Coping...

 July 15, 2026

When I was a child there was one thing that I learned, very early on, not to say to my mother. Two simple words that now, as a fully grown adult I understand are words spoken, at one time or another by every child who ever lived. But at the time, the shock of some of the outcomes of expressing those words left a scar on my psyche that is still there.

Those two words? I’m bored.

Yes, if I ever said them within my mother’s hearing, you could bet your cute little tushy she would find me something to do. And it wasn’t a fun something to do, either. I learned as much about parenting from my mother’s successes as from her mistakes (though she would never admit to having made any mistakes, not ever). She was as stoic bordering on ungiving, when it came to anything emotional, as I believe it was possible for a person to be. One of the outcomes of her demeanor was that, growing up, I felt unloved. My answer to that experience was that my children grew up suffering my hugs and words of love and affirmation every day.

Now friends, I can tell you here and now that when my children said those two words to me, my response was to suggest they find something to do. To play and use their imaginations. Not that I didn’t expect chores from them. I certainly did. But I didn’t look at them as a source of free labour. They were children. They had the right of free speech as well as the responsibility that comes from being a part of a family. They had a right to say they were bored if that was how they felt. I wasn’t going to punish them for that.

I do credit my mother’s influence for my attitude toward boring jobs. Not just jobs around the house, either. When I worked outside the home, it was office work I performed, mostly in the field of accounting. Talk about boring? Hundreds of invoices to process every month, very little that was unique; all the long tasks of clerical work required to produce financial statements…that can be boring, let me tell you. So, I would play mental guessing games. How many invoices could I process in the next half hour? How many would be in this category of expense, as opposed to that one? Re-reading those last few lines, I may have to split the credit for my reaction to boring tasks. Half for mother, and half for Mary Poppins and her spoonful of sugar.

I still use that tactic today whenever I’m faced with something to do that requires attention but little thinking. When I’m preparing the laundry, there are literally piles of things to be sorted, sprayed with pre-treatment solutions, separated into actual baskets. You get the idea. I don’t need to use any sort of mind games to get the dishes done. I simply was them (by hand as I have never had a working dishwasher). Doesn’t take long at all.

It took more than my mother’s influence for me to master the art of waiting for appointments—or during them. It also took the wisdom that comes with age. Here, I can tell you my cell phone helps. I do have three games on my phone, and when I am waiting, I tend to turn to that little device for diversion.

From the menu of life, sitting and doing nothing is not a combo I order—unless I’m under the weather. And then, like it said on that old poster one used to be able to buy and hang, if I sits, I falls asleep. Hopefully that sleeping happens at home and not out in the wider world.

Apparently, I snore.

The whole point of today’s essay is this: Growing up, one learned coping mechanisms, because life didn’t always go as planned—and few children were allowed to believe it ever would. Crap happening is as eternal as the sun rising in the east. The person with the best chance of getting to old aged relatively unscathed was the one who not only learned that lesson but mastered it.

And now that I am older, I know something I never even considered until very recently. The person who doesn’t learn how to cope with the dross of life not only guarantees themselves a miserable life experience; they tend to spread it around so that they don’t suffer alone.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer adventures...

 July 8, 2026

I don’t often take the time to think back to the summer days of my childhood. Those glorious days of playing outside all day, not a television or cell phone in sight. I was seven, the last summer in the little house on the paved road (all the crossroads were gravel). The next year, we moved across the field into the “big house”, and yes, comparatively it was big. The little house had only two actual bedrooms (and a kitchen with an eating nook, a living room, and a bathroom). When my paternal grandmother moved in with us, she had one bedroom, and my brother used a make-shift space just big enough for a bed jammed into the front entrance of the house, in what we called the vestibule. While it was his room, of course, that front door wasn’t in use.

I can’t recall if we used that door much after my grandmother passed. I can tell you that it was my brother who took over her bedroom. And the other bedroom? Mom and Dad, my sister and I. I was moved out of my crib and into the three-quarter bed with my sister when I was five.

