News you can use
News you can use
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Every time I thought of my cousin, who had just had heart surgery, I found myself angry. I mean spitting angry, upset, because it seemed the man was not taking care of himself, was ignoring the sensible cautions, being a he-man gorilla, invincible. Finally, after a full couple of weeks of growling, I asked myself, “Why so angry?” Well, that question stopped me in my tracks. After some deep digging through my own rubble heap of rationalizations, I realized that I was afraid. I...
The last three years I have lost too many friends, good and true. There is an expression that’s been making the rounds. “Today is a good day to die.” Where did that nonsense come from? The Lakota? The Greeks? Personally, I blame Hollywood, easy to blame, a nonentity, an imaginary force with a lot to answer for in the Grand Scheme of things. That’s what I think. If I am to lay blame, I guess I blame all of us who dance to the Hollywood Tune like lemmings running to the sea, “C...
My friends roll their eyes and tell me they think I am nuts. I don’t argue. Every year I draw out a calendar by hand, a page for each month, an empty box for each day, in which I can note in cryptic form those things which I wish to remember, such as CBD80 (Crin’s birthday-80) or Lola-rabies or annual water bill due. When I draw my new pages, I review the old, plug in necessary annual items and leave blank the other boxes to be filled in as each day passes. My year-end rev...
Whatever your beliefs, whatever your inclinations for this wintery holiday season, I wish you only the best. Make good times. Make good memories. Make good. With love from my heart to your hearts. While these few weeks living in my new home have been mostly about creating that home to be my sanctuary, I have taken some time out to make memories by exploring the land around here. I've been to the Ocomo, the archeological digs in Oconahua, several times in the past years. In loo...
One of my friends asked me how I felt when I came back to the Rancho and my old home sat there empty of any aspect of myself. That’s a hard question to answer. For one thing, I’ve been so busy, focused on creating my new home, that I have little space in my head for my old home. Until I find a buyer, my old home is still my home. Maybe all the ties are not cut. The good memories and all the love that place has given me will never be erased. I hope a new owner someday will feel...
“They” let me out at night. What a revelation! It was the night of the Christmas Parade in the Plaza at Oconahua. The “they” who let me out is that part of myself which has kept me a recluse these past years. Note that I had not been out after dark in five or six years. I had taken on the self-imposed role of recluse due to pain, surgery, the pandemic, habit. With a good life in my own back yard, I felt no need to spice it up with outside entertainment. My mind does it all:...
In the third week in my new casa just up the road a ways from my old casa, I am making home. In ways this is like baking a cake. It is not a one-step process. It is not a box mix. The moving van (non-existent) does not pull up, put boxes in marked rooms, and roll on down the highway while I make the bed and go to sleep. Oh, if only it were so simple. Bit by bit though, this cake batter of a home is coming together. While there is still a lot to do, let’s call this a complicate...
I am living in my new home in Oconahua these few days, surrounded with decisions, mind changes, piles and stacks of books, dishes, food, turning in circles, where to put, what to do, which next. For this I am Thankful. I’m not brilliant, but I’m not stupid. When I get crowded into this corner, I know what to do. I go outside to my patio shady spot and sit and watch the hummingbirds, birds I cannot identify, ever-present vultures overhead, let the breeze clear my head. For thi...
It hung in the kitchen in the house in which we lived, on a farm outside New Winchester, Indiana, the first telephone of my memory, a wooden oak box which hung rather high on the wall. My Dad took down the ear piece which hung onto the right side of the box, connected by a short cord and leaned toward the black Bakelite cone and shouted into the mouthpiece in the center front. He turned the handle on the right a few turns. A grinding noise alerted the operator that somebody...
Once upon a time, in the far northern reaches of China, bordering Mongolia, there lived a beautiful princess. Oh, wait, wrong story. Start again. Once upon a time, in the far northern reaches of China, bordering Mongolia, a factory dedicated to producing the best umbrella clotheslines in the world, meticulously began to piece together the very Prince of All Clotheslines. Disclosure: Parts of this story have been fictionalized. However the main thread of the story is absolute...
My friends, I don’t have a story for today. Instead, I’ll send a poem. It is raw, fresh and flawed, but I no longer care about flaws. I’ve been thinking a lot about love. Remember how we used to say “Make love, not war”? Today my chant would be, “Make love, not hate”. Love is difficult, takes careful consideration, time, decisions. That’s my experience. I’m so fortunate to have known and to know so much love. I’m human. I get angry, frustrated, irritated at my friends, but...
In each life it seems there might be one or two individuals with whom, no matter how hard we try, we simply cannot communicate. We usually marry them. Seriously, if nothing else, we surround ourselves with people of like mind. We act together in ways beneficial to both parties. We are on the same track, click-clacking to the same destination. However, now and then we encounter a person with whom out tongue jumps the track, derails, stops at the wrong station, or otherwise...
