Time with family....

 April 24, 2024

I always enjoy it when I get to spend time with my girls. One was born to me, and one became the daughter of my heart soon after we met, when she began to date my second son. She is the mother of three of my grandchildren, one of whom is with the Lord.

The two women consider themselves sisters to each other, and that’s solid. And despite the differences in their appearances, one needs only to hear them bantering with each other to decide that yes, these two women are most definitely sisters.

On this past Monday the three of us went to the nearest Costco – about a twenty-five-minute drive from home. After our shopping spree, we were then heading a little farther afield, to have supper at the Mandarin—a Chinese buffet chain of restaurants thriving in this province. It was a rare Ladies’ night, and I loved every moment of it.

Since we were going in my daughter’s vehicle, I left my mobility scooter at home and took my walker, instead. Three women shopping at Costco? You know that’s going to be a lot of purchases to load into the vehicle. The walker takes up less room, and I wasn’t worried about the loading of the groceries, because daughter is an excellent Tetris player.

My plan was to use one of Costco’s mobility scooters for shopping. Then I would use my walker at the restaurant. Aside from making the act of walking easier than using a cane, the walker served a second purpose by holding my plate(s) of food safe until I reached our table again.

A side note, a slight digression: as we were leaving the restaurant, I had a slip of the tongue and referred to my walker as my stroller. After a great deal of laughter, the girls decided they would refer to the device as my stroller from now on.

I have a grandson who has been a proud employee of Costco for more than a decade. We’ve been to that location several times, and never seen him. This time, however, we did. Second daughter spotted him first. She pointed and said, “isn’t that one of yours?”

We had a nice if short visit, in two parts. When my granddaughter brought her husband his supper about twenty minutes later, they found us in the store, and so I got two hugs on Monday. Added to the joy of spending time with both girls, it was a banner day, indeed.

I cherish my family, and love nothing more than spending time with them. Despite that, and other than our daughter, we don’t get to spend much time with the rest of them. Everyone is so very busy, and I don’t hold that against any of them. I reach out to my grandchildren via text from time to time, just to keep those lines of communication open.

The hardest part of family is that it is comprised of people who have just as much free will as you yourself possess.

I have never, ever forced myself on other people. Has that been a mistake over the years? Should I have pushed and insisted on a closer contact? I can’t answer that. I can only say that I am the way I am, and my nature has always tended toward the non-confrontational. Relationships, after all, really are two-way streets.

Now as April is in its last full week, we hear from the weather network that parts of this province are possibly going to experience a late spring snowstorm! So far, that doesn’t appear to be us. But if there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my several decades on this planet, it’s this.

The unexpected shouldn’t be unexpected at all because it’s inevitable—and sometimes powerfully fierce.

So do yourself a favor and learn how to tuck and roll.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

Spring has sprung...

 April 17, 2024

April has been a mixed bag here, weather-wise. There have been a few warm and sunny days, days that whisper for you to come out and celebrate the season of renewal, to enjoy the early springtime. These have even included a few instances of that wondrous fresh-scented air. While nowhere near as common today as when I was much younger, I still take the time to inhale deeply and feel gratitude for that freshness. I am holding on for a day when it happens, and I can open my doors and windows, air out the house. I do get one every spring. It’s only a matter of time.

Of course, this year, I will have to lure the cat down into the basement for the time the doors will be open. But the truth is that there isn’t usually much luring involved. He knows the sound of the basement door opening, and he is so there! Smokey Kitty does like to go down there and explore.

And on these beautiful, sunny and nearly warm early spring days, the dogs have, to a one, all been what my mother used to call “out-again in-again Finnegan's”. They have a touch of spring fever, and I am happy to oblige them.

There also have been several days of rain in April so far.  There have even been a couple of days when the temperature plummeted. Last Saturday, daughter and I decided to make a quick run to the grocery store here in town. I wore jeans, a tee shirt, and my new spring hoodie. And I shivered! There was wind, and damp and oh, I was so glad to get home to my recliner and warm blanket again.

