Since it rained almost every day we were in Cancun, we spent a lot of time under the canopy out by the pool–us under, the seagulls perched overhead!
This kitten wandered into a local coffee bar and persuaded its owners that it lived there. When they were gone and the front doors were closed, she continued to carry on an active social life with passing children.
Fancy feet. I think you saw these earlier in vivid pink. Here they are letting their design carry the day in basic black and white.
http://ceenphotography.com/2015/08/06/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-hands-feet-or-paws/
At Fourteen
There is a whole world out there and you’ll see it soon enough.
It is the world inside of you you’ll find especially rough.
Try to write about it, and try to tell the truth
about the things that happen that you find uncouth.
Write about what hurts you, and hurts that you have done–
all those shadows in you brought into the sun.
Ask those around you why they act in ways that might seem cruel
and try to live your own life by the golden rule.
Take chances and do not be cowed when you achieve less
than what you might have hoped for, and when you’re wrong, confess.
Don’t just do what your friends do. Don’t act before you think.
However strange the ones around you, try to find a link.
The world has enough meanness. Try not to add to it.
Try harder in environments where you seem not to fit.
People who are petty will cut you like a knife,
but the chances that you take will be what will make your life.
Other people’s rules pinch like a too-small shoe,
so don’t let other people dictate what you do.
Do not fear to step aside and go out on your own.
The fields that yield the sweetest crop are those that you have sown.
Post this advice up on your wall and read it now and then.
Use it as a means to reassess where you have been.
Then when you are older, and your life grows thin,
do what I am doing now. Consider it again.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “From You to You.” Write a letter to your 14-year-old self. Tomorrow, write a letter to yourself in 20 years.
Absolutely Hilarious!!!
The artwork by now would be vast
Not as intended in the past
Had I inked my rind
A panoramic behind
How long does permanent last?
__________________________________________
The Daily Post, Aug 5, 2015, Daily Prompt: Tattoo… You?~ Do you have a tattoo? If so, what’s the story behind your ink? If you don’t have a tattoo, what might you consider getting emblazoned on you skin? <a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/tattoo-you/”>Tattoo….You?</a><a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/tattoo-you/”>Tattoo….You?</a>
This way! Follow me!
Nope, Better come this way. Hurry up.
Silly! It was this way all along!!!
http://ceenphotography.com/2015/08/05/cees-which-way-challenge-2015-week-31/
Tulip Tree with Kiskadee
This fellow was at the opposite end of the lot at the top of a giant African Tulip Tree. Thanks to the wonderful zoom on my new Canon camera, I captured him! Thanks, Canon.
He was catching bugs as they went by. You can see one in his beak in this photo.
Here you can see him going after yet another fly. It was an almost constant repetition of a theme. A great hunting ground! My shutter speed wasn’t fast enough to freeze his movement, but at least the flowers were in focus!
And then he flew away! He always returned, but my mind turned to other things, and two days later I had this nice surprise on my camera when I finally got around to downloading the pictures from my camera. Another day’s challenge met!!!
(In Mexico, the name for the African Tulip Tree is Tulipan. It is also sometimes called a Fountain Tree.)
http://ceenphotography.com/2015/08/05/flower-of-the-day-august-5-2015-delphinium/
Relax, it’s only henna! I get a Mayan tattoo on my lower leg every time I go to the beach. It fulfills all my contradictory impulses.
Change of Mind
Tattooed pierced and branded, or to be marked for life
with patterns carved into the skin with a sterile knife?
I cannot help but tell you that I find it very strange–
this trend to decorate ourselves by means that we can’t change.
When I was in my twenties, I bought a gorgeous hat
of pink and blue with colored plumes that swayed this way and that.
But what if I had had it sewn forever to my head,
so when I desired a wedding veil, I had feathers instead?
What if those chandelier earrings I found so cool in my teens
were implanted so I couldn’t take them off by any means?
So when I trekked across the jungles, weaving through the trees,
those earrings caught upon the vines and brought me to my knees?
My hair would be a helmet, and my eyes would look so queer
if worn like I did at twenty with eyeliner ear to ear.
So I cannot help but think this child with corks stretching her lobes
might regret them in her forties as she dons her judge’s robes.
Or the youngsters with the tongue studs, one day when they are men
might regret it as the shots they drink leak out onto their chin.
I’m so glad those mini skirts I wore—a poor choice even then––
are not still sewn upon my hips now that I am more Zen.
Thank God those darker outlined colors that made our lips less thin
and those psychedelic tie-dyes are not printed in our skin.
For although our taste was laughable, at least we can repent–
for the choices that we made in youth were not permanent.
And, that hat mentioned in the poem? It really existed and still does, although no, I have not worn it in over 40 years. Here it is, a side view!
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Tattoo….You?.” Do you have a tattoo? If so, what’s the story behind your ink? If you don’t have a tattoo, what might you consider getting emblazoned on you skin?
Fitting In
I can’t remember ever wanting to look like anyone else. I have always just wanted to be unique. Sure, I had a doctor blouse (remember them in the sixties–prompted by Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey?) and the later refinement of the the doctor blouse, the sissy blouse–merely a doctor blouse with ruffles added? I also wore pedal pushers, madras and short skirts–all in their day. But the purpose never was, as I recall, to look like everybody else. It was because I liked the fashion, but wanted to be unique within that fashion.
In the past thirty years or so I haven’t really even known what the fashion was. I just saw clothes and bought them because I liked them and they didn’t make me look fat! (Even if I was–ha.) I have friends who come to Mexico and buy the wonderful embroidered blouses, then tell me when they go home they never wear them because they just don’t seem “right” in Wyoming or even California! This seems so weird to me. If I like certain clothing, I wear it wherever it is climate appropriate. Why would anyone want to wear what everyone else is wearing?
The same goes for hairstyles. I don’t know what is “in.” I just know when I have a hairstyle that makes me look like how I feel. Certain haircuts make me feel “right” and I am happy for the time it takes for them to grow out and for me to get a new haircut that isn’t right–such as the one I have now. I think perhaps this is why I never quite fit in anywhere until I went to a culture so foreign that I wasn’t expected to fit in and was accepted because I was different. Somehow, the American culture has never quite evolved to the point where those who are different are accepted. Perhaps that’s why I have always preferred to live abroad.
(The picture is from my New Years Eve poor taste party several years ago. I’ve staged these in three countries–so much fun. In addition to dressing as tacky as possible, everyone brings a dish they are secretly embarrassed that they love, in spite of the fact that it isn’t “in style.” Mac and cheese and homemade Twinkies and hostess cupcakes were three of the dishes. Can’t remember the rest. If anyone pictured or who was there remembers, please comment!)
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Style Icon.” Describe your personal style, however you’d like to interpret that — your clothing style, your communication style, your hair style, your eating style, anything.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
