Might be this, might be that.

 

Might be this, might be that.

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The longer I live, the less certain I am about anything. In fact, when I detect certainty in my thinking, I immediately stop and investigate to find the flaw.

You’ve all met Leo. He works in my yard a couple half-days a week. Leo is much more than a garden worker. I’ve come to depend on Leo for all manner of help. He is a gentle man, educated, generous, and has a brilliant sense of humor. Over time, he’s come to seem a grandson to me. He trusts me enough to tell me when he thinks I am wrong and that’s a huge compliment.

I’m the only one of us who lives here on the rancho without a partner and the only one since the pandemic who lives here constantly year round. That may have served to cement our friendship. Leo shows up most mornings to ask if I need anything. He’s my taxi driver, shopper, legal advisor, all-around helper. He has a big heart. Sometimes I call him Mother Leo.

We were sitting on my patio, me telling a story from when I lived in Mazatlan. Suddenly Leo leaned forward and said, “Sondra, you have . . . “ and here he used an expression, a masculine anatomical term, which I thought was pure Montana but perhaps is pure Mexican and crossed the border north centuries past. After all, Mexico has written history centuries longer than Montana’s.

The expression means courage so I’ll use that word. “Sondra, you have big courage. You are alone. You are old. (The young man is brutally truthful.) When you need to make a change, you just make it. You moved to Mazatlan. Then to Etzatlan. And now you are going to move to Oconahua. Alone. You have big, huge courage.”

I know a compliment when I see one so, taking no offense, I said, “Thank you.” Graciously.

However, my mind was quietly thinking otherwise. My mind spit out words such as flighty, loose cannon, loco-loco.

It’s true though. When a situation becomes untenable for various reasons, I’ve learned to make a change. If opportunity beckons elsewhere, I’ve learned to make a change.

Every decision carries its own consequences. For me, that has nothing to do with right or wrong. I could go. I could stay. I could move one step left. Or right.

That sounds so smug and smarmy. It actually took six years of terror, being afraid to do anything, not “allowed” any decisions, to give me the strength to break free. Every move or change since has been relatively easy, easy only in comparison to the years I call “Chicago Time”.

Leo went on to say about himself, “Me, I’m a big chicken. I’m scared to change. Friends tell me I need to break away from here, to get a job to use my education and skills. I’m chicken. I’d love to work in one of the big resorts on the Gulf Coast. I’d be good at helping people, at managing a crew. I would like that work. But my family is important to me. I don’t want to leave family.”

Immediately, I felt guilt. I’m one of the people who’d said, “Go, move, do something for yourself.”

In that moment, I saw that I had been wrong to urge change for Leo. I don’t know what is best for this young man.

“Leo,” I said, “You know what is best for you. You are the only one who knows what is best. If living here, helping us, being here for each of us, for your family, your friends, feeds your soul, who are we to say that’s not enough? You have no idea the value you give us. We don’t express our appreciation as often as we think it. If your circumstances change, if the time comes for you to make a big change, you will know. That is also courage.”

I’ve often thought that in different times or circumstances, Leo would have been a priest. He ministers quietly, without fanfare, to us, to his family, his neighbors. If you want to see the consequences of his ministry, just take a short trip into town with him. Everybody knows Leo. Leo gives of himself, no matter where he is. That is who he is.

Fool? Wise? Chicken? Courageous? By whose definition? Might be this. Might be that.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

September 19, 2024

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Harem, Scarem or My Life in the Seraglio

Harem, Scarem or My Life in the Seraglio

                My friends, Cheryl and her husband Dave, are touring Spain and Portugal this summer. They will stay the nights in monasteries, fortresses and castles. In one stronghold, many of the bedrooms were, once upon a time, occupied by the master’s harem. Cheryl said, “I certainly am not going to sleep in one of those rooms. I want no part of a harem.”

                Personally, give me the harem room. I’ve seen the movies. I could stand to be waited on hand and foot. I can see myself lounging around the marble pool draped in a diaphanous gown, posed against a backdrop of ferns, orchids and tropical flowers. I like the idea of brawny attendants waving ostrich feather fans to cool my brow; sparkling wine and hand-dipped chocolates at my side, not a care in the world.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t for one minute believe this romantic image of the sultan’s harem as painted by Hollywood was the real thing. The harem was a place to keep women in seclusion. But it also served as a sanctuary, a refuge for the women of the household, whether wives, daughters, grandmothers or sisters.

We all remember the old cliché: a man may work from sun to sun but a woman’s work is never done. What intrigues me about a harem is the possibility for a division of labor, a way to split up and share that never ending drudgery.  Another cliché: Many hands make light work.

In my fantasy, we, the women of the harem, would work together to keep the household running smoothly. For example, tonight might be my night to cook dinner. Another member of my imaginary harem might do laundry, another take care of the children and yet another tend the garden. Perhaps tomorrow I get the garden. If I like to garden more than the others, I’ll take more of the garden days. She who enjoys the kitchen bakes the bread, bastes the roast, and burns, I mean, browns the gravy. We would seamlessly work out a schedule with everyone taking a turn, everyone getting a break, nobody stressed and overworked.

