Looking out my Backdoor: Nothing changed; everything different

Jim picked me up at the airport in Guadalajara. Once we exited the labyrinth of parking and hit the straightaway, I requested, “Tell me all the news.”

“There is no news,” Jim responded. “Everything is the same as when you left.”

I’d been gone a month, so I treated his statement with skepticism. And over the course of the trip home learned much.

Among several small rains, two devastating storms hit our town. Trees and branches down all around.

We had driven a mere five kilometers down the road when the sky opened. At times one could barely see the lane markers, side view. I took the storm as a personal “welcome home.” Albeit a wet one.

Jim is building a cabana for Bonnie and her daughter Samantha. So I heard the story of searching for elusive materials, the frustrations of building with language barriers, the cultural differences, learning that what works in Missouri maybe doesn’t work in Mexico.

Jim is driven. When he undertakes a project, it is push, push, push until done! That’s Jim’s way. He is brutal with himself. He voiced his frustrations.

Culturally, the workers here go a steady pace, steady but not brutal. They take a mid-afternoon break for a meal and rest, generally two hours, then return and work until dark. They might talk and laugh, pause for a story along the way. The job gets done just the same.

Next, Jim told me that Bonnie’s mare broke through an old-style concrete septic tank, full of sludge. Getting her out required a backhoe and ropes, but that was last-resort effort, after EMTs and bomberos (firemen) and other city officials showed up and shrugged.

Jim said it took hours to wash her down and she had open wounds from thrashing about, struggling to get out. Amazingly, she didn’t break any bones but she contracted tetanus. Two days later, despite heroic efforts by a school of veterinarians, Bonnie’s mare died leaving a colt motherless. A sadness sits over the rancho.

Next morning, Leo showed me a nest in my mango tree. A kiskadee or flycatcher, hard to tell them apart without binoculars, built a nest and hatched five little cheepers. Life does cycle.

The bamboos I recently planted outside my western and southern windows to shade me from summer sun have expanded to twice their girth in one month. I’m used to virtually living outdoors with open windows and now I am curtained in with soft green light. It’s different. I’m getting used to it.

My golden chain tree shot up a good meter higher than my mango. And it is plush with new leaves, a surprising shade tree. It’s always been a scrawny trunk with a few scrawny branches. How did that happen?

Reminds me of Antoinette, now taller than me, taller than her mother, since last I saw her.

My mango tree is so heavy with fruit that Leo had to build supports to hold the branches. I will harvest my tree’s very first mangoes in a couple weeks, my best guess.

This morning I checked my papaya and four lovely footballs of fruit fell into my hands. I gave one to Josue, one to Leo, one to Ariel, and put one in the refrigerator for myself. There is nobody else here, all have fled north. Jim left Monday.

First time, my “five-dead-trees” are all healthy and in full bloom. The ants have not kept them stripped, hence, “dead.” I’ve never seen so many lizards or so few ants. There might be a correlation.

I left at the end of the dusty dry season and returned for the rains. Every night I either sleep to the rumble-grumble of thunder or wake to an explosion of noise, lightning and rain. Every morning the sun blesses our world with such beauty it makes me want to cry, good tears.

Next time I complain nothing ever happens in my quiet little life, please remind me that I can go away for a month and when I return, maybe nothing changed but everything is different.

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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].