Author Archives: lifelessons

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About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays or stories. I've lived in countries all around the globe but have finally come to rest in Mexico, where I've lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you at my blog.

Nearly Midnight, and a New Task from Cee!!!

Well, here is a new question prompt from Cee (Just received.  Does this lady ever sleep?) and if you’d like to play along, please post your answers to these questions both on my blog and here.

Would you prefer snowy winters, or not, and why? I have paid my snow dues and now prefer iceless windows, skidless walks and un-frost-nipped nose. The beach for me in winter, please.

So, you’re on your way out and it’s raining. Do you know where your umbrella is or do you frantically search for it all over your apartment/house? I know exactly where my umbrellas are but I will probably not take them with me, but instead will make a mad dash for the car, trying to avoid jumping dogs and raised stones on the terrace. The fact that one is handle-less, one is missing connection to two of the spines and another is too big to fit through any door without going sideways, which sort of defeats its purpose, is coincidental. All of my good umbrellas that I can actually use now reside in undisclosed restaurants, movie theaters and other places where I have left them.

Do you prefer your food separated or mixed together? I like it mixed together. A little bit of each in each bite.

What is set as the background on your computer? Predictably, a scene of gentle ocean over white sand.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I am grateful for the talents of my writing group and being able to hear their varied and interesting works and to have them appreciatively listen to my work, as well. I am thankful for a two-hour swim in the perfectly clear waters of Tenacatita Beach and the company of two fascinating women, both of whom have had lives filled with adventure and who are both wonderful story-tellers. If one of those tales caused me to increase the salt content of the ocean surrounding me, well, so is life. The sad tales make the happier ones all the happier by contrast. In the week coming up, I look forward to beach bonfires and fireworks on the beach New Year’s Eve, more talks and walks and swims with new friends, another trip to Tenacatita before I return home on January 15 and hopes that I’ll meet last year’s resolution to get my book formatted this year, before I return home. Happy New Year to all.

If I Were Water and You Were Air

The Prompt: For this week’s writing challenge, take on the theme of H2O. What does it mean to be the same thing, in different forms?
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If I Were Water and You Were Air

I used to be restless water—
only the froth and currents
of a moving life.

Now I am still water,
sinking down to where
I can be found
by anyone willing to stand quietly
and look.

Is it true that moving water never freezes?
Is it true that still waters run deep?
Is it true that we are wed in steam?

“What if, caught by air,
it never lets me go?” I ask.

“But even water
turned to air
must fall at last,” you say.

“And what if I fall farther from you?”
I say. “Or what if I never again find banks
that open to contain me?”

I used to be swift flowing water.
Now I am a pool that sinks me deeper every year.
So deep, so deep I sink
that on its way to find me,
even air may lose its way.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_writing_challenge/ice-water-steam/

Wallpaper

This is an old poem I found in the bowels of my external hard drive. Reading it stirred up the squelched emotions of eight years ago; and although they are no longer felt so keenly, if at all, they still felt authentic. So here it is, rewritten and exposed to the eyes of the world for the first time:

Wallpaper

Clinging to the wall
like an old wallpaper scrap
are the words
I want you, I want you, I want you, I want you.

Their refrain slides up and down
the musical scale—
an old country tune,
plaintive and clear.

Why do I want you?

The first time I met you,
there was something about the curl of your hair.
Your eyes, so familiar­—puzzled, as though
you, too, were trying to remember.

After that, it was
the set of your shoulders—
the arm stretched between your seat and mine
with your hand on the back of my seat.

All of your restraint an aphrodesiac.

The truth is
that I pined
for two days after I left,
then went on with my life.

Still, that scrap
of wanting
comes up early in the morning
as I waken

and my mind walks,
looking for someone to pin it to,
and every time
it stops at you.

Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge

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I think it is obvious why this picture naturally fell into the oddball category. I didn’t crop, wanting you to know I had the good sense not to be in the same room with this cranky old codger, who was 1500 miles away as he serenaded me.

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I don’t know why I find this picture oddball. Perhaps it is the “Mickey Mouse ears” on the little girl that are really the heads of two boys in the water, or the contrast of all the bobbing heads with the one boy stretched as far out of the water trying to catch the ball that was thrown by whom? Perhaps it just happened to be flying by like the pelicans that are above and out of view.

 

http://ceenphotography.com/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge/

Post Christmas: Falling to Hell in a Hand Basket by Kim Scaravelli (Reblog)

 I found this blog post so hilarious I just had to reblog it.  I’ve put a link to Kim’s blog at the bottom.  I recommend you read her past posts and then hit the “follow” button so you don’t miss out on any of her future posts.

2014-12-28 15.18.17To quote my sweet little old granny, I have “fallen to hell in a hand basket” since December 25th. I have been wearing my Roots sweatpants for three consecutive days.  I no longer even entertain the pretense that I might eat a non-candied fruit or a vegetable NOT deep-fried and/or dipped in ranch dressing. There are candy wrappers on my bedside night stand and I’m dropping Baileys in my morning coffee (don’t judge me!). December 18th was the last day I walked further than the distance from my front door to my car. My belly button now looks up at me when I sit and my muffin top has morphed into a full-sized Bundt cake. The cellulite dimples on my ass resemble a dot-to-dot activity page from a kid’s colouring book and I’m pretty sure that if I could reach them with a pen, they could be joined into the image of Santa’s village, complete with sleigh and reindeer.