The big house had four bedrooms. Three upstairs, one for each of us kids, and the larger one downstairs for mom and dad.

A whole bed, a whole bedroom, to myself! That, my friends, was a very big deal. Outside our bedrooms was a common area, about eight-foot square that we dubbed the hallway. It held a bookcase, and a couple of chairs, had its own window, and of course the protective railing surrounding the stairs.

Our houses—both the small and the big—were situated in a rural area, not even a named community, within our township. There were, on our stretch of the paved road, eleven houses along about a mile of road, between the two concessions. Some of the houses had a tree of two in their yards, but most of the trees extended behind the houses and away from the road. The bushland hid a couple of old trash dumps and one small structure that might have been either a hen house or a rabbit hutch at one time. It didn’t carry any signs of past animal habitation. But there were neither glass nor signs of glass in or around the two small windows, and neither was there a door—just the three openings.

I recall at least one occasion when we sheltered there during a sudden cloud burst. The roof kept the rain off us. Walking farther away from the road through the trees and such, one eventually encountered a privately owned stone quarry. The same one where, some decade and a half later my husband would be employed for nearly forty years.

There were five or six of us kids who would trek around together and make our own fun, back in the day. We even tried our hand at building a fort out of twigs and small branches. Someone would bring a couple of towels, and so we would have a roof, of sorts. Just country kids out playing in the woods, yet close enough to home that we could hear our parents call “supper”.

Wintertime didn’t bring an end to outdoor fun. The land on the other side of the paved road, all during my early years, was marshy at best, and sometimes sported an actual, large pond. Skating fun was ours, and it was a learning curve to avoid those places where a few mostly dead yet stubborn weed stalks pushed out above the ice.

David and I spent our first year of married life in a large city. But I’d been a country kid all my life and didn’t feel well near the end of that year breathing in the industrial pollution. Mom still owned both houses. When her tenant left, she rented the little one to us. Then, a couple years later when she died unexpectedly from a heart attack (just thirteen years after my father died), David and I “swapped” houses with my sister so we could have the “big house”.

My kids’ version of being kids in the country was playing in the field between our house and my sister’s. And in the winter, since our marshy pond on the other side of the road was long gone, I would make an ice rink in that field. One year, especially, I got it in mind to build as good an ice rink as they would ever see. That year, they were still skating on it in early April.

All good memories, except of course for the loss of my parents.

Those days seem so very far away.

Our children didn’t get to repeat our free-roaming experiences. Each summer we would take them on a few picnics to the “lakes”—we had two conservation areas with man-made lakes not far from us, as well as both Lake Ontario and Lake Erie within an hour or two drive.

But they didn’t get to form their own memories of just heading out each morning and adventuring the way we did (David steered a similar path to mine in his youth).

The rhythm of life changed from the days of my youth to those of my children’s. Our lived experiences became a part of who we were, and who we grew up to be. As our children grew from their own summers.

I do wonder about today’s children. They don’t seem to get a whole lot of outdoor time. And I think they have more screen time than can possibly be good for them. As for making their own fun? I have the sense that’s something they’ve never had the chance to do.

And maybe it’s not as strange as I at first thought when I realized that I don’t envy the kids of today at all.

I pity them. And I worry, a little, about what their lack of daring and imagination will mean to them as adults.

More rhythm of life changes, and not necessarily in a good way.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

National birthdays...

 July 1, 2026

To all my friends and family north of the forty-ninth, Happy Canada Day! And for my American friends, whose holiday is this weekend, Happy Independence Day!

We celebrate our national birthday here in Canada on July 1st much the same way as y’all in the Untied States celebrate yours three days later, on July 4th. This year, Canada turns 159 years old. I’ll concede, since this year is America’s semiquincentennial, that the celebrations you’ll be having will be more robust than our own.

Here we have parades, large and small community parties, and food cooked on outdoor grills. There’s not as much beach activity up here on July 1^st as one might find in warmer climes on this day. But there are flags, and patriotism, and that wonderful and necessary sense of being a part of something bigger than oneself.

