News you can use
News you can use
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I’m thinking of running for president. You can’t run. You are too old and crippled. You walk with a cane. Walking doesn’t have the same elan. Listen: “I’m walking for president.” Who would vote for that? True, you won’t appeal to the youth. But consider, how many of the youth of today bother to vote? Good point. By rights, young people should rule the world. “A Game Boy in every hand.” “Make Angry Birds, Not War.” But if the young people don’t care to rule, I have an even be...
I thought it wouldn’t matter. Under Arturo’s guidance I had been doing physical therapy twice weekly, for almost six months. I was walking strong and sure. When walking along the street I used my handsome walking stick, which I had purchased many years ago from a S’Klallam gentleman in Port Gamble, for balance. Now comes the really stupid part of my confession. I paid lip service to Arturo in August when he told me I would need to continue my exercises, especially the ones for...
I can imagine life without my right arm. I experienced that for a few months. I can imagine life without a leg or even two. My experiential months altogether add up to a couple years. I coped. The age of the dreaded cataracts has come upon me. With terror I imagine life without the sight of my eyeballs. Yesterday, after a sleepless night, I met my highly recommended surgeon. He put me at ease. That is good. He said I am not ready yet. Mucho bueno. Maybe six months, maybe a...
While I have great respect for the past, I am not one to yearn for olden days. Not for me the re-enactments of historical events. I’ve no desire to escape today’s trials through romanticizing the past. I’ll happily trade your retro calico bonnets, buffalo robes, corncob pipes and bushy mustaches for my flush toilets, electric lights and a full set of teeth. As the New Year approached, my group of women with whom I graduated high school sent one another wishes. We ignor...
Three weeks ago I left the sunny climes of Mexico for the frigid badlands of the Yellowstone River around Glendive, one of the strangest trips I’ve traveled. As the holiday season which ends the Old and precedes the New Year rolls around, I tend to be introspective. Plunked down in the country where my ex-husband lived out the last years of his life, here for his memorial service, made me even more so. Memories surfaced like snippets of film. When a couple have children t...
This morning I sat waiting in the pulmonia outside the Mercado in Historico Old Town Mazatlan. The streets swarmed with carts, buses, autos, pedestrians and bicycles. I squinched my eyes and reduced the sights to kaleidoscopic colors, brilliant in the sun. I could smell meats on the grills across the street, guavas and oranges from the cart behind me. Shouts of vendors, of laughter, voices conversing in several languages filled my ears. Tears for no reason ran down my cheeks....
When I was 11, 12, 13 and 14 I wanted to join a cloistered order of nuns. It was either a good thing or too bad that any order where I could have boarded for school and preparation was out of my reach. By 15, latent puberty had taken over my mind and emotions. I was rather backward. In those days it meant something special if I said, “He looked at me.” In a modified way I got my wish when I moved to Mexico. I live in a small casita by myself. In the months when the sno...
The last time I went to a phone store (such a thing!) and asked for a dumb phone, one that just made and received calls, the young clerk looked at me with such pity and compassion, bordering on grief, that I should be so clueless. Indiana never was a forerunner for national cultural/industrial progress. The first telephone from my childhood was a darkly stained oak box solidly mounted on the kitchen wall. The black conical-shaped speaking tube flared from the center. One...
Fear is a mind killer. Take my latest foolishness. My friend Lani, who lives in Etzatlan near Guadalajara has invited me to hop the bus to visit numerous times. I’ve always conjured excuses. I like Lani. Fear held me back. Cousin Nancie is in Etzatlan visiting Lani. The two of them flanked me, out maneuvered me, forced me to face my fear. Stupid fear. Fear of getting on a bus, alone, for the trip into the mountains of Jalisco. My neighbor Ted asked me, “Were you afraid whe...
A day. Not an ordinary day. No connection to music or movie. A day plowing through bureaucratic formalities. Still, if one has a mind to connect the dots, a good day. With Carlos, driver and interpreter, my first stop was the much visited immigration office where I’m now on a first name basis with Amelia, Sophia and Ogla. I’ve left behind reams of paperwork, copies of numerous invasive documents, fingerprints, mug shot and much of my money. Today’s task was simple — I would p...
"You lie," the note from my friend said. "You said you were in Montana. If that were the case, you would have stopped in to see us." Immediately, as I often do, without thought, I shot back a reply. Afterwards, I began thinking. Was I flippant? I certainly did not mean to be. I had sent what I felt at the moment was an explanation. On later consideration, I felt I had sent a poor excuse. True, I had popped my head in the door and John wasn't there. I only had a five-minute win...
Nancie sent me photos of the vibrant leaves along the highway and streets of Leavenworth, yellow and orange and red against the green backdrop of Douglas fir and cedar. Immediately I could imagine the golden snake of cottonwoods slithering across the plains, hugging the banks of the Milk River. I love this season with a tinge of sadness, knowing it is short-lived, knowing winter could arrive before the next calendar page is turned. Those years when early frost, heavy with...
I hope your week has been good. I hope your week has not been like everyone else’s. The only thing I can attribute it to is astrology. I’m sure you must believe in astrology just as religiously as I do. I’m sure the Moon is in Mar’s pocket, Venus is flirting with Jupiter, Pluto is in the 29th house of Disney and the Sun has measles spots. None of the planets are tending to business. One of my close friends had three deaths in her family this week. Another friend had stomach...