I can hear the protests. “That sounds like socialism. And your harem couldn’t be that perfect. What about jealousies? Back-biting?  Catfights? Slackers?”

             Hey, this is my fantasy and I’m creating it my way. But, alright, now that you brought it up, aren’t these difficulties part of non-harem, everyday life too? And don’t we learn to deal with them?

For me, the crowning glory of life in my make-believe harem, is that we women would have time for the arts. In the real world, arts have always been the prerogative of those with time and money. Virginia Woolf wrote that to pursue her art a woman needs a room of her own and a stipend. She wanted every woman to have the luxury of pursuing her talents, whether art or poetry or sculpture or finger painting or embroidering dish towels. For most of us who yearn for such creative moments time must be stolen from endless household duties plus the nine to five. We dream of the day when we can . . . but mostly, we don’t. We are too tired.

In the perfect world of my harem, we women would make sure that each of us got a chance to pursue our dreams, whatever they might be. I lean toward the arts. Perhaps you wish to study medicine. And she wants to repair tractors. In our harem, we would cheer one another on our way. We would provide for each other the extra oomph, the necessary push when the road ahead seems full of ruts.

On second thought, while I’m building my fantasy harem, why not include a marble pool where we can recline at ease, wafted by soothing breezes beneath a temperature controlled dome. Surround us with orchids. Bury us in blooms. Bring on the eunuchs to pamper us, cater to our every whim and indulge our every fancy. Tempt us with exotic foods, chilled wines and endless chocolates. Dreams are for free. Peel me a grape.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April 26, 2012

My Head in the Sand

Building Sand Castles
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My Head in the Sand


Back when I lived in the Windy City I subscribed to the Chicago Tribune, called by its publisher, Colonel McCormick, the “World’s Greatest Newspaper”. In those days it listed farther to the right than any newspaper in existence. This was the paper which ran the famous banner headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman”. The Sunday edition was approximately four inches thick and so heavy I had to separate it and drag it into the house, once section at a time. If I plunked the whole thing on the coffee table all at once, the legs splayed out like a spavined horse. I started with the front page and worked my way through the entire paper, section by section, a task which consumed a major portion of my day.

If that wasn’t enough, I regularly watched the televised news. This was back in the day when I had to cross the room to change channels, switching back and forth between Huntley-Brinkley and Walter Cronkite. I was mesmerized by the monster of the airwaves. I watched every hour of both local and national news. I became a news junkie. News began to take over every aspect of my life. It was not pretty. The more news I consumed, the more deeply I sank into a morass of depression. I couldn’t separate my personal problems from the problems of people in the news. I couldn’t get enough. I upped my intake. It only made me worse. In the grocery store I sneaked the National Enquirer into my cart and pretended it was not mine while the checker totaled my bill. By the end of each day I was sick to my stomach.

My addiction escalated. One day friends found me lying in an alley, wrapped in layers of newsprint, clutching a copy of “TV Guide”. I was incoherent, spoke only editorial-ese. My friends forced me to take a rigorous inventory. They made me admit I was powerless over the hours I spent immersed in stories of murder, mayhem, war, scandal, fraud, sex-crimes and political misconduct. Diagnosis: overdose. Prognosis: potentially fatal.

I was terrified. I broke it off cold turkey. With one phone call I cut off my supply of newsprint. With white knuckles I pulled the plug on the tube and trundled it down to the basement storage room. There I found an ancient, crumbly stack of “Archie” comics, left by a former renter. I carted the comics upstairs. They became sugar-pill placebos to aid in my recovery. I plowed through the stack, one day at a time. Memories of Archie, Jughead, Veronica and Betty still make me smile, though I have not read a comic book since.

Today I do not subscribe to a major daily, but I am an avid supporter of my local newspapers. I am seldom nauseated by the headlines, and rarely spend a day paralyzed with horror over world events. I appreciate the Havre Daily News because the editors carefully choose what national and international news is most important and they don’t obsess over the sexual antics of famous people. I value the weekly Blaine County Journal. It keeps me up to date on the latest happenings in my immediate neighborhood.

My little world, which directly influences my life and which I, in turn, might influence, is small indeed. I want to know on what day is the pancake supper at the fire-hall, when is the health fair scheduled, and who won the basketball tournament. It is important to me that the agenda for the city council meeting be available to the community. And we all need to know about the projected raise in water rates and the city clean-up day. And where else could I search for a battered old pick-up truck at the right price, something to haul garden debris and landscape rock, if not in my local want ads.

So what if I have sand in both eyes and ears. In this age of electronic information, I do not feel disconnected. If I needed, for whatever reason, a more comprehensive view of an event, I could go on-line to read any newspaper in the world. Meanwhile, I’ll play ostrich.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door.
May 13, 2010
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