When I was a child, this day held another significant aspect for me. This was my brother’s birthday. My mother’s was on July 5th and we would often get together to celebrate both milestones at the same time. We made a point of this especially after my brother married and moved about thirty-five miles to the west. To the same small town that we also now call home and have for more than thirty years.

It was a wonderful kind of sentimental coincidence that the year after my mother passed away, our second child, our late son Anthony, was born on her birthday.

I can’t separate this day from thoughts of my brother. When I was much younger, this holiday was called Dominion Day. Then, we were officially known as the Dominion of Canada. We were and still are a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. There was a huge parade in the large city close to us and my brother had me convinced that the parade was in his honour.

Canada dropped Dominion in 1982 when we repatriated our constitution from Great Britain.  

We here in the Ashbury household haven’t participated in any events this year, mainly because the weather is just too darn hot for any of us. David was invited by one of our grandsons to a small, nine-hole golf course. It was his first game of golf is several years. He came home happy if hot. A bit annoyed with himself at how much effort the game had involved. But pleased to have gone and to have spent son with his grandson.

For myself, I was the anxiety therapist for our two dogs, and a puppy bed for my two of my daughter’s dogs (daughter was at work). This duty I happily performed in air-conditioned comfort.

As I was putting the finishing touches on this essay, a thunderstorm approached. With the heat we’ve had the last few days, that’s no great surprise. The power flickered as the storm hit, and so I waited the weather out before completing my work.

So far this summer—well certainly since the tomato plants went in—we’ve had an abundance of rain. We’ve only had to water the veggie gardens a couple of times. I do recall, that a few years ago, we had another such summer. And all that rain resulted in the most lush and plentiful tomato harvest we had ever seen. That was in 2023.

I have my fingers crossed that we experience an encore of that miraculous outcome. There’s nothing more beautiful or tasty than a fat, juicy beefsteak tomato.

I have hope that the rain that is beginning to taper down to a nice steady patter will do us a favor and kill the humidity. But I know that doesn’t always happen.

My best wishes to you all, Canadians and Americans alike, for a safe and joyful national celebration. May it be a holiday to remember!

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patience...

 June 24, 2026

Welcome to Summer, 2026! The solstice is in our rearview mirrors, the longest day is behind us, and now we begin our long crawl back down from the summit of that mountain. I prefer the days with lots of sunlight to the days when darkness lasts until breakfast and then falls again before supper. But time has its own agenda, and really, the best we can do is enjoy what we can of each day as it comes.

This has certainly been the year for sports so far, hasn’t it? On thing I have noticed this year is that the fans of these various sporting events are the all-in sort. Humans crave to be a part of something bigger than themselves. It’s in our nature. But this year the fan frenzy has reached next level fever-pitch.

Dancing and screaming at the top of one’s lungs, giving one’s all in order to party hardy (or hearty), would be an excellent way to burn off any strong negative emotions smoldering under the rug, wouldn’t it?

We’ve had a great deal of rain over the last couple of weeks. Enough that there’s been no need to water the gardens. I’m not going to complain. I recall the summer of 2023. That, too, was a summer when little water was needed from the garden hose. And that was also the year of the bumper crops—green beans, yes, but the tomatoes! Oh, the tomatoes! Big, luscious and plentiful.

I’m salivating just thinking about the possibility of an encore to that summer. There’s a dish I like to make—stuffed tomato casserole—that begs for nice big Beefsteaks. I read several recipes then just came up with my own. It’s the one thing I really look forward to in the summer. And it was a dish I couldn’t make last year, because our crop didn’t cooperate.

My fingers are crossed for this year.

We now have sod in the area where our lawn was torn up for the water main work last year. Then, late last week, the equipment and the crews arrived, their goal to tear up the new road laid in the intersection—the corner to the south of our house. They’d done a really poor job laying asphalt in the fall, and by spring there was already the beginning of a pothole. So for the next little while, we are destined to listen to the sound of roadwork once more.

