News you can use
News you can use
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Have you ever felt like you don’t really know what’s happening until it’s over? If I’m not around people to mirror back to me what I’m doing or saying, it is easy to fool myself. When I begin to fool myself, it is easy to slip back into unhealthy behaviors from my past. A few days ago I told my daughter, “I think I’m mildly depressed.” “Ya think!” she replied, with THAT tone of voice. Truth be told, what I was fishing for was sympathy. I’d cast my line in the wrong pond. Dee D...
I love it when Leo comes from the post office with a real letter in hand. Here it is mid-February and I just received your Christmas card. Denise’s arrived last week. I’ll not see Karen’s for a while because she mailed it mid-December! Our post office was closed for weeks; both postal workers were down with the COVID virus. Simultaneously, the lockdown closed government offices. In ordinary times, mail in Mexico is slow. We never get over worrying about our children, do we? I...
Into every life some rain must fall. Okay. I understand. Go throw up and come back to let me explain. Our particular metaphoric “rainfall,” the whole world over, no humans exempt, the great equalizer, is the COVID 19 coronavirus. Hang in there with me a minute. I get smarmier. Behind every rain lurks a rainbow. Are you still with me? Do I hear the echo of an empty-room? I’m serious. I’m not saying this is a universal truth or anything like that. But a lot of good things...
My last two were heavy-with-grief. I received unprecedented response. And lots of questions. I’ll talk about that in a minute. First, the good news. My son is back, truly the Prodigal Returned. He is returned to his life. He is grieving, hurting, yet doing the hard work of a multi-faceted recovery. My daughter’s family has a plan, well, more an examination of possibilities and potentialities for when Sweet Jess, and she is a dear woman, slips and lands on the hard ice of add...
Nobody could have written a soap opera to equal the drama of these pandemic days. It’s not just me and my family. We are all part of the drama. Nobody would believe it. No soap would sponsor such a program. Last week’s episode of my family drama left us hanging with my son struggling with seizures resulting from the COVID virus, on strong medication, and Oops — The Secret Storm we were not supposed to know — drinking. He was a mere month away from celebrating six years o...
When one thinks it can’t get worse, it can. And it does. This coming Feb. 20 would have been my son’s sixth sobriety birthday. I considered a thousand different ways of talking about this and each one led to, “Just vomit it out.” In “Looking Out My Backdoor,” I write about what is pertinent in my life. And I vowed to be honest with myself and honest with you. My son, Ben, this man who is super-intelligent with a computer mind, this man with such a big heart that, a year ago,...
Jim from Missouri, funny how we label people, isn’t it, was talking with me the other day, distanced and masked, when, in an idle comment, I mentioned that I miss summer sausage, a treat that ordinarily I wouldn’t give thought to since if I had a hankering, in my previous lives, I could go to the grocery and buy a chunk. Or a friend might gift me a chunk of deer sausage after a successful hunt. Our spicy chorizo sausage is easily obtainable here in Jalisco, and like els...
Bob T, a long-time friend from my past, used to compare life to a battery. In order for it to work, life must have both positive and negative poles. I, of course, wanted only the positive, the easy, the serene. Ha! Wantin’ ain’t gettin’. On my patio I have a vine that I potted some three years ago, a vine, but more branch than leaf. I don’t know why I’ve kept it; it is not a bit pretty, but rangy and the leaves fall off leaving naked brown stems. In the cold of this morning,...
The phone rings. I grab my mask with one hand and the phone with the other. “Merry Christmas.” My new habit. Masking has become automatic. Before I leave the house I grab a mask, even if I’m going to the clothesline, expecting to see not one other person. I go masked. Just in case. I’m locked and loaded. In the holsters on the belt around my waist, a spray bottle of disinfectant rides on one hip and extra masks, gloves and a tape measure for distance — OK, the tape measure i...
I am a marked woman. Last week I announced to my little world that I am studying Spanish, obviously a language tagged as subversive. When next I arrive in Havre, I'm likely to be met on the train by armed Border Patrol, cuffed, and dragged into the slammer. Oh, woe is me. I followed the Havre news story (also in the international news, by the way) about the two young women apprehended for speaking Spanish in the convenience store. I know that Spanish-speaking women are...
I’m a Sun Bunny. Sun worshipper. Sun seeker. For the past week if or when a tiny patch of sun parts the clouds, I rush out to sit, face raised toward the bounteous warmth, contented. Don’t for a minute think I’m “sun-bathing.” I’m basking in full winter gear, head and hands the only uncovered parts of me. This is winter, even here. It is cold. I live in a house with no heat source. I suspect it is difficult to grow up on a Montana farm and think baring one’s slathered bod...
Perception is all. I love the Big Sky Country. I like to picture it this way: I stand and slowly turn a whole circle. When I look downward, I see the earth. When I look outward and upward, the sky is a gigantic bowl, covering and visibly encompassing, caressing the earth. I love this new country of mine, the Big Earth Country. That's the wonderful thing about love. There is always room for more. Here I stand and turn a circle and all around me is the earthy world, the fields...
