Looking out my Backdoor: Letters, we get letters, we get stacks and stacks of letters

My last two were heavy-with-grief. I received unprecedented response. And lots of questions. I’ll talk about that in a minute.

First, the good news. My son is back, truly the Prodigal Returned. He is returned to his life. He is grieving, hurting, yet doing the hard work of a multi-faceted recovery.

My daughter’s family has a plan, well, more an examination of possibilities and potentialities for when Sweet Jess, and she is a dear woman, slips and lands on the hard ice of addiction.

The thing is, I know that your family and every family is suffering. The differences are only in the details. As for me and my family, we have hope; we have joy.

Friends and strangers sent me letters. Letters of support. Letters of sympathy. Letters sharing your stories. Letters with questions.

Such as the following question: How did you think of tying your week together through soap operas? This was my preceding thought: “How can I write about my week? Nobody will believe me. My life is like a soap opera. I know I’m not the only one. I’ll bet yours is too! We all are living a soap opera.”

Once the words “soap opera” flitted through my head, all I had to do is fill in the blanks. Obviously I missed my calling. I could have gotten several seasons, perhaps years, from two weeks of family misadventures. I could have been wealthy. I could have been in Hollywood. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Are your stories fiction? No, I could not have made them up. Every word is true, as honest as I can lay it out there.

Are you a secret soap-opera aficionada and we never knew it? Are you binging in isolation on old soaps from days of yore? No. And no. See next question.

How did you know about all those old daytime soaps? When I was young and during the times of convalescence from measles, mumps and chicken pox, I was allowed to lounge on the living room sofa and watch our tiny television in a dimmed room. I wasn’t allowed to read because that might hurt my eyes. Oh, the irony.

Tack on summer, the day off for Thanksgiving, Christmas vacation and Good Friday (we had few breaks back in the golden olden days) and I could follow the soap-operatic lack of plot and action from illness to holiday to illness.

I especially remember the adverts. All those jingles which will never leave my head. “Ajax, the foaming cleanser …” “Hooray for Beef-a-roni, made with macaroni …” “Duz does everything!”

Along with soaps I watched bowling with the whispering soft commentator’s voice, golf, another whisper voice, and grim polio documentaries with background whooshing whispers from iron lungs. I never learned to swim. You have to be really old to “get” that connection.

Readers also sent advice. If we, me and my family, swallowed every vitamin, remedy, snake oil and supplement recommended, we would be invincible, would live forever and probably waft in holiness up into the clouds — if the weight of swallowing all that with water didn’t plunk us back down to ground. However, a long-time aficionado of several snake oils, I thank you.

But I’m making fun and that’s not nice. Every letter that came to me came from genuine caring. They arrived with stories, with prayers, with love, with advice, with solace. And I appreciate every one. Thank you.

Here in Central Mexico, our little town is suffering. The state of Jalisco is on severe lockdown, extended through to mid-February. Hospitals are full. Too many have died. Too many are sick. Those who previously ignored restrictions have become fervid believers.

The postal office and the bank are closed. Workers are out with the coronavirus. Elders such as myself are denied store entry. “Stay home, stay safe,” we are told. City government offices are open only sporadically. Taxes and water bills, normally due in January, have been extended, both to prevent long lines and because employees are home sick.

Life and Death cycle onward. I woke this morning still breathing. I sat in the sunshine backyard beneath the jacaranda tree, which is shedding like a horse in April, and watched a pair of partridge doves, untidy birds, attempt nest building, untidy nest, in a clump of air plant. Untidy birds. The nest looked like an engineering disaster but I’ll soon hear baby peeps.

For a blast-from-the-past treat, watch Perry Como sing the “Letters” song on YouTube. I wonder if I can watch Mexican soap operas on my computer. I already get the ads.

——

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 sondrajean.ashton@yahoo.com.