But not, apparently, today.

After this intersection has been completed, the concrete crew will return to fix the curb on our side of that intersection and then—Please, God—they will install a step or two so that I will finally be able to walk a straight line from the bottom of my porch to the road. When I spoke to the project manager at the end of May, he told me that I should see that crew by the end of June.

I remain hopeful.

It’s sometimes really difficult to let those close to me have their little rants about “they should do this or they should have done that”. Maybe they should. But they didn’t. I called, I discussed, and now I will wait and see. If I’m still left with the cliff from my lawn to the concrete pad they installed by the second week of July, I’ll call again.

I’m trying very hard to give patience a chance.

Even when it comes to the matter of my surgical recovery. Yes, today I am at the keyboard, composing this essay. Yes, I am using my right hand as well as my left. But I won’t work for very long. Soon, I will retreat to my recliner with my iPad. It’s an easy matter to use my foam whatever it’s called to rest the device upon. And I will swipe pages, as I read, with my left hand.

My right will just lay there and look pretty while, open to the air, my wound heals, little by little.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

 

An update...

 June 17, 2026

Good morning! It’s Wednesday—aka hump-day to the work-a-day world. And it is also time for my essay.

First, and briefly, I did see the surgeon who performed the carpal tunnel procedure on me last Thursday. He changed my bandage, gave me new and looked me dead in the eye. “You have to baby your hand!” And I have to see him again in three weeks time.

All right, then.

For the record, I’ve been trying to baby my hand, but patience has never been my strong suit.

When I told him that I had been wiggling my fingers, he said that was good. Now, I’d like you all to do a favor for me. Hold your right hand up. Wiggle the fingers of that hand. Kind of looks like typing/keying, doesn’t it? That’s what I thought!

Moving on.

I have been watching more daytime television in the last few weeks, which I don’t mind provided I can find something interesting to watch. I’ve stumbled on a home/design program that was filmed in Canada and shown on HGTV. Only 8 episodes, so I am parsing them out. Since I’m about to watch number 7, I decided to see if there was something else similar on that network. So I searched and I found another, and it has 10 episodes. So, I should be good for a while.

But on Sunday, the sound bar I had bought in 2019 decided to quit. I had bought it because our TV’s sound had gone a bit muzzy. We had purchased this television when our granddaughter, Emma was 7. She’s going to be 27 in September. When the sound bar died, I began searching online and found they had gone up in price, slightly. Daughter and I discussed the situation. And she asked me if I knew how much a brand-new TV similar in size to the one we have (55 inches) would cost. I had no idea. Our current, beloved one had set us back nearly three thousand dollars when we bought it. It had been one of the very first “smart” TVs and even had been three-D compatible! Now to its credit, this television is early 20 years old. But its sound wasn’t the only issue. The picture has not as sharp as once it was, lately, either.

Daughter took a moment to look up on her phone and showed me a new television, comparable in size—for under four hundred dollars. It made more sense to get a new television than a sound bar for about half the price of the new, when the appliance it would be used on was clearly nearing the end of its life.

Monday afternoon, she and David went out and bought the new one. Once home, they easily carried it inside, and it took her less than an hour to take out the old and set up the new.

She’s off this weekend and is going to “play around” with the color to get it the way we like it. A new television hadn’t been on my bingo card for this year. I’m just happy to have it, and to not had to have blown up the budget to do so. And, as with our last new one all those years ago, I can say with some authority that I won’t use many of the new and “smart” features on this one, either. I’m okay with that. I can do what I can do and watch what I want to watch, and that’s more than good enough for me.

The temperatures have dropped from the near-scorching highs of a week or so ago. I’m a happy medium sort of person. I like mild, warm weather, as long as I’m not gasping in the heat. And I like cool, as well, but don’t want to be conflicted as to the fate of my freshly brewed cup of coffee (i.e., do I drink it or do I simply hold it to warm my hands?)

