped cart boxes of paper and cardboard over the ice fields in my back yard to my cabin for storage. I had saved them for the monthly recycling drive. At this point I probably won’t get them to Havre until spring. June? Jess helped me make catsup from a peck of tomatoes I got from Bountiful Baskets. She took two jars home with her. She found a small basket of embroidery thread and began to weave a bracelet. We read. We sketched. We talked.

“I love your house, Grandma. It is so peaceful here.”

It was fun for me to observe, through the eyes of a young person, the things I take for granted. On Saturday we drove to Havre early to have plenty of time to poke around the Salvation Army and get lunch before the Empire Builder would take my granddaughter away.

At the Sally Ann, while we ranged through aisle after aisle of this and that, we heard the friendly clerks greet everyone who came in the door, most of them by name. “Hi Helen, did you ever find the whitchywhatsit you were looking for the other day. There might be one back on the shelf in housewares.” “Mary, did you want to take these with you now? If you have other shopping you can pick them up on your way home.” “Hey, Joe, nice shirt. You’ll look good in it.”

Then in the fast-food eatery of Jess’s choice, we eavesdropped while we waited for our order. Two men at the next table were talking about the Class C Tournament. When others came in, they jumped into the discussion. “Hi, Sam.” “Hey, Joe, nice shirt, how you been?” “How ‘bout that basketball, both girls and boys, real champs.” And that exploded an entire conversation about the intricacies of basketball, the merits of each team, and their hopes for next year.

Back at the depot, we had about an hour before the train arrived. I took out my book and Jess worked on her bracelet. We watched people come and go. Nearly every person greeted someone in the room with waves, hugs or handshakes.

Jess leaned over and whispered to me, “Grandma, everyone in Montana knows everyone else.”

A man and his wife walked in. I whispered to Jess, “I know that man but I can’t place him. He is someone famous, I know it. Maybe a movie star.” I groped around in my brain. Everything about him looked familiar, his walk, his stance, his facial expressions. About that time the Empire Builder came chugging in.

I walked Jess out to board the train. I kissed her good-by. We waved. I watched until the train pulled out. I will miss her. It was an ordinary visit. We didn’t do much. Our time together was special in a way she and I will lock away in our forever box.

While I was driving home the “movie star” popped into my head. He is famous. He is an actor with Montana Actors Theater. I have seen him on stage at Northern. I particularly remember him in his role as Uncle Peck in “How I Learned to Drive.” He did an outstanding job.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April 4, 2013

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