During the past few days, I have read nothing but Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind of Girl and a slew of trashy magazines pulled from Christmas stockings. As a result, my vocabulary has expanded to include over a dozen new ways to say ‘vagina’ and I have a newfound understanding of the mating rituals of boy-band members, Family Channel stars, and the Kardashians. Sadly, I no longer know what’s going on in Syria (although who really does?), why oil prices are dropping, or what my voting inclinations might be in the next federal election. Oh well…

It’s Post-Christmas; a surreal netherland vaguely linking the manic shopping and visiting and partying madness of December 1-25 with the disciplined repenting of January. Come New Year I will strap myself to a stair climber and press pause only to eat carrot sticks and dry quinoa. While scaling those endless steps to lean perfection, I will make a plan to pay off my VISA and my line of credit and catch up on 20+ years of unused RRSP contribution limits. 2015 will be the year when I finally clean out the basement rec room… and my bedroom closet… and the backyard shed! I will be better, faster, stronger than ever before!!! But that’s still a few days from now…

Perhaps I should start with baby steps; tiny progressive movements towards adult behaviour and appropriate hygiene.  I will focus on an attainable goal that doesn’t require too much mental or physical exertion… I will shave my legs!  Yes.  This seems like a very good idea.  After all, there are still sort-of-social things happening.  While I cannot imagine ever again donning pantyhose, history tells me that such things sometimes occur on New Year’s Eve.  I should make a pre-emptive move and mow down the kneecap-to-ankle forest before it becomes a situation requiring input from professionals!  I will begin with a soak in the tub…

Nothing like soaking in the tub with a nice glass of wine… and another selection from the trashy magazine mountain under the Christmas tree.   I think I will skip the whole leg-shaving thing in favour of a bit more wine (educational note to readers: always bring the bottle into the bathroom!).  After all, I’m putting on my Christmas jammies when I get out of the tub, so what’s the point really?

http://stuffmydogtaughtme.com/2014/12/28/post-christmas-laziness/comment-page-1/#comment-678

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The Prompt: All Grown Up—When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?

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It stretches forever in front of me.
There, no future happens until I create it.
And that is the power of words
that rub like pieces of gravel in my shoe.
I become less of a child in bearing them,
grow to adolescence as I pry them from my shoe.
In storing them on the page, I become my own creator—
writing a new world with each decision of word.
On the page, I can, if I so choose,
grow up again and again.
Each page filled or every edit of the last
becomes another part of me
that tells the same story:
that growing enough to fill the space inside of me
never happens.

 

WordPress Sunday Stills Photo Challenge: Legs!!!

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You lust for legs not yet satiated?  look here: http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/sunday-stills-the-next-challenge-legs/

Good News

Just received this news that photos I submitted were chosen to be featured in Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge.  There is a link below:

Hi Judy,
Congratulations! I have selected this post to be featured on Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge.
http://ceenphotography.com/2014/12/28/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge-week-43/
I hope you have a great week.

Hindsight: From Grief to Verb Tense and Beyond!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/hindsight/

From Grief to Verb Tense

The Prompt: Hindsight—Now that you’ve got some blogging experience under your belt, re-write your very first post.

My very first post was made on March 27, 2013. At that time, I thought my purpose in establishing a blog was to promote the book I’d been working on for the past two years,and so the blog was an announcement of the book and the next posting was a call for stories of how different people experienced and dealt with the grieving process. A few people did write in, but very quickly, I found that I didn’t want to be writing about and dealing with grief every day and this blog very quickly turned into a celebration of life again. Here is my very first post:

I’ve just sent the book I’ve been working on for 12 years to the printer!!!!

1 Master embossed -cream big & little spine copy copy

Lessons from a Grief Diary: Rebuilding Your Life after the Death of a Loved One
a new book by:
Judy Dykstra-Brown and Anthony Moriarty, Ph.D.

 A widow’s grief diary chronicling the illness and death of her husband as well as the process of her recovery from grief over the next eight years is analyzed in alternating chapters by a psychologist. Includes methods of overcoming grief, suggested further reading and ending notes that summarize main points of the book.

Available on Amazon, Kindle and in Bookstores, including Diane Pearl Colecciones and Jose Melendrez’s store in the plaza in Ajijic, MX.

(The only change I’ve made to this post is to say that the book is now available.  For some reason I’d never changed over from saying it would soon be available.)

Then, on April 1, 2013, I published this post:

Someone sent me an invitation from NaPoWriMo to write a poem a day for a month, but I need a website to post them.  Since this is the only blog/website I have, I’m going to use this one.  There will be a poem each day for a month, all written on the day they were posted, dashed off quickly, but what fun to have completed 30 poems by the end of the month.  Please join me and post your poems here, as well.

Earlier today, someone posted a comment, then wrote back to change “lying”  to “laying.” Of course, I had to fight my better nature and write back that he was actually right the first time.  I then included this little poem, written in about a minute, to soften that pedantic blow.  Yes, I really am a “reformed” English teacher.  But I backslide now and then:

Old English teachers never die.
They just advise on “lay or lie?”
Driving friends who are grammatically hazy
Completely crazy!!!!

With that 4-line ditty, the course of this blog was reset and quickly became what it is today.

 

 

 

Last night’s incredible sunset and moon

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