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.

The Escape

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The Escape

Her horse is cinched and saddled up,
ready to be ridden,
and yet she cannot make herself
do as she is bidden.

Over the heath and meadow,
they would have her go,
but even though she’s seized the reins,
her starting has gone slow.

She does not wish to marry.
She does not love her chosen.
Her heart that should be warm with love
in defiance has been frozen.

Her ride will not be ended where her father has decreed.
She will not sacrifice her life to his selfish greed.
So that heath and meadow, where he would have her go,
she will forsake, to follow where the winds of fate might blow.

 

Another early morning prompt from guess who:

01.57 AM These  lines just now came to me . “Her horse is cinched and saddled up. She settles in…” Is that a prompt for you, or for me?
01:58 AM you
01:59 AM Maybe. But please write the rest as well.

 

Prompt by ForgottenMan, Image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.

Solar Eclipse, October 14: Seeing Red––”Everybody Knows VI”

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I was searching for the keys to take Yolanda home when she suddenly perched against the edge of the couch and stopped me in my search. Now I must admit that we do pretty well on short simple conversations, but she was excited and launched into one of those longer narratives where I captured about every tenth word. In this case, the first word I captured was “eclipse,” which is more or less the same in Spanish as in English. The second was “rojo” which I knew meant red.

Suddenly, I understood the essence of what she was telling me. After a few more questions and repetitions, I learned that I was to find or buy some red material to tear into strips to tie around all of my fruit trees: the banana and lime and papaya and mango. My lime tree was producing large fruit but my bananas were still in a period of gestation–about half the size they should grown to, and If I neglected to do this to protect them from the eclipse, all the fruit would fall off, or at the very least, my bananas and other fruit not ready to be picked would be stunted. As a last warning, she directed me to stay inside. Better to watch the eclipse on the television or on my computer.

Just last week, I had read that a solar eclipse was to occur on October 14 and I had mentioned to a friend that years ago, they tied red ribbons to the gate of the chayote field across from the graveyard and I noticed red strips tied around the necks of horses and cattle and dogs to deflect eclipse rays. I remembered a race down main street and had wondered why I hadn’t noticed any of this during more recent eclipses.

Yolanda then explained to me that any animal or tree or fruit in gestation needed to be protected. Women of childbearing age were told to wear red garments or even red underwear. During the last eclipse, a woman in town who was pregnant had neglected to wear red and her baby had been born with a bent nose. Yes, a race would probably be run but I was not able to understand who would run this race. Perhaps pregnant ladies? It seemed as though that could present further problems. What if someone fell? Would it mean a baby with a bent nose in spite of red underwear or a red sash?

Nonetheless, On October 14th, although I am past the age requiring red underwear, I will be careful not to look directly at the sun and just in case, or perhaps just to please Yolanda, I’ll dip into my Christmas decorations in search of my reel of red ribbon.

For other “Everybody Knows” stories about local legends, stories and gossip, see:

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2023/07/01/everybody-knows-v-the-day-that-death-came-to-town/
https://judydykstrabrown.com/2023/09/12/everybody-knows-iv-the-drunken-dog/

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2023/07/01/everybody-knows-iii-the-martyr-dog/

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2023/06/30/everybody-knows-ii/: The Caguama

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2023/06/28/everybody-knows-i-the-night-the-vet-died-for-one-liner-wednesday/

Euphorbia Bracteata For FOTD Sept 28, 2023

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Also known as slipper plant. You’ll see more of it tomorrow,
along with its bed partner, the yellow hibiscus!

For Cee’s FOTD

Echeveria For FOTD Sept 27, 2023

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Not blooming, but as pretty as a flower.

For Cee’s FOTD

Fresh Greens, for Cell Pic Sunday

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Click on Photos to Enlarge

Dear God, please forgive me my Excesses!  For Cell Pic Sunday: Green

Well-Fed?