The northeast wind doth blow! Just like that, fall is no longer on the way but has arrived. This is not our prevailing wind but is our October wind, here in Etzatlan, Jalisco. Not that much can be said to prevail these uncertain days. Conditions here are generally mild. This morning the winds are at 6-7 mph, gusting to 25! For us, this is windy! I love autumn. One thing I love most is that the air carries whiffs of spices. Spicy scents seem to be layered, to waft around my...
Scritch, scratch, scrape, scratch, scritch. Chips flying. Breathing dust. I really should have eye protectors. I cannot believe I am doing this job. Just last week, just days ago, I told you I do anything to avoid using sandpaper. Here I am, sanding down metal rocking chairs, one pair so old that the only thing holding them together might be the paint. I proceed cautiously, dust up my nose, in my hair, in the fibers of my clothing. Oh, well. Must be done. It was not my idea. K...
Often I say that I am never bored. It’s true. Always I find plenty to do, things that I enjoy and want to do. Fortunately, I grew up learning to like whatever I am doing. I give credit to the good Sisters at St. Joseph’s. Even today, I take pleasure in plunging my hands into warm dishwater or ironing creases into my cotton pants. I’m not pure or perfect. I dislike touching sandpaper and a lot of things in my home would be better detailed had I not skipped a crucial step in a p...
I am writing this, talking about this hard subject, for you, for that one person out there who needs to hear that you are not alone. This is a topic nobody wants to talk about. Me, included. Let’s sweep it under the rug and pretend that lump isn’t real. I’ve lost my son. Again. Last time I lost him, the County Sheriff picked him up in a ditch, beat up with broken bones, a backpack containing heroin and other contraband. Landed in jail. The County had a special program, uniqu...
My morning readings include a short poem by Rumi as translated by Coleman Barks. One morning this past week, I read: Who makes these changes? I shoot an arrow right. It lands left. I ride after a deer And find myself chased by a hog. I plot to get what I want And end up in prison. I dig pits to trap others And fall in. I should be suspicious Of what I want. And that pretty much says it. My life in a nutshell. Rumi has not become my daily horoscope. Some days his words mean...
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 th...
It was a dark and sleepless night, not a storm cloud in sight. I did the usual when I don’t sleep. I gazed out the window. Turned from my right side to my left side. Threw back the blanket. Turned from my left side to my right side. Pulled up the blanket and tucked it around me, a cocoon. Too many times. Sensible people, I am told, get up and do something. Binge on Netflix. Scrub the toilet. Read until their eyeballs fall out. Work an entire book of Sudoku. Drink a bottle o...
We all get them. This has been our turn. A week fraught with “one thing after another.” The kind of week where the little disasters loom large in shadows of big fears. My friend Ana in Oconahua had been having stomach pains for a long time, much longer than anybody knew when she finally admitted them and went for tests. Bango — into the hospital she landed, gall bladder surgery. She left minus a body part, with rocks in hand. She is recovering nicely from the surgery but s...
Grandma raised me. When I was born, my Dad was overseas fighting in The War. My Mom had what we today call mental health issues. For all know, from stories told me by that side of the family, she might have been Mad as the Proverbial Hatter. Uncles and Aunts rescued me often and I’m sure they were glad to hand me and Mom over to Dad when he returned. My Dad was a farmer. He loved farming. He loved my Mom. Mom loved Dad. Mom did not love farming. I was 3 when my sister was b...
I want to ride my tri-cy-cle. I want to ride my trike! Queen, I shall sing you all day. Do you remember your first wheels? Mine was a tricycle, all metal, sparkly red. I remember the size, the shape, the feel of leaning over the chrome handlebars, skinny legs pushing the rubber-clad pedals with all my might, wind in my face, tooling down the lane between the house and the barn. My friend Janet bought an electric tricycle and she is excited. Her excitement is infectious. I...
Here we are, smack in the middle of August, wondering how we got here already. Yes? As a friend said, “What do you mean, August? It’s only June.” Yes. June. I mean, August! The days move along too quickly on their progression through the equinox. You can feel the difference in the air, can’t you? It might be subtle but it is there. The air has a different scent, a different brush against your skin. A different energy. Summer is still with us. The signs of the season turning...
When I moved to Etzatlan in Jalisco, Mexico, I said to myself, as well as to anyone who would listen, “I will live here until I die. This is my last best place.” Unless I die in the next few weeks, I find that I have one more last best place to experience in this life. It had been a month since I’d visited my new house in Oconahua, a casita tucked into a corner of property owned by Ana and Michelle. This morning Leo helped me load his car with a few things I could take over...
Lest we forget. I tell this story lest we forget. We have suffered a tragedy in our little community. You are probably tired of hearing me celebrate every raindrop. The rain that makes this mountainous country look like the green, green, green of Ireland, wears the familiar comedy/tragedy mask, same as any country with arroyos and gullies. Water will wear and tear channels through mountains, valleys and hillsides. Last week the rain turned its tragedy cheek toward our town. Et...