Today I’m thinking that cup would make a good hand/finger warmer. But carefully, because, you know, still-healing incision here.

Our gardens are doing well. We have two of the large box gardens filled with green beans, and the other two with various varieties of tomatoes. As well, daughter managed to get her hands on a few very large pots. We have two holding zucchini, and two holding beets. David used a large tub to plant some potatoes in, and the only other veggie we have, also in separate pots, are Spanish onions.

I decided to ask Google what sort of summer was in store for us, here in my neck of the woods. The answer was warmer that normal, but with periodic episodes of cool, with an unpredictable amount of rain thrown in. I wasn’t fooled. I can translate “damned if I know” from several different sources.

Enjoy the great days and be patient with the not so great.  That’s what I plan to do. Or at least, I’ll try to.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

 

Reporting in...

 June 10, 2026

Did you miss me?

It’s funny the way we human beings get toddling along our life’s path, confident in our sense of ourselves, and where we’re headed. Just be-bopping along to the rhythm of our own drummers. Then, one day, when you least expect it…wham!

Yup, I had a wham.

When last we met, which was my essay of May 27^th, I announced my carpal tunnel surgery scheduled for the 3^rd of June.  What I had failed to mention is what had been happening in the week or so prior to that last essay. That was a failure on my part. I’ve promised, since the beginning of Wednesday’s Words, to be fully transparent with you, and in the last month I haven’t been. I sincerely apologize. I’m going to fix that now.

I suffer from dentophobia. It stems back to my childhood and a monster masquerading as a dentist to whom I was subjected. That was in the bad old days before the ubiquitous “they” realized that children were not just miniature adults. Lack of adequate freezing and just generally lack of adequate care, and I became a quivering gelatinous mess when it came time to go to the dentist. This became a deep-seated phobia which I could not overcome on my own. It took a lot of maturing on my part, and sincere prayers to begin to do that.

I began not going to the dentist regularly, which wasn’t good, either. To my credit, my children never knew I was this way and so they thought nothing of going to the dentist through their childhood.

So here I am in my 70s. I wear a top denture, gained when I needed my upper teeth removed in my early 40s after root canal procedures resulted with teeth breaking. Then, over time and one by one, I lost some of my lower teeth. I knew I was going to have to face getting the rest of them pulled and perhaps getting a bottom denture. I lost one in 2023 (with a new dentist but one who had won my trust) and then another one the first week of April this year, same dentist.

I had made a plan to get the rest taken care of and was working on my mental preparations to do just that. I’d been thinking September, after my carpal tunnel surgery.

I awoke on Tuesday, May 19^th with the most stunning, electric, and horrific pain in my mouth that I had ever experienced. No medications touched it. Sensodyne rapid relief tooth paste took the slightest edge off for a few minutes. So early the next day—Wednesday the 20^th—I called and got an emergency appointment to have another tooth extracted just after noon hour.

When I arrived, the dentist I trusted said he couldn’t tell for certain which of the three teeth on the left was causing the pain, as none of them were very good. So, with my agreement, he took all three.

The pain eased, of course, with the freezing. And then it was back the next day, Thursday. The Dentist had told me that if pain persisted to Monday, to call him. It did and I did.

He saw me Monday and told me I had a dry socket! He packed in something that was supposed to take that pain away and last for 24 to 48 hours. Whatever he gave me lasted exactly four hours.

It has improved slowly since then. By yesterday the pain was down to intermittent twinges. But for almost a week it was nearly unbearable. I have faith that the worst is over.

And now I have a wounded paw, as I did have my carpal tunnel surgery on June 3^rd , painful mouth and all. The hand hurt only the first day after surgery. Now, there’s no real pain in my hand at all. But I can’t yet use it for more than the simplest of tasks. For example, scratching my nose or assisting my other hand in putting on my glasses.

My husband noted that I have had one hell of a rough few weeks, and he’s right. Since my hand surgery I have been doing little more than resting. Tomorrow, I go back to the surgeon for my follow-up appointment.

