News you can use
News you can use
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We met in Mazatlan several years ago. Evelyn is also from Harlem — not Montana — the Harlem in that Big City eastern seaboard state. A world traveler, Evelyn takes trips every year to different countries. She is an intriguing, well-read and versatile woman. She annually spends three weeks in Mazatlan at the same resort where I stay with my friends, Kathy and Richard. As we came to know Evelyn, we realized we like to do many of the same things; we diverge from the usual tou...
There is a man who sits on a low trolley at a certain intersection roadway along the Malecon, a broad walk next to the seawall which runs about six miles around the harbor. I suppose one might call him a beggar. He is not homeless. I call him a dispenser of blessings, a beamer of joy. I don’t know his age, maybe in his 40s. He looks like the Smiling Buddha sitting on his platform, useless legs twisted beneath his body. The first time I actually “saw” him, and I still don’t...
Take the other day, a typical day, as typical as any day can be when home base is a beach resort on the Pacific coast of Mexico. We’d eaten tropical fruit and sweet rolls, in a café overlooking the beach. Then we pulled lounges beneath the palm fronds of a palapa and watched the waves rolling, fish jumping, shrimp boats trolling by the islands, and the ferry from La Paz smoking up the horizon. That activity easily consumed a couple hours. We lamented that we have so few da...
Kathy and I peeled ourselves out from under the palapa on the beach, changed into street clothing and took a pulmonia down to the Plazuela Machado. We had two things in mind. We like to experience the monthly First Friday Art Walk at least once each year to make the rounds of several favorite galleries to see what is new in the art world. Best of all, Jim Morrison and The Doors were performing at the Teatro Angela Peralta. OK, so Jim Morrison, poet, songwriter and lead...
My friend Kathy and I lounged on the beach, mindlessly watching the waves roll in. Tide was high so the waves were literally underfoot. We each had a book open but upended on our laps. “I love it the way my mind goes empty while I’m on the beach like this. It is so Zen,” said Kathy. I took 10 seconds to give her statement thought, an uncharacteristic move on my part, before I replied. “Umm hmm. Sun, surf and sand seem to have that effect. ‘Living in the moment.’ It is a state of mind we are supposed to strive to attain. It...
Every house or apartment I have ever moved into had white rooms. Oh, I just remembered, that’s not totally true. One was shades of putrid pink. Sooner or later, I transformed every wall in every house with colors of my choice. Several months ago Gogi, my landlady, was sitting in my living room visiting. Gogi is Mazatleca but she spends most of the year in Sun City, California, where her daughter lives. I asked if I might paint. “Sondra, you may do anything you want,” I heard...
My friend Kathy from British Columbia flew in this week. For the next three weeks I will be with Kathy on holiday, staying up the street six blocks from where I have my apartment, at the El Cid Resort. Evelyn from Harlem in New York City will join us in a few days. The three of us have a propensity for getting in trouble. We don’t intend trouble. Trouble, like a heat seeking missile, finds us. As another friend says with a shrug, “It happens.” Although Evelyn, Kathy and I come from diverse backgrounds, we share a love of la...
In a note to a friend I mentioned that I have lived my life in chunks. The years on the ranch. Years raising my children. Years re-covering furniture. Years in theater. Years in city government. Those sorts of chunks. Some chunks overlap. Some chunks I have tried to bury far from memory. Others I treasure. All are part of what makes me, well, me. I wonder what will define this particular chunk of my life. Lord knows, it is different from all the others. Looking back, I can find clues to what led me to decisions I made. For...
Egads! Another hurricane. Last week Hurricane Norberto blew past, waved “hello” and left unwelcome gifts of havoc. This week, Hurricane Odile, not to be left behind, followed the same path. Fortunately, we in Mazatlan experienced only the side effects. When speaking of weather, it is a horrible thing to say we are lucky. When hail strikes the plains, one wheat farmer is wiped out and the neighbor’s fields go unscathed. Weather isn’t “fair.” Our particular neighbor is Cabo San...
Dear Richard, Across the street the sewer main sprung a vicious leak. Nasty, smelly water is burbling up, sending a gray putrid pool down the street my way. The break is right on the corner of Calle del Pulpo and Tiberon. Actually, I don't know where the break is but that is where the icky water is gushing out. Please send the guys down to fix it. With all the flooding going on, a side effect of Hurricane Norberto, I don't know when the city crew here can get to it. I would call in the break, but I don't know who to call or...
Drag me kicking and screaming to the latest electronic devices and I obviously want nothing to do with them. My cellphone — the dumbest one I can find — is smarter than I am, and has functions I’ll never use. Writing on paper, any paper, even a brown bag, with a soft lead pencil gives me satisfaction in the depths of my soul. I like the texture, the drag-scritch of the lead across the surface, the drag tracks the pencil leaves in its wake. Having said that, I confess, the only...
Actually, there is no “we.” I am the one wondering if I lost my last wing nut. I’m down in the dumps, crawling along the bottom of the pit, rolling in slime and garbage. Well, it sort of feels like that. After a month of visiting friends and relatives, being part of their everyday “normal” life, I cannot help but make comparisons. Of course, I compare my insides (see above) with your outsides. You, of course, come out looking beautiful in my assessment, happy, joyous an...