I have reminded myself more than once, over the course of this April of 2024, that there’s a reason for that maxim, “April showers bring May flowers”.

Our front gardens are showing a plenitude of robust green spears. This means, of course, that soon we’ll have hyacinths, daffodils, tulips and lilies-of-the-valley. We did have two early-blooming daffodils just outside our bedroom window, and that was a nice bonus. We should see a couple more and a few tulips before too long in that spot. Those bulbs sprout and bloom first there because that side of the house faces south, and the morning sun, when there are no clouds, heats the vinyl which in turn helps to heat the ground.

Because it is spring, there has indeed been conversation here in the Ashbury household about the possibility of veggie gardens again this year. Last autumn, when the last plant corpse had been removed from the table gardens, David thought to scale back planting those gardens—if indeed he planted any at all. He would, he declared, just have to wait and see.

It’s not as if he’d become weary from the work of them last year. The last growing season required only for him to stake the tomatoes and then reap the harvest. We had rain aplenty, and the best darn tomato crop in ages. Ages!

But then, the beans didn’t fare well—mind, he had started those seeds upstairs beneath the south facing, sun-enhancing window the first week of February. That, of course, was far too early. When those inevitably withered, he planted some green bean seeds directly into the garden which were summarily found and enjoyed by the squirrels and chipmunks. I told him they thought he’d been providing them a game. Finally, he was able to plant some seeds and use a piece of mesh to protect them. But it was a bit of a late planting, and, likely not coincidental to the failure of the bean crop, he put them in between the tomatoes, which turned out to be unfortunate. Those tomatoes took over every bit of space allotted to them, as well as the space that had been meant for the beans.

This year, we’ll get him to start those seeds in another week or two from now.

He admitted that his haste last year had everything to do with his being anxious for spring. But starting them too early and then not transplanting when that needed to happen was going to greatly decrease the green bean yield.  We’ve also convinced him (we hope) to have one garden for the green beans (no yellow beans allowed) and nothing else, and one for one kind of tomato, and one for another kind. That will leave us with one more garden-box to plant.

He did mention that he wanted to try to grow a couple of squash. I think they’ll do well if he plants them in the center of the garden. That way, as the plants spread and the squash form, they can have the support of the boxed garden beneath them. If the soil turns too wet from rain, we should be able to monitor the squash against rot.

My mother taught me how to garden and had me out working outside when I was about nine years of age. We harvested, all four of us, when the frost threatened. It was my job to scrub everything in the tub filled with the really cold hose water. We made relishes and pickles of the cucumbers and the beets. I helped my mother at every stage of the “farming” process.

Then, after my mother passed away, David and I moved into that old farmhouse, which meant we had that huge veggie garden to use. I can’t tell you in feet and inches how big it was; I can only say that the farmer down the road came every spring to plow the garden, and then a couple of weeks later, he would return to disc it. Yes, with his tractor. It cost my mother, and then us, twenty-five dollars to do that, and it was money well spent.

We planted that garden for all of the years that we lived in that house. David had been so angry to have been forced to help his dad in their veggie patch as a boy, he admitted, that he really didn’t know much about gardening. But as a young husband and father who felt responsible for feeding us, he wanted to learn. I was happy to show him, and he was a quick study.

My daughter and I have been softly coaxing him that he really wants to plant again this year. Aside from the fact that he does take pride in the accomplishment, it is the one thing that he can still do really well.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

A moment out of time...

 April 10, 2024

The solar eclipse of April 2024 has come and gone, and what a show it was!

So, as it turns out, we weren’t actually on the path of totality after all. I would have known that for certain, if I had been able to find a map online that allowed me to telescope down, to see the towns and villages that were on that path. Of course, I never managed to do that little thing. But while we didn’t get the absolute total full on black of midnight at a few minutes past 3 in the afternoon this past Monday, it did get dark enough here at that point to make the streetlights come on. It was about as dark as is in that moment of dusk, just before it becomes impossible to see your hand in front of your face. That point when, being outside, you realize it’s time to go in, because it’s getting difficult to see. And that was certainly something to experience.

