Looking out my Backdoor: Memories … thoughts … changes

Why do memories come to visit, often at inopportune times? I’ve questions but no answers.

I distinctly remember once telling a minimalist friend how much I admired her way of life. An entire bare wall with one picture. A vase with one sprig of flower. “But I know me. I couldn’t be minimalist in my surroundings. I like it. I just can’t do it.”

My home was never cluttered. But wherever one cast one’s eyes, one would find a vignette of simple beauty. That’s my passion. Making spaces beautiful.

I’m also not a collector — except of old china tea cups, vintage tablecloths, and lovely old mixing bowls, all kitchenware. But that was back then, before I changed my entire life to Mexico.

Another distinct memory, even older, was when a friend said, “Sondra, if you found yourself in Hell, you’d start arranging furniture and hanging pictures.” I took it as a compliment at the time. Years later I wondered if he meant I made myself comfortable in difficult circumstances instead of clawing my way out, perhaps up a rung, into Purgatory? Even so, I’d still be arranging furniture and hanging pictures.

Here I am today, living in Paradise, living a minimalist life I could never have previously imagined, and loving it.

Do I miss my stuff? No, not a bit, not even the china cups, tablecloths and ceramic bowls.

When I made the decision to move to Mexico, I made the decision to completely change my life, to not drag my old life along with me. That means all my stuff. Like I said, no regrets. But, lucky me, I’ve made a lot of moves and changes in my life and knew at least what to expect of myself.

What triggered these memories was watching how my various neighbors have made changes in moves or partial moves to Mexico and how they’ve made these changes work for them. Other than Lani, who has lived here a dozen years before the rest of us showed up, only two couples and myself live here full-time. Others are half-timers or part-timers.

We all approach our lives differently, of course. I’m just looking through a keyhole at this one tiny aspect of our lives.

Some of my neighbors moved into furnished spaces and left them intact, adding personal touches only, perhaps focusing on the outdoor space. Others pitched the works, or like me, moved into bare walls and a blank slate. Some brought loads of goods from home. Most put together an eclectic mix of favorite items from home plus traditional Mexican art and furnishings.

New Minimalist Me, I brought clothing, sheets and towels, silverware, an iron, those sorts of basic supplies in my move to Mexico and nothing more. I think what triggered this path of memory and thought is watching one set of neighbors who bought three houses on the rancho and have filled them with their entire household of belongings from Washington.

Now for the part I don’t like to tell, the piece of my story that shows my uglies. Nobody is more righteous than the converted, right? So in my rather new minimalist persona, I confess to feeling a little bit prideful that I need so little and other neighbors, not just the ones I mentioned, by the way, but others, need so much. Self-righteous pride stinketh worse than a neighbor’s field full of cow flops.

Redemption cometh. Fortunately. Given time, I can find at least 18 sides to every situation and defend them all.

My good neighbors moved to a new country, left behind friends, jobs, home, all that was familiar to them. Why not bring with them all the surroundings that give them comfort and a familiar feeling, surrounded by things they know.

We each approach change differently. I chose a blank slate. They chose the familiar. We are neither right nor wrong. This is not a test.

And though I now have moved up the rung from Hell to Paradise, I still “hang pictures on the wall.” Okay, I don’t have walls but I have windows and from two windows, my Granada tree obscured the view of most of my back yard, which is a beautiful back yard.

We each view the world through personal eyeballs. We each stand in personal shoes, none alike, all different.

Yesterday I had my gardener remove the Granada tree. Gone. My view is returned. My vignette of beauty from those windows is my comfort, like hanging a new painting.

——

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].