Looking out my Backdoor: The trumpet vines, the grasses, and the frothy pines

One of my friends asked me how I felt when I came back to the Rancho and my old home sat there empty of any aspect of myself.

That’s a hard question to answer. For one thing, I’ve been so busy, focused on creating my new home, that I have little space in my head for my old home.

Until I find a buyer, my old home is still my home. Maybe all the ties are not cut. The good memories and all the love that place has given me will never be erased. I hope a new owner someday will feel the same. I’d still be there if the largeness of the place had not become too difficult for me to maintain.

I like it that I’m so close to my friends at the Rancho and we can easily visit.

I like exploring my new surroundings, meeting people in my new town, my neighborhood perched way out on the edge, half-way up the mountain.

I like my yard filled with new bushes and plants I’ve not before seen. Take the yellow trumpet vine. I looked it up, found it, the yellow Angel Trumpet. It is more a shrub than a vine with huge, footlong, yellow trumpets hanging, bugle downward, serenading the earth.

One of my favorites, a mystery tree to me, has a pale green fragile-skinned trunk onto which it looks like a thousand-thousand sea shells have been glued. Right now it is not so pretty, mostly leafless, but in bloom has large pink flowers with a peppery scent.

The other day Ana and Michelle and I climbed into the ATV and explored the neighborhood, the adjacent tiny town of San Rafael, a huge eucalyptus grove, and then continued down into the foothills skirting the mountains. I felt great, getting out and exploring the countryside, learning new terrain.

This country reminds me of the Bear Paw Mountains, only lusher. It’s the same kind of country, the mountains and gullies similar but thick with bushes, trees, flowers, and grasses. Oh, the beautiful grasses, tall overhead, tasseled, and so many varieties. I have gathered grasses for bouquets, they are that stunning.

I must tell you about the pines, the frothy pines. When I first moved to Mexico, one of my early acquaintances was the coastal pines. They are obviously pine trees. One can easily see that. But the pine needles don’t look like needles, they look, well, fluffy, frothy.

I don’t know if the pine grove we landed underneath has the same species of pine as on the coast. They look alike. Three of my friends grabbed me the other day for lunch out at the Laguna Colorado. Prior to the pandemic, this was a favorite place for several of us to go eat. Good food. Great views overlooking the laguna, the water birds, the hills and mountains beyond.

The place has grown up. When first introduced to us, the first years, there was one eatery. Then two. And now another has sprung up, all venues with good food. We went to the third, which might become my favorite, situated in an older, well-established grove of huge frothy pines. The seating is open air beneath the ceiling of pines, with lines strung from trunk to trunk, each line crowded with hanging planters, some trunks wreathed around with flowers. Oh, the orchids, the unbelievable orchids, growing wild. Who could not like that!

So my friend, to attempt to better answer your question, I don’t feel any sense of loss, but, more of a sense of what I have gained. My domicile is smaller. My life does not feel smaller. In ways for which I have no words, my life feels bigger.

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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].