How close were we? We were right next door to totality. There was just the tiniest little sliver of sun left at the top right hand corner(as seen through our glasses).  And the most amazing part of it all was that we had only to go out our front door, walk down our porch stairs and then walk a few more steps to the north—to the intersection (we have a corner property)—and look up.

Well, we didn’t just do that. I brought my walker, and David brought the cane he has with a seat on it, and so we were able to sit and look up. It’s sad but true that neither of us can stand for more than a few minutes at a time anymore.

Seeing the eclipse, watching the progress of the moon as it moved along it’s orbital path, was an awesome experience. One that was all the better because the cloud cover that we had been under completely cleared just before the moon began to cover the sun. Yes, we had full on blue skies, with only a tiny wisp of cloud!  And also, because it was on a Monday, it was out daughter’s day off, and so she shared the experience with us.

We’d known that there was going to be an eclipse for more than a year, but that doesn’t mean that we actually made a plan of action. I think it was only a few weeks ago, when the hype began to build for the event on Monday, that we really understood how lucky we were, how close we were to being able to see the entire thing without leaving home. Then, just this past Friday, it occurred to me that if we were going to watch a solar eclipse, we needed to have some of those special glasses to do that.

Thank goodness for Amazon.

One of the things that impressed all three of us was the demonstration we received of the awesome power of our sun. As we sat and watched the celestial show, as the moon’s path progressed, it took a long time for the “daylight” to dim. With the sun half hidden, how bright the day still was! It wasn’t until there was less than a quarter of the sun visible that the light began to weaken. At the height of what we witnessed—when only but a sliver of the sun was visible—we could still make out each other and the shapes of the neighbourhood around us.

And yet, how completely rare it was to have deep dusk in the afternoon!

We’re a fairly close-knit family, yet in those minutes as we watched the eclipse together, we became closer. And that was something I noticed as I viewed the news coverage of the event that evening. The crowds that gathered together—whether in Mexico, the United States, or Canada were, for those few precious moments out of time, united together in awe. The emotions displayed were shared emotions. Most people watching felt humbled. Some were brought to tears; some felt palpable joy.

For those few moments out of time, we were a people united.

We humans need more moments like that in our lives, moments when we can feel the ties that bind us all. Moments when we can appreciate that we are a part of something awesome, something much larger than our puny selves.

We have one planet, and one moon and one sun—and they belong, equally, to us all.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

Easter thoughts...

 April 3, 2024

It can be a challenge in life to hang onto those ideals that are core ideals and release those notions that really don’t matter all that much at all.

When I listen to different opinions throughout the day, there are certain things I notice. I was listening to a discussion just a few days ago, and the panel members—every one of them in their thirties to forties, agreed that technological and societal change, along with politics and life in general lately was not just confusing at times, it was downright exhausting.

Hearing that was a relief for me because I sure as hell have noticed the exhaustion factor. It’s always a good thing to discover you’re not alone in whatever emotions are coursing through you at any given time. That said, I have no doubt that the growing sense of confusion and exhaustion that I feel occasionally is exacerbated by getting older. Aging does bring changes, but it doesn’t necessarily bring the same changes to all folk equally.

For example, I’m going to be 70 on my next birthday. And yet there are a few women in this area several years older than me who take daily walks, who make tracks like nobody’s business. There are also some who can’t recall the day of the week, and other who can still mentally navigate very complex problems.

Since I’ve been having mobility issues for more than thirty years, I used to hope that meant that while my body might let me down as I got older, my mind wouldn’t. That was naïve of me. The truth is, there’s really no way to know for certain just how aging is going to affect us, individually. All we can do is to keep on going and pray for the best.

I also recommend getting yourself a cane, whether you need one to help you walk or not. First, it can be helpful on days that you’re a bit more tired and a little less steady than usual to have something solid to lean on. A secondary benefit? You can do a lot of things with a cane besides walk. You can reach things off the top shelf of the grocery store, or you can poke younger family members who begin to treat you as if you’re old and feeble.

