Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [84]
I knew I had to get back to the show, because Doo hates for me to cancel out. He gets real nervous whenever I’m sick anyway. I once heard him say, “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a sick woman.” Well, maybe this woman won’t be sick anymore.
I’ve learned my lesson. Now if I feel nervous, I just think happy thoughts or lie down. I feel 100 percent better now that I’m off aspirins. I can see how woozy it made me. Friends tell me I’m more clear-headed now than I’ve been in years.
I’m learning how to take care of myself. I used to waste away to under a hundred pounds during the year. But now the doctors have told me to keep eating. They say I have to eat a banana a day because my body doesn’t produce enough potassium.
Also in 1974, my doctor prescribed water pills for my migraines. I take ’em for a week before my period, and they seem to take away most of the pressure in my system. Since October of 1974, I only had three migraines—that’s more than a year. Before that, I was having ’em every three weeks, so maybe I’m starting to get answers to my problems.
I’ve really got to take it easy, though. I’m taking off the last ten days of every month. I’ve started sleeping better, not going outside the room except to perform. But it seems life is getting wound up into just performing and traveling and resting. I don’t have the time or the energy I used to years ago. I think back on the busy, capable housewife I was when I was poor, and I ask myself: “Is it worth the price?” I’m not really sure.
25
Mexico
There’s wild red blood running through my veins,
And I wish my skin was, too.…
—“Red, White and Blue,” by Loretta Lynn
The real thing that saved my life this past couple of years was buying a house in Mexico. Now you ask, what’s a country girl from Kentucky doing with a house in Mexico? But I’ll tell you, I need to get completely away from things. I think that’s where I’ll go when I retire.
We found this place a few years ago when me and Doo took a vacation in a big camper. Now that ain’t exactly my idea of a good vacation, not after being on the road in a bus all year. But Doo, he was itching to go someplace warm and do some fishing and just poke around the way we used to do. I could understand that, so I went along, just dreading more time with the wheels turning under me. But it wasn’t bad.
We headed down to the west coast of Mexico, around Mazatlán, a big city, a beautiful city. We headed down the coast some more—I’m not telling where—till we found this little village, right on the ocean. The people there were part Indian, so I felt real comfortable with ’em, even though I couldn’t speak Spanish and they couldn’t speak much English. I think you can always get along with your hands and the way you smile and stuff. The people there were beautiful. Then we met this old fellow who looked like my granddaddy—a real dignified, smart Indian. He was a fishing guide and he collected old Indian pottery. He gave me some, wouldn’t let me pay a penny for it. Then he showed us all around the countryside. All of a sudden we saw this piece of beachfront property for sale. I told Doo, “That’s where I’d like to build a house, right there.” Now Doo liked it himself. So we talked business with the man and we made a deal. We leased it for around forty years, with the option for another forty. (The Mexican government doesn’t allow Americans to buy as much land as they used to.) But we felt we could go ahead and build a house on the property, and we finished it by the end of 1972.
Now we’ve got this house with every room facing the ocean and a big swimming pool with a separate little house called a ramada. We go down there at Christmastime and stay. The first winter we stayed a month. The next year we stayed six weeks. I think this year I’d like to stay for three months. And if I could, I’d never leave.
Every day is just perfect. We get up and don’t bother to dress fancy. Nobody knows who we are and nobody cares. We go down to the ocean and just play in the water. I’ve got some Mexican women