Chapala
My friend Gloria Palazzo just attended a concert by this local group, Rondalla de Chapala. It was just awarded the distinction of being the best Rondalla group in Mexico! Enjoy.
Hearts Adrift
You’ve piqued my curiosity, riled up my blood.
Brand new possibilities surge in like a flood.
Sages say enchantment is magic of a kind
that brings down your defenses and permeates your mind
with fantastic possibilities that make it fully probable
that heavy hearts inflate until they are light and bobbable.
See them on the tide line, floating all about—
free of any tether and free of any doubt.
A sea of love ‘s an image once rendered in a song
that catches in our hearts and makes them sing along.
They form a soft accompaniment to the real world’s roar
that’s telling us we’re not the type a lover would adore.
But you’ll find that hearts may come in many makes and guises,
and when you set your heart adrift, it just may yield surprises.
The prompt words today were sage, pique, enchantment and blood.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/rdp-sunday-sage/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/10/fowc-with-fandango-pique/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/your-daily-word-prompt-enchantment-february-10-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/blood/
Thanks, Bob, (at Love will Bring Us Together blog) for identifying this plant as Clivia–a subspecies of agapanthus.
For FOTD.
Retribution
He built himself a sanctuary in the old garage
to shelter from his mom’s complaints, his stepfather’s barrage
of insults that he spewed out whenever he drank beer
and his teenage stepson happened to be near.
He frequented the shadows of their viral house.
Took shelter in the attic, quiet as any mouse.
Hid out in the garden in a cave of loam.
Anyplace his stepfather was not became his home.
His meals lacked spice and savor also missing in his mother.
Her meals furnished nutrition, but very little other.
No laughter flavored mealtimes. The food rendered no spice.
He secreted small bits of food—a slice of bread, some rice—
to feed to his companions—a family of mice.
It was worth the beatings that he’d suffered twice
when that man not his father saw him hide away
some morsel in his pocket and said he’d have to pay.
Raising his fist, he said he would take it from his hide
and gave another beating to the boy who never cried.
The boy who simply stored it up—kept all of it inside—
bore the abuse stoically and then crept outside
to commune with his real family who lived in wall and rafter
of the garage he’d made his home, and filled with love and laughter.
They came out at his bidding, swarmed around his feet
to eat a bit of porridge, some carrot or a beet.
Some crackers from his school lunch, some lettuce or a plum,
proved the presence of a heart that otherwise was numb.
Mice frequented his pockets and sat upon his shoulder—
every generation seeming to grow bolder.
They slipped into his mother’s house when she was sound asleep
and crept into those places where he could never creep.
They nestled in her shoes and chewed out all the toes,
severed all her bra straps, gnawed holes in all her hose.
They found the belt the monster man used to beat their friend,
dragged it deep under the bed and chewed it end-to-end.
When they crept into the larder to finish off the pie,
it must have been an accident that the can of lye
spilled into the sugar, pouring out in one fine stream
right into the bowl that would be placed beside the cream
on the breakfast table. For how could it be
that vermin knew only the man took sugar in his tea?
The prompt words today are sanctuary, garage and nutrition.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/rdp-saturday-sanctuary/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/09/fowc-with-fandango-garage/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/your-daily-word-prompt-nutrition-february-9-2019/
What I photographed a few days ago was this clear balloon lit up with L.E.D. lights. I think it was a leftover from the Rave they held across the bay which had just closed down. Afterwards, they brought them over to La Manzanilla to sell to the rodeo crowd! A man approached me in the street in front of my house and offered it at 180 pesos, then 150. Finally, at 100 pesos, I put him out of his misery. A friend said she bought one for 280 pesos! I really wasn’t bargaining. Just didn’t think it necessary until it was so cheap that I couldn’t resist.
Here it is two days later. The balloon is deflating and the LED strands aren’t. When it is almost totally deflated, I’ll try to figure out a way to blow it up again. It has replaceable batteries, so if I can keep the air in it, it should last for a long time.
HERE is my initial post entitled “Cosmic Self-Portrait” in which I asked you to identify what it was. It was taken on my terrace at night and you could look through it into the inside of my rental house but also see me reflected in it as I took the photo–plus surrounding lights.
When I searched the internet to determine the brand name of my college luggage, I was surprised to find this photo of my exact carry-on bag, so I took a screen shot of it.
Extra Baggage
The ritzy set of dark green Ventura luggage my parents had bought for me to take to college included one super-sized and one medium-sized suitcase as well as a green daisy flower power travel bag with shoulder strap and a vivid Purple, turquoise and green flowered tapestry panel in the front.
Five years later, having obtained my masters degree and teaching credential, I was finally free to pack up that luggage and set out to discover the big wide world I’d longed to see since I was a little girl feeling stuck in my tiny South Dakota prairie town, wondering where everyone else was going as I watched tourists drive by on the highway just two blocks from my home.
Now it was finally I who was off to somewhere exotic. Namely, Australia—one of two foreign countries willing to hire a first year teacher with no prior experience. It had won out over Isfahan, Iran, mainly because I knew my father had a fascination for Australia and I thought perhaps if I moved there, he would come to visit. A year and a half into my residence there, he did, bringing along my mother and older sister. Their visit occurred just in time, for a few months later, I was off again, this time to travel northward with my friend Dierdre, enroute, eventually (or so I thought at the time) to London.
When I departed on this next big adventure, I left my fancy baggage behind in a second-hand store in Sydney, traded in for a heavy duty bright blue nylon backpack on an aluminum frame into which I bundled as much of my former life’s accumulation of necessaries as I had the strength to carry on my back. We were off by bus to Darwin to catch a plane to Timor–our first stop in a course that would take us on to Bali, Java, Tanjung Pinang, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia–where my journey would come to rest for another year and a half, for like its suitcase predecessors, that blue backpack was not fated to ever make it to London.
If you’d like to know the next installment of this journey, go HERE.
Prompt words today were baggage, ritzy, strength and bundle.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/rdp-friday-baggage/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/08/fowc-with-fandango-ritzy/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/strength/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/your-daily-word-prompt-bundle-february-8-2019/
Earlier this week, I published a poem about cowboys and illustrated it with a photo of three cowboys that I took on the street during the 100th anniversary parade of the little town I grew up in in South Dakota. I had no idea who they were, but today I received this communication on my Facebook page that not only identified two of the handsome young cowboys, but which also informed me of an unusual twist of fate concerning the identity of one of the cowboys. Here is that Facebook conversation with Wayne Esmay, who still lives in (or near) my hometown of Murdo, South Dakota:
Judy Dykstra-Brown And are you Vickie’s brother?
Judy Dykstra-Brown How ironic. Thanks so much, Wayne. I’m going to copy your comment into my blog. Your sister Vicki visited me in Australia and I believe I was the Sunday school teacher of your youngest sister (Wanda?) who was an adorable little girl. I also remember your mother, Margie, well. We had some connection when I was a little girl. Did she stay with the Brosts when she went to high school? Trying to jog my memory. I remember she was an older girl that I admired.
Note from Judy: My father’s ranch has been resold several times since its first sale in the late 1960’s and I had no idea who the present owner was. It is so ironic that the one photo I took of people on the street after the parade should be the son of the present owner.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 