Looking out my Backdoor: When summer sausage is a slice of bliss

Jim from Missouri, funny how we label people, isn’t it, was talking with me the other day, distanced and masked, when, in an idle comment, I mentioned that I miss summer sausage, a treat that ordinarily I wouldn’t give thought to since if I had a hankering, in my previous lives, I could go to the grocery and buy a chunk. Or a friend might gift me a chunk of deer sausage after a successful hunt.

Our spicy chorizo sausage is easily obtainable here in Jalisco, and like elsewhere, everybody makes it differently. Generally it is rather soft and juicy, lovely in an egg scramble or mashed into refried beans. Delicious. But it is not the sausage I want.

I’m not vegetarian but seldom get hungry for meat. This winter I find my mouth watering for a slice of hard sausage from the North Country. It has probably been 10 years since I sank my teeth into a slice. Why now?

Winter. Definitely winter. Traditionally, a season of rest. Trees rest. Bears hibernate. Flowers tuck into beds beneath a blanket of snow. While, not quite the same frozen details here in my piece of Mexico, still, it is winter.

The time for rest. Since mid-December when I finished my last face mask and unplugged my sewing machine, I’ve not had a “project” as such. I always have a project. One in front of me on stage, one waiting in the wings, one in rehearsal. It’s the way I’m geared.

This morning I had a thought. (Stop that!—I heard you groan!) If we split our lives into arbitrary seasons of 25 years, generously allotting ourselves one hundred years, I am transitioning from autumn into the winter of my life.

In this, my year of solitude, in this, my winter of rest, lately my morning walk-the-lanes time has become walk-my-grief time. We Americans don’t do well with grief. We’d rather brush grief under the rug, slap a coat of paint over it, or otherwise make it go away. But it doesn’t go away. I’m guilty. I use busyness or I-need-to-be-stoic-for-others as my avoidance excuses.

Memories are funny, though. Rest and they come running. I don’t control them. One day memory brings a girl from my first grade. Shirley had smallpox as a baby, which had left visible scars on her face, her arms. Instead of pushing her away, I take a moment to think what sorrows those scars might have brought into her life. I say, “Hello, I remember you. We played around the huge oak at the edge of the playground. Thank you for visiting.”

Other days might bring my own baby, or my dad or my mom, or relatives. Or 4,000 faces of U.S. COVID deaths from a single day. Or a mudslide. A plane crash. A neighbor whose breadwinner died and her family is hungry. They all come with faces. I let them into my walk.

Instead of making me feel morbid, these memories or reflections bring me feelings of peace, of rest, a quietening of spirit. I feel richer, connected.

If you are wondering what summer sausage has to do with grief, just let me thread my big needle with a long thread and I’ll show you.

I’ll stitch patches of winter together with patches of rest. As they appear, I add patches of memory along with impressions of the day, news from friends, news from around the world. Around each patch I stitch a border, a walk of solitude.

So when Jim from Missouri showed up a few days ago, we talked about what stores are open, which ones are safe to enter, where to find different foods, I said, “In your searches, if you ever see anything like summer sausage, buy me a small chunk.”

Jim said, “My friend sent me a gift box for Christmas. I’ll share my sausage with you.”

I don’t believe in coincidences. I cut a paper thin slice of Jim’s sausage and it tasted like bliss. I’ll stitch this patch of sausage bliss onto the other pieces of my winter quilt. There is the perfect place for it, down here by this corner. It is all about being connected.

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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].