Easter has come and gone, and this year, we had young ones who stayed over night and did fret some that the Easter Bunny might not find them. We of course assured them that, magical rodent that he was, that was not going to be a problem. The added bonus for us was that there were colored hard boiled eggs in the hose for the Bunny to hide—and for one great-grandmother to nibble on.

I did spend some time over the holiday thinking back to Easter when I was a child. There was the pretty dress, coat, socks and shoes, along with a hat—all brand new and all uncomfortable as hell—to be worn to Church on Easter Sunday. And there was the inevitable munching of those hard-boiled eggs, one for each of us, on the drive home again.

Easter used to be the marker for spring, for the semi-annual change of the wardrobe. Away went the black or brown purses, and out came the white ones. One used to wear certain colors only in the spring—and certainly not after Labour Day, the other marker.

There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle in the news the last few days about those who, in public life, do or do not respect the Holy season. And here’s where we have to separate out the core ideals I mentioned at the beginning of this essay. Because the minutia doesn’t really matter.

It’s the spirit and the heart and the kindness that matters most of all.

We are all of us, in one way or another, in need of kindness. So let’s do our part and offer some of that far-too-rare commodity of kindness up.

Especially to those who, to our discernment, have no idea what kindness is.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

 

 

Wanted: laughter....

 March 27, 2024

Earlier this month, I set out on a bit of a personal quest. You see, it’s come to my attention that I need to laugh a bit more. Did I just write “a bit more”? Hell, I pride myself on being transparent in these essays. I need to laugh, period.

I used to laugh a great deal. Practically every single day, I would laugh at something silly or inane, or downright hilarious. Often, I would laugh at myself, and feel no shame in that whatsoever. Trust me, I can be a very funny person.

But lately—how lately I cannot really say because this has been a slowly evolving situation—I’ve noticed I don’t laugh much anymore.

Now, my husband, he laughs every day. Through the day, certainly, but mostly in the evenings after our shared TV time, when I am at my computer and he’s at his. And when I hear that laughter, I grin. The sound of David’s laughter is my favorite thing to hear in the entire world. And I know when I hear that laughter that he is listening to one comic or another online, and thoroughly enjoying the experience.

Well, I want to laugh, too! And it’s not as if I’m not trying. I, also, go online in the evenings in search of entertainment. I look for short compilation videos on YouTube that promise comedy, even hilarity! But I think I am simply not having much good luck finding the right ones. I have learned that just because the title of the video promises laughter, doesn’t mean it will deliver it. Oh sure, two out of fifty memes may arouse a titter within me. Some an almost giggle. And once in a long while there is one that makes me really, really laugh. I had one of those about five days ago. Or was it longer than that?

But it’s like that old saying, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince. One really does have to watch a lot of those videos to find some honestly funny moments. The only question is whether or not the price of viewing so many stupid ones is worth having been paid when you find that one gem.

I’m probably just being greedy. Maybe I should feel content to experience one really good laugh once a week, or so. But I’m not. I feel as if my soul needs more. The chemicals in my body are likely out of balance, in need of those wondrous hormones that are released as a side effect to laughter. I do know that it is medically impossible to laugh and grow an ulcer at the same time.

My daughter was mentioning that she watches a few comics online, and they are a riot! My ears perked up and I asked her to name names. Now, perhaps it should have been a clue that she said she would think on it and then get back to me. But she did get back to me with a couple of names, which I immediately wrote down. And then, of course, I checked them out.

Le sigh. When I take time and think back, I realize that there have been times when daughter has thought something was funny as hell, and sadly, I did not. And vice versa. Nothing wrong with that because we do, each of us, possess different criteria when it comes to what makes us laugh. For example, I love puns—the cleverer, the better. Now for a lot of folks puns just make them roll their eyes and groan. But I find a really good pun not only funny but refreshing. My latest discovery that made me laugh out loud is this one: “Sweet dreams are made of cheese; who am I to diss a brie?”

