Recently, WordPress has started sending reminders of past blogs published on the current date. Here was a blog I published ten years ago on June 22:
Why don’t you do the same ? If you do, please put a link to this blog in comments below.
To play along, go to your photos file folder and type the number 747 into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title. This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below.
The Toast
He never lost his swagger, even toward the end.
As life tried to break him, the most he did was bend.
When death twisted its cruel blade and his life met its turning,
unholy thoughts consumed me and set my mind to churning.
Will the dead rise up again in search of former love,
or do our dear departeds find more holy lips above?
Does past love wave its banners and proclaim itself in spite
of the fact that one love stays below, completely out of sight?
Love’s table where we feasted has found another host,
and though I hover ’round its edges and listen to the toast
of another bride and bridegroom celebrating love that’s new,
instead, my lover who once was, I lift this glass to you.
For the Sunday Whirl 762 the words are: wave turning unholy lips swagger lost dead rise twist blade feast edges
Stop and Go
My goals in life were nebulous. I didn’t know quite what
it was that I most wanted—except out of my rut.
A picket fence and cottage were never my dream.
I didn’t want to produce children by the ream.
I only wanted travel and to see who I could be
if I could search far enough to discover me.
I finally found a part of me everywhere I went,
but had to keep on traveling to know the full extent
of who I wished to grow into—how much I wished to find—
how much I could reveal of me and still have peace of mind.
But now I’ve seemed to settle. I’m content with what I’ve found.
The place where I have come to seems like holy ground.
Perhaps true wisdom really comes from knowing when to stop—
knowing when we’ve climbed enough because we’ve reached the top!
The Weekly Challenge is “Stop.”
WP has started sending out notices every day of all the blogs we have done on the same date (In this case, June 20) for the entire time we’ve been blogging. In my case, I had posted 36 blogs on that date during the past 10 years. I’m sharing the oldest one, published in 2016.
Summer Evenings Turn to Fall
Back when we drank summer through paper soda straws,
we played at being cowboys, hiding out in draws
that we imagined wilder. Our hearts beat with fear
of fictional opponents who might be drawing near.
We had no euphemisms for our enemies.
We only knew our fear of them, silent, on our knees.
Little did we know then, during childhood games,
imaginary enemies would assume other names.
No ditch big enough to hide, and no night dark enough.
No more cops and robbers. No more blind man’s bluff.
Strange that in those peaceful times the games we chose to play
were a mere foreshadowing of what is real today.
Back when summer filled our cheeks with melons and with berries,
why didn’t we fill balmy nights with princesses and fairies?
Back when life was summer smooth, we lusted after roughness,
as though we’d gain maturity through violence and toughness.
Feigning valor not yet gained, we knew not that tomorrow
we’d have the fears we’d feigned for real––the terror and the sorrow.
Childhood evenings filled with shouts and laughter interspersed
were in reflection adult games that we just rehearsed.
The picture is my sister Patti and her best friend Karen. Note the real saddle placed on the makeshift “horse.”
Here’s one of mine from 2019! A bougainvillea trio.
I have this fantasy where I take an extended trip around the globe to visit a number of blogging friends I’ve never met in person. Has anyone else ever had this thought?
Just for the fun of it, I’d like to know who would have me to visit..for just a day or a night or an hour. If you want to be on the list, give me your name, blog link and location in the comments.
Don’t worry. I’m unlikely to do this, unless I happen to be in your area anyway, so adding your name to the list is not an obligation. Still, who knows? I’m certainly up for a visit if you ever decide to visit Mexico.
WordPress has started a new feature where they send us a reminder of every blog we published over the years on the present date. This is what I published on June 19 in 2019:
I well remember that it took me much longer to format the poem than to write it, and in the original post, I showed earlier “shapes” for the poem before I settled on this one. I’ll spare you that here. Was anyone around to read it when I first published the poem? If so, drop a line. In fact, drop a line even if you weren’t!
Image by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash, Used with permission.
Insomnia Blues
I turn up the volume, turn off the lights–
the beginning of one of my fruitless insights
into how to manage falling asleep
by listening to podcast sessions I keep
stored on my computer, backed up on my phone,
although I admit, in the dark, all alone,
I lie sleepless for hours, in spite of trying
various things to assist in my flying
off into dreamland. Music and books,
chants, meditations and other hooks
created to lull a person to dreams,
where I will not go in this lifetime,it seems.
Hour after hour, I try to snooze.
Light up a doobie, sip on some booze,
but nothing works, so as dawn lights my day,
I arise from my bed and I’m off and away
to attend Open Circle–– a weekly gathering
given to performances, lectures and blathering
on local issues. This week it’s my friend.
I find my seat. It’s first row, on the end.
Hear announcements of upcoming speakers and then
my very best friend. I hear her begin,
then fade into dreams, beginning to snore,
lean ever lower, end up on the floor.
So that sleep I’ve been praying for comes, in the end,
rudely, in public, as I lose a friend.
Today’s Word of the Day was “Volume.”
For this week’s Fibbing Friday, the subjects we are forced to lie about are:
1. Who has a licence to kill? It’s written in the word…LlCEnce!
2. Who had a perfect ’10’. Farrah Fawcett’s hubby, Lee Majors.
3. Who said ‘I’ll be back?’ Trump, and unfortunately he was.
4. Who wanted to be a ‘real boy’? Not Michael Jackson.
5.. Who had breakfast at Tiffanys? The mouse patrol cat who lived there.
6. What happened in Wall Street? It got held up.
7. Where would you find the Green Mile? Elon Musk’s bank vault.
8. Who was The Iron Lady? The lady who pressed clothes at our local laundry.
9. What is Watership Down? Seagull feathers stuck to an oceangoing vessel.
10. Who walked the Line? The drunk pulled over by the patrolman.
Art 
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 