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Oscar comes three times a week to walk the dogs, but  now that school is in session, sometimes he comes late in the afternoon instead of very early in the morning.  He is so quiet that I can never tell if he’s been here in the morning or not, so I asked him to put a note on the door of the dogfood and fridge cabinet in the doggie domain so I’d know they’d been fed as otherwise they do all they can to persuade me they haven’t. Do you think he perhaps overdoes his notifications? 

 

Roof Dogs

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For the fifteen or more years Frida lived with me, this is where she was most of the time, checking out the neighborhood and occasionally barking at someone who didn’t belong there.
When Frida died, I had a sculpture of her installed on the roof dome.
And Frida’s ashes went into this effigy which we concreted in place on her favorite place on the dome, to watch for as long as I have any say in the matter.
Keep a watch for us, girl .
And then, across the street on the corner of Ilie Nastase and Wm. Tilden, these puppy-sized sculptures appeared.
As new real puppies joined the family, I installed a gate to keep less experienced little feet off the dome, but inevitably, guests or Pasiano would leave the gate on the stairs up to the casita whose terrace adjoined the dome.
Neighbors snapped this photo, then called to advise me that Frida had visitors.
A year or so later, another member of the pack appeared right across from me on Wm. Tilden
Help Frida keep watch, boy!
(Frida as a puppy.)

It all started with Frida, who I first met as she trotted down the carretera traveling west as I walked with my friend Joe, going east.  She was so tiny that I thought she was a big rat at first, but as she drew nearer, I realized it was a tiny puppy who, when she got up to me, immediately stopped and looked up at me with those eyes that indicated that we already belonged to each other.  When she got older, for the next 15 years or so, she spent most of her days up on the dome of my house supervising the neighborhood, and when she passed away, it didn’t take long for me to figure out how she should be memorialized. It took me some months to find a terracotta sculpture that looked like her and to find men to concrete it securely in place.  Inside are Frida’s ashes.  There she has resided for years, surveying all who pass as she did during her life.

As new dogs arrived in my life, they took to occasionally visiting her on the roof, and then a strange thing happened.  In the house kitty-corner across from me, two smaller terracotta dogs appeared, on the post beside the entry gate, Frida directly in their line of vision a story above them on my dome.

Then, less that a year ago, the house directly across the street from me sold, and a few days ago, when Yolanda mentioned my neighbors putting dogs on their roof, I corrected her that they were on a pedestal by their front gate, but she said, no–on the roof–and directed me down the street to look back at the house of the new neighbors.  There, securely affixed to their chimney stack, almost obscured by the trees, was another Frida!

That is how “In the doghouse” came to be a non-derogatory term in my neighborhood. In fact, I am now just waiting for the next roof dog to show up!!

Cold-Hearted, Short Little Prompt Poem

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 I woke up to this prompt from Forgottenman:
No friggin’ idea why, but I just conjured up a three-word prompt: anvil, fluffy,                        sediment. Do with them as you will or not. (Yeah, I needa head to bed.)
I’ve said before that I am game for any challenge, so here goes:

Cold-Hearted
You’re fluffy as an anvil, as sweet as cod liver pie.
The sediment from the hearts you’ve broken piles up so high
that you can’t be seen behind it, so there you sit, alone.
reflecting on the shattered loves for which you must atone.

Image by Kasia Darenda on Unsplash. And this poem, although written in the second person, is not directed at the prompter. 

 

 

Aloe Vera Bloom: FOTD Sept 26, 2023

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The hummingbirds will soon be out in full force!  This is my view from my desk.

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Cat Blanket

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The Cat Blanket
“If Mom’s gonna spread out, we may as well do so, too.”
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

And how many cats here?
How many cats in this Photo?

The kitties were all girlcatting it around outside when I lay down on the sofa, but when I woke up after a 3-hour unplanned nap, they were covering about all of me. I had been listening to a book on my Kindle when I fell asleep, but I suddenly realized it had a camera on it, so then and there, I learned how to use my Kindle to take these photos and how to send them to my computer, all while lying under a cozy cat blanket! I love it that I’m just the bottom cat in the pile.

For The Carrot Ranch’s 99-Word Story prompt