I have some favorite old jokes that can still hit that internal funny bone of mine, and when I would crack up in the past, others around me would just shake their heads and look at me as if I had two of them. Heads, that is.

I am not one of those people who assumes that the problem must be those other people, that because if I think it’s a hoot, then a hoot must be! Nope, that thought would never inhabit my brain. And the fact that it wouldn’t is in itself a clue.

I have been so close, in the last few weeks, to wondering if I’ve somehow lost my sense of humor entirely. That was such a scary and horrid thought that it set me back on my pins.

Rather than to continue to mentally panic, I’ve taken a bit of time to think about the situation—my hunger for laughter and seeming inability to find same—and I’ve come to another conclusion altogether.

I know that to everything there is a season. And I know that our best personal growth comes in those times when we feel we’re lodged deeply and inexorably into a “valley” experience. I know that for fact, and y’all have read those very words from me over the years, and on more than one occasion.

Yes, I really do need a good laugh or ten. I will just have to hold onto my faith and be patient that I will get them, by and by.

Just as soon as the Good Lord finishes helping me to grow some more.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

 

An unwanted guest....

 March 20, 2024

A funny thing happened last week as I was preparing to compose my weekly essay. We had an unexpected visit, here in the Ashbury household, from a very nasty, unwanted guest: a tummy bug.

The visit was so unexpected and so sudden that at first, I didn’t even realize that a bug was the culprit. I thought, originally, that perhaps I had eaten something that was off. I looked up the symptoms of food poisoning, and I had most of them.

The only problem with that theory was that I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d eaten—and there really hadn’t been a lot I had eaten on Tuesday for lack of appetite—that it could have been. Or on Monday, the day before, for that matter.

It wasn’t until the next day, Wednesday, when I was in my recliner, eyes closed, trying not to whine about how icky I felt that my brain kind of started to work on the problem. In retracing my time, I recalled that I’d been out with Jenny the day before—Monday—and that we had gone to two grocery stores, one new to me. This trip was supposed to have happened on Sunday, but Jenny spent most of that day sleeping, because she hadn’t well. No appetite, a mild case of “plumbing problems”, and no energy whatsoever.

The pieces began to fall into place. Then when I roused myself enough to chat with a couple of friends online, I realized that what I had was not food poisoning, but a gastrointestinal bug. A bug that has been busily making the rounds lately and has hit a lot of foks.

Note to self: try not to self diagnose and stay away from Dr. Google.

Our daughter had at first believed that her own symptoms were thanks to her sometimes uncooperative cycle, because that has happened in the past. Her symptoms were not my symptoms at all—but they were her father’s, who awoke ill on Wednesday and told me to go away, because I had given “it” to him.

The major difference between David and me when we’re not feeling well, is that his first, second and third choice when he’s ill is to sleep. He doesn’t want to be checked on; he doesn’t want any fussing whatsoever. Just let him sleep, which over the years, and as rare as those occasions have been, I have learned to do.

I don’t require a lot of fussing either, but appreciate a bottle of cold water and can of ginger ale from time to time. And quiet. Please, just give me either complete and total quiet, or country music at a minimal level.

Today, as I write this essay, is day number Bug plus eight. I first felt not well on Tuesday just before the supper hour a week ago, followed minutes later by my “as mad a dash as I can manage” to the bathroom (where resides the toilet and the bucket). That first phase of being sick was the worst ever, but only lasted about three hours.

I am getting better; but mornings, which have always been my best times, have not been so these last few days. They’re actually when I feel the worst. I know that this will all soon be just a memory, so I’m not worried. Impatient, yes. Worried, no.

Yesterday, as I was sitting in the kitchen while my daughter, on a work break, had a snack, I mentioned that I was nearly, but not quite “there” yet, recovery wise.

She suggested that I should just push myself to do as much as possible; after all, that’s what she’d done, as she’d had to go to work on Tuesday (the day I fell ill) even though she didn’t want to because she didn’t feel good.

