Looking out my Backdoor: Musings, observations, and outright guesses

I could have said “outright lies” but I have no blessed idea how I am going to fill this page so “guesses” seemed the more appropriate word.

Most weeks I know exactly what I want to say. It never comes out the way I think it will, but I have a definite idea to start. “I can’t wait to talk about that.” Or, “I want to tell them this little story.”

This has been a strangely blank week. Maybe it is the gray skies, make me feel like I followed my son Ben home to Poulsbo, Washington; gray, grim, unrelenting wet.

“Where is the sunshine?” I ask as if it is my God-given right to expect sun every morning by 11:00 just because it is the usual way of the day unfolding here in my magical bit of Mexico.

There has not been enough sun to outline the clouds; dark and dreary and low and heavy hangs the ceiling, solid. Every day rain is forecast. Every day I think of Chicken Little and look for the sky to fall.

Then it did — fall — in fulsome wet steady streams, all night, all day, all night, relentless and unruly. Forecast today, “partly sunny.” Sol made a cameo appearance about 4:15 just prior to the wind gathering out of seemingly nowhere, bringing more rain. Rained all night, again.

Ten days of grim and gray, for me, translates to heated teakettles of water, sponge baths and hair-shampoos in the kitchen sink. I have a solar water heater and about the fifth gray day, water is best described as tepid. It is a minor inconvenience at most. Only happens once, rarely twice a year.

Worst are the feelings of vague ennui and low-level depression. Boredom? How can that be? I’m never bored, despite the fact I generally spend a good portion of each day outside. When gray generates cold. I huddle in my chair, lap blanket cover my legs, book in hand, sitting in the waft of warm air generated by my tiny tower heater.

At least the rain brought a satisfaction of action — at last — something is happening.

But all along, every day I have activity, so why the lassitude? The lethargy?

My son flew back home. I had three weeks of his full-time care and coddling plus hot, vicious two-handed pinochle in which he trounced me. I loved every minute of it. It was time for him to go home. Sadly.

I can care for myself with a minimum of help from neighbors, most of whom visit daily. They come with stories, with hugs, with soup, casseroles, bone broth and cookies. Cousin Nancie who lives to bake brought a huge piece of white cake with coconut frosting. Hard to stay down in the dumps with such attention.

Miguel is my physical therapist, a kind young man who gives me treatments which make each cell seem to open like a flower and breathe. Then he ruins the effects with orders for daily exercises. But I do them, diligently. Pain is negligible.

My balance is incredible, comparatively speaking, as is my walking. How could one walk well lurching along like Chester in “Gunsmoke,” half a block behind, hollering, “Mister Dillon! Mister Dillon!” Five years of misery that could have been avoided had I know my leg was fixable.

Jerry and Lola are here from Idaho. Jerry and I are Harlem High classmates. This is my friends’ third visit with me here in Etzatlan. They are staying at the restored Hacienda El Carmen not far from my home. Today, eight of us, me and my neighbors, Jerry and Lola, met at the Hacienda for a lovely lunch and three hour visit. I saw my friends from Oconahua. Kathy from Victoria phoned. I do not lack company.

I worry about my daughter who is overworked and overwrought. I fear for her health, but will she listen to her mother? No! She is too much like her mother.

I worry about my friend in Oregon who has a malady that is not fixable. I do not want her to bear the pain and to gradually lose functions. She is too vital.

I worry about another friend in Washington, worry that he has given up, is making do, is feeling real despair, not this shadow of despair I flirt with, knowing tomorrow the sun will shine.

It will. It is forecast and it will happen. Mañana. Which might be tomorrow. Or possibly the next day.

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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 http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email [email protected].