Since it’s my right (dominant) hand that is in recovery, David helped me make temporary changes to the living room seating. We have a sofa with a recliner on either end. He has a table on his left, and I have one on my right. Between us lays a simple cushion that the dogs usually use. But the seat back of that middle cushion does fold down, to provide a flat surface on my left side with a couple of cup holders which I have been using, because I cannot yet pick up my water or my coffee cup with my right hand.

The dogs now use his (un-extended) recliner, and he has moved temporarily to the only other chair in the room, an electric powered chair that not only reclines, but will stand you up, too, if need be.

Daughter has been doing all cooking since the pain exploded, and husband has been taking good care of me, and all that is wonderful, but strange. I’m not fond of doing nothing. However, after everything I’ve experienced over the last almost-month, I’m allowing myself this do-nothing period, because I worry about doing something stupid and complicating my recovery.

There is one good thing—well, other than the excellent care with which my family has been treating me, and it’s this: I’m beginning to suspect that the reason that I didn’t particularly remember my last round of carpal tunnel surgery (on both hands, a couple weeks apart). It was probably too stressful and traumatic for me to remember.

I’m on the mend. And yes, I am very much aware how fortunate I am, that really all I’ve suffered is pain and inconvenience—though that tooth pain was excruciating. At my age, with that and my arthritis—well that’s not really much at all. So many others have it far worse.

Certainly, what I’ve been dealing with is nowhere near enough to cause me to stop being grateful for my blessings, every single moment of every single day.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

As May wanes...

 May 27, 2026

I hope my American friends were able to have a meaningful day earlier this week on Memorial Day. I was watching the weather reports, and it sure didn’t look that great over a lot of the country. I understand the day is one of somber commemoration. A time to remember and to pay respects to those who gave their lives in the defense of freedom.  But it’s also the day y’all cite as the first day of your summer season. Such a day features parades and other outdoor activities like picnics. I guess it’s no surprise but a definite disappointment when weather challenges the agenda.

I don’t know why lately y’all just can’t catch a break with the weather. At least that’s how it seems to me as I watch the news at night. I’m sure it’s even more frustrating for those of you who have to endure it.

This past Monday here wasn’t a holiday, but it was her regular day off work for our daughter. Therefore, it was also the day she went out and got the soil and the plants and the seeds she wanted. She spent so much time getting things she didn’t have a lot of time left to plant. But she got it finished by sundown yesterday.

It’s nice to look out into our backyard and see those boxes filled with soil and plants. We lost one of our four boxes at the end of last year’s growing season to the ravages of time and the predictable result of weather on wood. But then for an early Father’s Day gift, our son brought us a brand-new table garden to replace that one—a table garden he built himself for his dad.

Our walnut tree at the front of our house finally has leaves! Real, actual leaves instead of buds. They haven’t reached full size yet, but that will happen soon. I kind of consider that tree a no-nonsense plant. It has a purpose, and that purpose is growing walnuts. Come spring, it sprouts, grows leaves, and gets working on those walnuts. And the moment those little round bombs form amidst the branches? Those beautiful green leaves begin to turn yellow and fall off, one by one. That tree begins shedding leaves in August, little yellow slick when wet droppings that need to be raked or, when dry, blown. And it continues on until every last leaf is down, sometime in early October.

Next Wednesday, I am going to begin a six-to-eight-week slowdown. I’ll be having carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand.

Now, I did have this procedure once before, many years ago. Color me surprised when I discovered I could use my hands sufficiently to have to undergo it again. Last time it was both hands that needed the procedure. Thankfully this time it’s just the one. The downside is that one hand is my dominant hand.

All sorts of things I won’t be able to do during that recovery period I was quoted, but the chief one is typing. Well, typing with two hands.

There’s no question that I will definitely be out of commission next Wednesday. But the following Wednesday, I should be able to an essay—hunting and pecking with the fingers of my left hand.

It will definitely take a while, but I figure after a week of not doing much of anything, I’ll be raring to go. At least, that’s my plan.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury