Looking out my Backdoor: Go with the flow

Remember those words from long ago? I glance at tee-shirts on computer side-bar ads, and see that phrases from when I was young and innocent, or at least oblivious, our phrases are making a comeback.

So go with the flow even if you’ve no idea what it means.

I remember during a particularly tough few years when my mantra (I didn’t know the word mantra back then) was “acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.” I thought if I said it often enough the words would magically seep into my hard head with complete understanding. To me the two phrases mean much of the sameness.

Crin told me early this morning that her day is filled with “maybes.” Maybe she and her sister Kathy would go to Guadalajara to pick up the car they are buying. Maybe the paperwork would be ready. Maybe the insurance would be in place. Maybe the work items would be finished.

In other words, a day like any other. Go with the flow.

We sprang forward with the dread time-change Sunday so this week I’m indulging myself in a few days of grumbling. There is never enough time.

My own plans today are rather nebulous but include baking a batch of bread and mopping the floors.

But before I start any project, I can see that I absolutely must harvest lettuce from one of my buckets.

On the way to the lettuce bucket, I have to stop to allow the jasmine to permeate every cell of my being. I know if you close your eyes, you can smell the sweet jasmine all the way where you are.

The bucket of recently planted zucchini will be giving me first fruits by the weekend along with a treat of fried squash blossoms. A tiny lizard has resided in the bucket for several days now, so I give it my blessing. “Eat bugs; eat plenty bugs,” I suggest.

Then I have to fuss over the rhubarb, now several stalks strong. Instructions say don’t harvest any rhubarb the first growing year but I don’t know if I’ll be disciplined enough to obey that order. Just the thought of making a sauce with even three or four crisp stalks and pouring the sauce over a bowl of vanilla ice-ream makes my mouth water.

Mmmm. Ice-cream. I’ve not indulged my sweet longing for the cool treat all these weeks. Easter is a mere few days away. I can do it. I like the discipline of denying myself a few pleasures for Lent. It’s not a religious thing with me. I’m not holy nor assured a place with the angels. I like the discipline of Lent. I’m selective about my disciplines. Aren’t you?

Obviously I haven’t eaten breakfast yet so salad for breakfast seems to be in order. I cut enough leafy lettuce for a huge salad. I grab two small tomatoes from my perpetual-tomato bucket.

A peek in the refrigerator gave me the rest of the fixings, an apple and cheese still good for today. Onion, sweet red pepper, a smidge of cheese and chopped pecans filled out the rest of the salad bowl and my stomach.

I’ve hardly blinked, it seems, and the time fast-forwarded to mid-afternoon. My bread dough has transformed from a mound in the big blue ceramic bowl to nicely shaped loaves in the bread pans, waiting for the final step into the oven.

Now I get to make a choice. I can mop the floor or finish this hardest-jigsaw-puzzle-in-the-world which I’ve been working on for three weeks. The picture is an owl swooping over the shores of a marsh. Sounds simple, right? The entire puzzle is composed of lines with variations of three colors. Each piece is shaped the same, two innies and two outies. In early days, four pieces in place were cause for celebration.

In Spanish, a jigsaw puzzle is called a rompecabezas which roughly translates “breaks my head” and the word is apt. I love puzzles, the different space my mind occupies when indulging, and I’m good at color and space. This one broke my head. I’ve about a hundred pieces left.

Which would you choose? Mop the floors? Finish the puzzle?

There it is, puzzle finished. I’ll wipe off those little drips of butter from the warm bread which smeared the last five pieces. I’ll mop tomorrow. That’s discipline. That’s the flow.

——

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].