Few things bring fear or dread into my life. When my car breaks down, I admit to approaching a state of near panic. This is mostly imaginary. When I was 23, a truck plowed into the side of my pick-up while I was driving east of U.S. Highway 2. I went into shock. I nearly lost my life. I have absolutely no memory of fear. And in actuality I cannot bring up one instance of car trouble, in which I didn’t know help was nearby or AAA would gallop to my rescue. My car problems w...
How do I talk about something about which I don’t even want to think? Give me a good strong dose of denial. Cover my eyes with a blindfold. Bury my head in the sand. This summer I’ve had a good dose of talking with friends about what to do next, about downsizing a life, about disease and death. Two of my friends lost their husbands. Two more are suffering the downward spiral of Alzheimer’s. One friend is struggling to maintain by herself a life she loves which feeds her passi...
I love my Montana home, which, along with Washington, Idaho and our neighbors north and south, is burning. Love is, indeed, blind. If we have any sensibilities at all, our hearts are on fire. Our beautiful state is in flames. And The Platters said it all. When your heart’s on fire smoke gets in your eyes. The air is full of ugly particulates. The horizon has disappeared. Our view is dull, our “Little Sky” hovers, brown and gritty. Looks like a blizzard could blow in any minute...
Oh, dear, my troubles began with air travel. I managed to get me and my bionic parts through security in Mazatlan and through both customs and security in Dallas/Ft. Worth. To me, that is a big deal. The Dallas airport is the size of three European countries. Paste a gold star on my forehead. I even hustled through three gate changes in half an hour, which I count heroic. Let me set the scene. Due to age and recent surgery, I get to pre-board. I travel with a walking stick,...
My friend Cheryl’s children are urging her and Dave to move right now from their long-time home in Tillamook, Oregon to the inland side of the Cascades. Why? Because they live at sea level between two rivers. We are told the Big Quake, the one where the west coast slides into the sea, with requisite tsunamis to follow, has been scheduled to creak and crack any day now. Certainly, disaster can strike. Look around us. The world seems a topsy-turvy place. But I’m irreverent. I ca...
One never knows, right? It’s one thing to plan. For example, today I mop the floors. Then a friend stops by and suggests, “Let’s go to Callecita for seared tuna and guava pie.” Are you going to be flexible? Or are you rigid in concrete, “I cannot go. I must mop my floors.” Really? Only a few more days and I will cross the heat-shimmering tarmac to board the plane from Mazatlan to Dallas to Seattle to Great Falls, Montana. Originally I planned a trip for March and April, with a...
I’ve been accused more than once of being Polly Perfect or Goody Gertie Two-Shoes. “It’s your smile. You always see the bright side. You think life is always wonderful.” (Accusation often accompanied with spit.) Not guilty. Take this morning. I woke up on the down-in-the-dumps side, unaware of any obvious cause. A case of poor, poor pitiful me. My outlook black and bleak. Poet Dylan Thomas, urges that “old age should burn and rage at close of day.” This ol’ gal barely manage...
Sky of Blue, Sea of Green; those words from the great American spiritual, “Yellow Submarine,” make me homesick for my Montana. What? Yes, of course, the song is originally English but so is much of our heritage which we call American. I like the idea of a yellow submarine bobbing through the seas of adversity. We are all in the boat, a comfort. What? Another question? Yes, indeedy, sky of blue describes Montana famously. So does sea of green. Well, sometimes it is sea of bro...
I intend to unload some of my philosophy on you. I’ll call it the gospel (small “g”) according to me (small “m”). I am not important enough to rate a big “M.” So if you want to take this page right now and go wrap potato peelings and fish guts, my little feelings will not be hurt. What started me wading through the murky philosophical pool was a six-way conversation among women, friends, all of an age. A year ago I closed a door on a chapter in my life and opened a vast...
“Just walking in the rain. Getting soaking wet. . . People. . . stare at me. . . saying who can that fool be.” That fool be me. Gloriously, deliciously drenched. Three hurricanes this month held promise of rain and then either drifted out to sea or fizzled into nothing. Not a drop of rain in months. Then one morning, the skies burst. I waited for a pause in the downpour and headed out for a walk. A block from my casa, the sky unzipped right on top of me. I loved it. Instantly...
I could have been a surgeon. That is one possibility. Political geography, architecture and anthropology — intense fields of interest. I sigh at lost possibilities. Now and then I think about them, the latter three. Raised when and where I was, none of the above vocations were realistically within my reach. Nurse, secretary, school teacher — my limited options. I didn’t have a passion for any of them but knew the first two were out of the question so settled on the teach...
Envy me if you wish. My living room ceiling leaks drops the size of tadpoles. The wind stirred by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Blanca, like an angry sieve, filtered a heavy layer of grit over everything in my casa. The entire week has been muggy with temps in the nineties and air as heavy as water. Mama dove has taken her pair of baby doves, scruffy creatures, through basic flight instruction. The first day, as mama dove called encouragement, orders, from the top of a palm in the...
