Looking out my Backdoor: February is the longest month

Into every life some rain must fall. Okay. I understand. Go throw up and come back to let me explain.

Our particular metaphoric “rainfall,” the whole world over, no humans exempt, the great equalizer, is the COVID 19 coronavirus. Hang in there with me a minute. I get smarmier.

Behind every rain lurks a rainbow. Are you still with me? Do I hear the echo of an empty-room?

I’m serious. I’m not saying this is a universal truth or anything like that. But a lot of good things are happening too.

Whether being homebound is voluntary or a result of business closures, just feast your eyes on the positive aspects. Or grind your teeth if you must.

Take personal relationships for example. Time with family. For some, now that mom and dad are working from home, it means renewing a closeness with your rosy faced cherubs. Ah, surely that brings smiles to your faces. More time at home might mean revising previously relaxed discipline measures.

Perhaps you have time to renew, refresh, restore acquaintance with your spouse. Or not. I’ve heard that can go both ways.

And how many of you have recently talked with old friends long forgotten? Warms my heart just thinking about it.

As for me, I’ve developed new recipes while wondering why my clothes keep shrinking. I’ve revised, revamped and otherwise altered every item in my wardrobe. My wee casita has never been better organized.

While you in Montana are fast in the icy grip of Groundhog Regulated Winter, we in Jalisco welcome vestiges of Spring. I don’t think we have groundhogs here.

I’ve begun planting my bucket garden. Peas and beans are lifting into the sunshine. Newborn green shoots push away rusty dusty jacaranda leaflets which shower down with the slightest whisper of air. I saw, first time, tiny white lizard eggs.

Anything upon which I cast my eye is in danger of being changed. Just yesterday I transformed a tablecloth into coverings for three pillows; pillows I made from a bag of feathers I’d saved. I did the feather part of the job on the patio. When Leo came to water plants he asked, “You killed a chicken?”

That’s small potatoes. I’ve got a Big Project underway.

When I moved here, the house had to be gutted to make it livable. New plumbing, wiring, cabinets and cupboards, all had to be built. That took the first year.

Things that didn’t got into the house got shoved into the bodega, along with garden tools and other manly stuff, most of which was my own “man” tools, just saying, in case you want to tromp on me for not being PC.

The bodega had shelves along each wall cobbled together with junk wood and I simply lived with it, unhandy though it was.

Along the back and one side of my bodega run two hallways which I call the “tunnels.’ Lots of miscellaneous junk had been shoved into those spaces, helter-skelter. So I asked Josue and Leo to work a plan to put all the garden and “man” stuff into the tunnels, after they were emptied, painted white for light. Josue made new shelving and racks and hangers.

Today the tunnels are a miracle of organization, clean and orderly and amazingly roomy.

Today the bodega is empty, junk wood discarded, and my storage items binned and boxed for Phase Two. Josue will pressure wash the bodega, paint it, move the washer to the corner which means change plumbing, rewire the room for my convenience. When finished I will have plenty of neat and strong storage space, designed for my needs. Oh, and he will change the small “jail house” openings for real windows.

The bonus to all this rig-a-ma-role is that half the bodega space will be available for a guest bedroom. Brilliant, yes, I think so too. Do you have your passport yet?

While isolation is no fun and safety restrictions are, well, restrictive, still, good things come to us. Winter is for a season. Spring is around the corner, no matter where we live.

When we began the bodega project, pulling all the “man” stuff out of the bodega and emptying everything out of the tunnels, spread around the whole patio, I said, “What a mess. Wonder how long it will be messy. Not complaining. I can live with it.”

Leo said, “This is Mexico. It will be done mañana.”

This particular “mañana” of Phase One took a week. I’m waiting for my next “mañana.’

——

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].