Looking out my Backdoor: Well, change my mind!

Two weeks ago, a shepherd dog running full speed body slammed into my knee. Maiming me was not Chebella’s intent. She was fleeing from my Lolita, half her size, but in full protect-my-mistress mode. Size means nothing in dog world. Lola still quivers, after all these months, when Snowball, an ancient, tottering mini-poodle, growls when we walk past her people.

No bones were broken. The doc sent me home to bed and chair. The first week flowed rather smoothly. Leo showed up every morning to make me coffee and water my extensive garden. I don’t realize how extensive my garden has become until I can’t go out to check it.

Neighbors, Crin and Kathy, along with Leo, kept me fed with all my needs catered. I assiduously followed doctor’s orders, not because I wanted to but because pain forced me.

Day by day the pain is less except when I forget and try to take a step without support.

A week, to the day, everything changes, my comfy world implodes. Kathy, Richard and Crin leave for sandy beaches. Leo phones to say he has all the symptoms of the other Big C, COVID. “Stay away. Get tested,” I say. He does. Flu is flu is flu. He has the regular one.

Now I am back to full quarantine and on my own to feed and water myself. I would not want to pass any flu to any friend. I know I can do it. This is not my first solo bronc ride. Slowly. Carefully. Little by little.

I rub soothing gel into my leg. The bruise from knee to ankle looks like dark storm clouds in the west, carrying hail.

Oh, hail. That reminds me, my garden will die without water. I can feed me but I cannot water my plants. With temps in the upper 90s, all my buckets on concrete, my entire crop is doomed. I remember hailstones wiping swaths through acres of wheat. I know it is not the same thing, but this small disaster looms huge to me. Doomed. Flowers and vegetables. Doomed. My beautiful garden a barren wasteland.

Poor Lola. She sits by the door, whimpers. I talk to her. What does she understand? I fill her food and water dishes but no walks, no outside sits and no fun. In my absence she becomes super-watchdog, barking at friend and foe.

Oops. Lola was supposed to take her worm pill last week. I watch her scratch her belly. Oh, yeah. She hasn’t had her flea drops either. Poor Lola. Sitting, whimpering. I watch the flesh drop off her skeleton. Doomed.

My house. My poor house that I just deep-cleaned, overtaken with dust bunnies, the floor, the corners, every surface crying out for attention I cannot give. Pig sty. Bricks crumble to dust. Doomed.

I open my refrigerator. The shelves are almost bare. I’ve not been eating much, not been buying much. Now I’m doomed to beans and rice. The flesh falls from my own skeleton. I waste away in my chair, covered in cobwebs. Doomed.

Good thing I am in quarantine. I have only four more days of clean clothing. I will rummage in my laundry basket for my cleanest dirty shirt. Ewww. Nobody will want to get near me. Ewww. Stinky. Abandoned. Doomed.

My mind is wonderfully creative and inventive. Within hours after my friends drove off to the beach and Leo phoned with his bad news, I had doomed my garden, my dog, my house and my own self.

Fortunately I am aware of propensities to run-away imagination. So I did a simple thing. Not easy. Simple. I changed my mind. I let it go.

Somehow, life usually works out, often not the way I’d like, but life happens without my interference.

Ana and Michelle showed up outside my door. “We heard. We are shopping in town. What do you need? What can we bring you?”

My refrigerator hummed coolness around fresh fruits and veggies. Lola was wormed and flea-ed. A load of laundry hung on the clothesline. “We’ll be back. If you need us, call.”

Josue came to my door after he’d finished his workday. “What do you need?” He brought my sun-dried, fresh and clean, laundry off the clothesline for me. He changed my empty drinking water jug for fresh water.

In the mornings, Josue shows up early and waters everything, flowers, veggies and herbs in pots, trees in the yard.

My house? Don’t be silly. I just finished a deep clean. It’s not that bad. It will wait for me.

My own self? Day by day, I’m on the mend. I have friends galore. My only enemy is my own mind.

——

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].