I attended the Dawson County Fair with my daughter Dee Dee and her family. It was touch and go whether there would even be a Saturday night rodeo. Black clouds had rolled in, covering the sky, temperatures dropped, thunder roared and lightning struck as rain pounded the ground for hours. Too dramatic? Four different storm cells hit in succession and all the above is true. When we got to the fairgrounds the rides had been shut down. Rain aided the Mud-a-palooza, mud volleyball...
Hi, my name is Alexandria. Call me Lexi. Grandma took me on train from Seattle to Wolf Point so I can spend time with my cousin Antoinette. Call her Toni. I am 6 years old. Toni is 8. Grandma asked me to write about the trip. So I took notes. We left Seattle from the newly restored King Street Station. Grandma told me to write that. It is beautiful. I told Grandma this is my story, and she should write her own story. In fact, I had to teach Grandma to give up all thoughts and...
I’m freezing. I’ve been shivering since landing at Sky Harbor in Phoenix last Wednesday. Phoenix is even hotter than Mazatlan. This being summertime, I didn’t expect frigid air in Phoenix. I had forgotten the airport is a converted refrigeration unit. Figuring I would not need them until I reached my destination in the middle of the night in Seattle, I had packed my sweater and jeans jacket in my checked luggage, somewhere in the bowels of an aircraft. Within half an hour...
My friend David died last year. Ah, I miss him. But now and then I channel David. His wife, Vidya, insists David channeled P.T. Barnum. David was an idea man. He was always coming up with a good idea to do this or do that. When we worked in theater, I used to tell him, “Write up your idea and tell us how you intend to carry it out.” That suggestion killed a lot of ideas. But when a super-great one showed up, we instituted it right away. David used to say, “I just throws ’em o...
I always knew I was a princess. Not any old run-of-the-mill princess, mind you, but a fairy tale princess. Not just any fairy tale princess, mind you, but a princess like the one from “The Princess and the Pea.” None of your Snow Whites or Rapunzels for me. Cinderella came close, but I could never do the glass slipper. How did I know my royal roots? When I was a child I could not sleep unless and until I had made the bed conditions exactly “right.” The sheets had to be smoo...
Lizards startle me. Back in the long-ago days when I rode horseback to check cows, now and then I'd see a flash of movement when a lizard sunning itself on a rock was equally startled by me. My mouth emitted a screech without my permission and my heart swung into overdrive. I couldn't help myself. Meanwhile the lizard disappeared behind, around or under the lichen encrusted rock, a perfect habitat for its lichen colored skin. Fortunately, there aren't a lot of lizards in easte...
Several years ago when I made the monumental move from Poulsbo, Washington, to Harlem, Montana, with several truckloads of stuff, I unpacked and created a home that was also a library, an art gallery, a virtual grocery store, a tool shed, a fabric store and a workshop. My life was as complicated as that sentence. Jokingly, I swore that if ever I relocated again, I would take nothing with me. I would become a minimalist. My life would be defined by sparseness and simplicity. I...
Feels good to be back in Montana in the springtime. One thing for certain, spring in eastern Montana is reliably brown. Other places, other climes, daffodils are popping up their cheery heads, lilacs are readying up to perfume the countryside, trees are greening. We, who identify with this north country, appreciate brown hills with intermittent bluffs of gray. Modest glaciers of white bury the north slope coulees. The calendar may declare spring. We know better. Winter will...
People frequently say to me, “You are so courageous. I could never do something like ‘that.’” (“That” can mean any number of things, some crazy indeed!) I’m puzzled. Often, but not exclusively, I hear these words in relation to travel. For example, my cousins in Indiana are horrified that I drive the miles from Montana to their homes by myself. I could fly but I like to see the country between hither and yon. The solitude gives me opportunity to process the sights I see....
This morning I sat in front of my casita, reading a book, sipping tea, enjoying the breeze on my face, when suddenly five truckloads of Mazatlan Policia screeched around the corner and, positioning the trucks to face both directions, blocked the entrance of our street. Without hesitation, I abandoned book, chair and teacup and melted through the screen door into the inner recesses of my apartment. I didn’t bother to lock the screen or shut the door. Why would I? These p...
It was close to 4 o’clock when I left my apartment to walk up the street to get a liter of milk, no specific destination in mind, just a purpose — buy milk. I could go to the frutera and buy milk and fruit. Or to the Farmacia for milk and an apple turnover. Or to the Oxxo for milk and pan dulce, a sweet treat for the next morning. Or to any of a dozen other small markets for milk and whatever might catch my eye. Instead, I crossed the street to Tony’s on the Bay, seated mysel...
“In my next life, I’m going to be a man. When I’ve punched the time clock, I’ll be off work, done for the day. Go home, grab a brew, the remote, grunt, and wait for dinner to appear. I won’t cook. I won’t clean. I won’t do dishes. Mess, what mess? Do laundry? I’ll wear them again tomorrow. Fold clothes, why? Prepare lunch to take to work? Nope. I’ll buy something at the store. I’ll scratch my privacies in public and grin, think it’s normal. Think burping and passing gas is sex...
I perch on that edge, jump back and forth across the line, ignore it, bow to it. Some days I refuse to recognize possibility, let inertia carry me like a raft on the Pacific tides, beyond sight of land. Last night I could not sleep. Instead of counting sheep or getting out of bed for a glass of warm milk and a game of solitaire or even arguing with a Higher Power which I could not describe coherently if my life depended on it, and it does, I borrowed a long-time friend’s m...
