An out of
mind experience
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Because of
the pandemic, health cautions and precautions, these past several days, I’ve
found myself to be the only gringo in town, or to be precise, on the ranch.
Tom and
Janet drove their big yellow cargo van to Arizona for medical appointments and
to bring back another load of belongings from storage.
Lani and
Ariel exited Etzatlan about when winter entered, gone off to lounge on a beach
somewhere near Manzanillo.
John and
Carol, in a fit of stir-crazy, packed up their ancient VW Van-Go and took off
just because they could.
Exactly one
year ago this week we began hearing news about this strange new virus. That’s
not exactly true. That March week was the first in which we actually listened
to the news we had been hearing since the autumn.
By the end of
March, we had battened down the hatches against this raging storm. One year,
folks. For me, a year of very little eyeball-to-eyeball, hands across our brick
border walls, real live social interaction; most often just a wave and a shout of
‘howdy’.
These last
three weeks with my on-going bodega renovation project, I hardly noticed my
lack of neighbors. Now that my bodega work is done, I notice.
I’m scared.
Really scared. I’d like to blame the pandemic, to blame my lack of
socialization. It’s my mind, you see. I fear I’ve lost the plot, gone around
the bend; I fear that my last wing-nut fell off and rolled under the
refrigerator.
One minute
I’m sipping coffee, nose in a book. Then . . .
Without any
thought, as if I were in a blackout, I came to consciousness, appalled, with
scrub rags in hand, washing windows, with no earthly idea how I’d gotten there.
In fact, before I’d noticed what I was doing, I was scouring down my second
window.
I hate
washing windows, a thankless, repetitive task. I’ll do anything to put off window
washing. If I could still physically get down on the floor without risk of not
ever getting back up, I’d rather tackle the grout between the floor tiles.
Okay. Maybe that was a slight exaggeration.
I don’t mind
most household chores; even get a sense of satisfaction from keeping
countertops clean and dishes washed. I like a clean floor.
My windows
to the world? They can get really dirty before I cave in to necessity and put
them on my ‘round tuit’ list. And I’ve no qualms about dropping the task to the
bottom of the list on a daily basis.
Once your
feet are wet, might as well wade across. So I finished the job, rinsed out my
cleaning cloths, grabbed my discarded book and went out to the patio.
But I
couldn’t read, couldn’t concentrate for worry. How had this strange action
happened? Might seem a small thing to you, but I’m worried. Scared.
I’m sorry.
You don’t understand. This is serious. This is not the real me.
I cannot
find any logical explanation. Not for washing windows without malice
aforethought.
Zombie
Apocalypse?
Aliens have
sucked out my brains?
I’m the
victim of an evil conspiracy to turn all the women of the world into Stepford
Wives?
I’ve lost my
mind?
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
March 11,
2021
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