Looking out my Backdoor: Endings and beginnings

Christmas has been celebrated. The first day of the New Year lurks around the corner. We arbitrarily close out one year, stamp it “over and done” and with trepidation open the flaps of the box labeled, “next.”

The one thing, the only thing, I can say with certainty, is this: Nothing, absolutely nothing, will come about, unfold, or happen the way I think it will. Just by consistently getting up each morning I have lived long and I have learned that I don’t know much.

Jim recently told me, “Farming is a microcosm of life.” I had to think about that a moment. He went on to say, “We are idiots if we think we have any control.”

We had been talking about my amaryllis. Two years ago I had over 200 amaryllis in my garden. Last year I counted a few more than 400. This year I have none.

David at the vivero in town identified the pest by the evidence Leo took to show him. Leo came back and said to me, “Same thing the spray planes go over the cornfields to stop.”

A bug that ruins whole cornfields infested my little flower crop. I have four which have actually bloomed, but they are also doomed. The roots have holes with worms.

Immediately I thought of my squirrel who plants corn throughout my garden. Did she bring the blight? Probably not. The bug that causes this plague goes through several incarnations. Moths fly through my imaginary boundaries. We live surrounded by corn fields in three directions.

My same farming friend from Missouri has been in St. Louis this year, caring for his 95 year-old mother. In October, Jim brought her to meet us and see his place in Mexico. We all fell in love with Juanita. She died Christmas Day, at home, cared for by her family. Some endings are beautiful; hard, yes, sad, yes, and beautiful.

I seem to be ending a “solitude” phase of my own life and, inexplicably metamorphosing into a social butterfly. I didn’t ask for this change. It is happening and I accept it, interested to see where it will take me. Friendships deepen. I like it.

Twenty meters of barren flower beds stand empty. A sure sign of a new beginning. Oh, I will fill them. Maybe with plain, hardy geraniums. They bloom year round, seem oblivious to bugs, iguanas don’t eat them. Squirrels plant corn among them but I can handle that. I’m in no hurry to decide. Might take a few trips to the vivero.

I have no clue what the New Year portends. No doubt, it is better that way. I make no resolutions that I am sure to break. Though they can be kind of fun. “I’ll walk five miles a day, eat only vegetables, lose 50 pounds, give all my money to the poorer, only smile and show cheer, promise not to shoot my neighbors — oops — how did that one sneak in?” See, all resolutions ready to be ignored.

And, no, I don’t own a gun. But see how so much forced “goodness” just begs for a bad to balance the scale.

No predictions. No forecasts for the future. I hope you, my friends, as well as myself, keep waking up in the mornings to watch what the days unfold.

Happy New Year, one and all.

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Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com. Email [email protected].