My friends, it was a moment. And there were so very many different ways I could have responded to this very expert-sounding advice.

I could have told her that the history of my working life, from the day I got married until I finally retired was a story of my pushing myself even when I didn’t want to because I didn’t feel good. I could have told her that there was a difference between us, her in her 46^th year and me in my 70^th. I could have raised my right eyebrow and skewered her with “the look”, the one that would remind her that I am her mother—if only my right eyebrow was capable of performing such a maneuver.

Instead, being older and wiser and, yes dare I say kinder, I simply made a sound that could have been agreement and took a small sip of my coffee.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

It's the silly moments....

 March 6, 2024

We try, here at the Ashbury household, to be good stewards of the land we’re on, and to be kind to the critters who come to visit—to chirp or sing or just to take a rest on a branch or a roof edge. For the last several years—since just after we got our Mr. Tuffy, in fact—we have been putting out feed for the birds and the cute furry rodents. At first, we did that because of our little dog, who loved to bark at the squirrels and chippies. But then we had a couple of bad winters, and so it became just something that we do.

Of course, since we began planting our table gardens, our kindness may have come back to bite us in the butts a little. After all, a couple of years back, the critters saw David planting what looked like their food in the dirt and had to come and dig them all out again. But that’s not a bad thing, either. And we took a few protective measures after that incident so it didn’t happen again.

One of the things I love about being alive, is that there can be a cute surprise, or a silly moment right around the corner. Not every day, of course, because too many sweet or funny moments would really dull their value. But every once in a while, there will be something new, and I truly adore those moments.

The best thing about those moments, of course, is that you never know when they’re going to happen. There’s no warning at all. And no way that they can be predicted. And yes, dear friends, I know that same sense of…what shall I call it? Propinquity? Cosmic surprise? Kismet? Well, whatever we call it, I know that same mechanism or twist of fate can just as easily bring doom or gloom to tragedy.

But this morning, I choose to focus only on the good and the positive. The cute and the silly.

This morning, I’m at my computer, going through my morning routine, quite involved in my activity when I hear a fast, soft tapping on my office window.

Now, a necessary digression. My desk is directly in front of the only window in my office. It is a double window—two for the price of one. Of course, I sit in front of my desk—an antique-ish library desk I purchased years ago at a flea market. And on my desk, blocking my view out the wonderful window that is on the east side of my house overlooking the street, stands my computer monitor. I just measured the thing. It’s 28 inches side to side. I can see a bit of the outside around the edges of the monitor, but if I want to look out the window I have to stand up and scrunch in very close.

This morning, when I heard that fast, soft tapping on my window, I looked down and all I could see was grey fur.

My immediate first thought was, “Oh, no! The cat got outside!” That could be a tragedy because he is a house cat, not a field or a street cat. So I stood up to get a better look, and stared into the face of a impatient-looking squirrel.

Mr. (or Mrs.) Squirrel looked right at me for a long moment, then got down.

Did you know that squirrels can be extremely egocentric and become quite demanding if they perceive they are not getting their due? I did.  I recall my father-in-law once reporting out that very fact when one of the squirrels he regularly fed would sometimes come up to the door and natter at him.

So when I realized it had been a squirrel who had “knocked” on my window (being smart, he likely saw the Purolator and Amazon drivers do that to get my attention), I knew what to do. I left my office and headed straight to my husband. I told him what happened, and we both laughed. Then he got up to go and put some food into the feeder attached to the walnut tree.

I also texted my daughter because she enjoys a funny story, too. I finished my telling of the tale in that text to her by observing, “I guess there’s no speedy rating for this restaurant.”

And our daughter proved she has the same sense of humor as her parents. She replied, and I quote, “…and when the peanuts finally came, I had to take them out of the shell myself. 2 out of 5 stars. Would not recommend.”

Yes, indeed. I truly love life’s silly moments. They’re the seasonings that give everything flavor.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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