Editor’s note: Due to an editorial error, this column did not run before Thanksgiving. My world is circumscribed by the boundaries of the gringo part of the rancho. I walk the lanes. This morning when I arrived at my turn-around spot out by the entrance to the highway, I stopped to marvel. I saw, heading toward Ahualulco, a man on a three-wheel motorcycle, a custom job, wearing a modified helmet to resemble something from WWI, you know, Snoopy and the Red Baron. The bike i...
Some weeks are like this. Nothing happens. My mind is either too restless to settle or too restful to notice. My son Ben and his girlfriend, Kristen, are recovering from the COVID virus. That doesn’t mean I don’t worry. He told me only this much, “We are getting better but have no energy.” I am grateful for all your prayers and best wishes for my kids. Beyond that, I have nothing of importance to impart. This week nothing more obnoxious than silverfish has invaded the intimat...
My son and his fiancé are both sick with the dread coronavirus. I had not heard from him so I hounded him, knowing something was wrong. Ben managed to send me a two line email letting me know they were home in bed with a nurse coming regularly. Aside from that, I know nothing except they are too ill to be in communication with me or with anybody else. I understand all they do is sleep. Sleep is good. Washington State has good health care and I hang onto that as a life line....
The Governor of Jalisco pushed the Emergency Button. Only food stores and pharmacies are open for business. The numbers for COVID infections and deaths have doubled what they were a couple weeks ago and are rising daily. Like elsewhere, people were getting careless and complacent. Out here in the hinterlands, every day we hear of nearby deaths. Today, five in little San Marcos, just up the road. How is that possible? I feel like Joe Btfsplk from the long-gone comic strip,...
A couple weeks ago I wrote Kathy, “I have aged 10 years since I had surgery in January.” Today Kathy wrote me, “I’ve aged 20 years since this coronavirus pandemic.” Since Kathy is close to 10 years younger, that makes us about even. Fears, worries, lack of solutions, illnesses, deaths, feelings of isolation and helplessness — all take their toll, on our bodies, minds and spirits. It was March before most of us realized the dangers which surround us. March when we began to hu...
This morning, Leo brought me a box of 24 jumbo Crayola Crayons and a pad with a dozen dry cakes of water colors. Along with the requisite brush. Just like we used back in first grade. Oh, also a tube of school glue. Little girl stuff. Things change. When I was 6, our water paints came in a tin. The crayons smell similar, but I know from coloring with my grandchildren that some essential ingredient is missing because the colors are not as vibrant as they used to be and the cray...
On Canadian Thanksgiving Day, Kathy wrote with questions about our U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Basic “how does that work?” questions. I’d been in the kitchen preparing a more-or-less traditional Thanksgiving Dinner in sympathy with and support of our northern neighbor’s celebration. In the past many years, I have managed to celebrate two annual Thanksgiving Days, with friends in Vancouver, in Victoria and in northeastern reaches of Saskatchewan. While choppin...
“My need is such I offend too much. I’m lonely but no one can tell.” Ah, they were a great group, back in my time, The Platters. “Pretender” is the real word of the song, not “offender.” “Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal” so rather than pretend I took a deep breath knowing I was setting out to offend a friend. I stuck my foot in the sludge, big time. I have strict self-rules to protect myself from the COVID virus. Since I live on a walled property with hardl...
In these perilous times, we must make our own fun. In the interests of pleasure and economy, aided by an unusual (to me) scientific bent, I set out to boil up some chemical experiments. A huge tree with giant orange flowers lifts arms to the sky just outside my northern wall, an African tulip tree, common in Jalisco. I gathered a bowl of fallen flowers, dumped them into a large pot of boiling water. What I hope for is a natural dye, a color in light shade of brown, to dye a...
When I sit at a blank page with no idea what I want to write, I go through who, what, when, where and how of the past several days to see what might pop up and out. My life is simple. I read a lot. A lot. I read the phrase, “explains the real meaning of life,” in a book blurb. Blurbs operate as the worm on the end of the line that is meant to hook me into choosing to read that book. “Real meaning?” I kid you not. Is there other meaning of life? Several meanings? Isn’t l...
Several years ago I attended a prestigious writers’ conference in Seattle. It was time. I was committed. I paid a bundle. The conference offered a chance to mingle with real writers, to talk with agents and editors, to attend numerous workshops; an immersion in the literary world. Already, I knew I was not a real writer. I did not set a schedule to write daily, come fire or flood or dark of night. When my babies were babies I did not lock myself in the bathroom with my p...
Last week, Crin wrote that she saw two full moons. I shrugged. That fits. The earth is flat, thank you, Pam. And the sun gallops around the earth at an unprecedented rate. The world and all its people have gone topsy turvy. Karen in England says, “What a bunch of miserable.” Restless, irritable and discontent. I rarely have these kind of days. Tomorrow will be different. Today is sniffles and sneezes and low-level weariness. A mild summer cold. And sadness. All will be differe...
I don’t know why so many of my life’s lessons seem to require humiliation. Learning has always come easily to me, book learning, that is. And in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think book learning counts for all that much. My school reports consistently lined out the A’s and the comportment side matched. Yes, I was one of those. I’ll not soon forget my dad’s disappointment at my first B+ in freshman high school algebra. I was pleased and relieved with that B+. It could ha...
