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.

Regata de Globos

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Click on images to increase their size and to read a
commentary about what is happening in the scenes.

Helpers hold down one of the more spectacular large globos launched during the Regatta de Globos yesterday.
Vendor sells balloons of a smaller scope.
Many smaller balloons go up before the first large one lifts off.
One of the first of the larger globos begins the process of filling with hot air. Before the balloon is launched, soaked rags or steno will be placed in container below the balloon to continue to heat the hot air.
Sideways motion means a risk of igniting the side of the balloon and sending the entire globo up in flames, which happened numerous times during the few hours I watched the event.
But it lifts off safely
Please read the text at the end of this post to read about Rebecca, whose ashes are being sent up in this balloon.
The air in Rebecca’s globo is heated by a propane torch as friends hold up the framework of the balloon.The balloon is finally nearly full.
Beginning liftoff.
Bon Voyage, Rebecca
And she’s off into the wild blue!!!
May you fly far and free.

Every year shortly before Independence Day, there is a huge hot air balloon celebration in Ajijic. During this celebration, hot air balloons are sent up from the soccer field. The sight of these huge brightly patterned balloons being filled with air heated by a propane torch, then launched with a can of burning rags or sterno to keep the air hot, is an exciting affair. Some balloons burst into flame before leaving the earth. Others tip sideways and are ignited in the air above the crowd, that scatters to avoid ashes, falling matter in flames, or the metal structure that holds the burning rags or sterno. Other balloons lift and float for miles before coming to earth. One year the electrical wires next to the field caught on fire and balloons lit on nearby roofs and the roof of the viewing stands.

Here are photos of this year’s celebration which was especially poignant because the ashes of a friend were sent up in one of the balloons. Her name was Rebecca Ford, and I met her years ago when she moved to Ajijic. She ended up becoming the partner of a close friend of mine and it was then that I learned that long ago, when I was 19 years old, Rebecca and I had actually been on the same ship together for four months as it sailed around the world. It was the S.S. Ryndam and it carried 500 students of World Campus Afloat. Although I had not known her well then, I remembered her as being the girlfriend of a classmate of mine. What were the chances that we would again meet, 45 years later, in Mexico?

Both Rebecca and I had ended up being world travelers for life, and when she passed away a few months ago, her partner Xill decided that it would be fitting for some of her ashes to be sent off aboard a globo made be fellow artist Daniel de Palma so she could continue her life journey. Rebeccas’s last journey is depicted in the large red globo pictured toward the end of this display and contains the message “Bon Voyage, Rebecca.” May she R.I.P.

(Update 9/11/2023 – If you want to see a zillion more photos of the 2023 event, I have posted them HERE.)

Tiny Flower

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This was a tiny flower no bigger than the tip of my finger, framed by leaves on the cobblestones,

For Cee’s FOTD

Luminous

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Luminous

He surely struck the bullseye when he razed his squalid hovel
and starting out with little else than hammer, saw and shovel,
he raised a lovely edifice seven stories high,
an apartment building most pleasing to the eye.

Making not a single blunder, all the work that he put in
transformed a former eyesore into a brilliant win.
Luminous and shining, this glorious property
became a local landmark that people came to see.

Those who sought to live there were multiform and varied,
for folks of every background loved the energy it carried.
It was a living monument to industry and wit,
qualities reflected in the folks who lived in it.

 

The prompts today are luminous, bullseye, win, blunder, multiform, apartment building and hovel.

The hand-forged hammer in the illustration was my father’s. Its handle is covered in leather rings. It is one of my most treasured objects.

Succulent Gestation for Cee’s FOTD

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I love this tiny succulent plant being created from a single fallen leaf. Note roots that have already started to develop. During the rainy season, it doesn’t even require soil.

For Cee’s FOTD

Eyeing my Neighbor’s Sandwich in the School Cafeteria

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Eyeing my Neighbor’s Sandwich in the School Cafeteria

Since they garnisheed Dad’s wages, we’ve been bleary-eyed and passive.
The influence on our diet, in short, has been most massive.
Sister has a headache and mother’s getting thin.
My football playing brother has no energy to win.
His lack of skill’s been vindicated by the fact that he
was relegated to a diet riboflavin-free.
For since Dad has no wages, there’s no money to buy bread,
so dandelion greens are what we’re grazing on instead.
Since vitamin g is what we have been missing in our diet,
if you don’t like that sandwich, do you think that I could try it?

I know. A really bad poem, but hope I am “vindicated” when you view what the prompt words were: Prompt words for today were bleary, passive, win, vitamin g, vindicated and garnishment.Illustration thanks to Chic Young.

Note:

Vitamin G isn’t a term you’ll hear very much anymore. It’s actually an outdated name for riboflavin (also known as lactoflavin and vitamin B2), a micronutrient found in bread and pasta. Riboflavin is an easily absorbed micronutrient that plays a key role in maintaining health in humans and animals. It is required for a wide variety of cellular processes and is very important in getting energy from the foods we eat. Studies have shown that riboflavin may play a role in the prevention and/or treatment of iron-deficiency anemia, carpal tunnel syndrome, cataracts, migraines and rosacea (a skin disease). And recent research has found that riboflavin is one of three vitamins involved in the regulation of circadian (daily) rhythms, because it helps to activate some light-sensitive cells in the retina of the eye and synchronize our daily biological rhythms with the light.

Jam and Toast for Dinner

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  Wishful thinking.

Jam and Toast for Dinner

She could not stand to touch a worm,
for squiggly things just made her squirm,
and so she cast a naked hook
into the waters of the brook.
You might have guessed she was not able
to provide protein for our table,
thus proving that old axiom
forgotten by our squeamish mom.
“When you go out fishing, best do it by the book.
No one ever caught a fish with an unbaited hook.”

For the dVerse Poets prompt: aphorisms.

I believe this is a new aphorism to add to your list!

Teenage Hibiscus: FOTD Sept 9, 2022

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Not quite fully unfurled.

For Cee’s FOTD

Texture for CBWC

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Click on photos to enlarge.

For CBWC, Texture.

Wind

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Windmills
Kites
Creating electricity
and sneezes.
and drying sheets in the wind

Wind

The breath of the world blows tendrils of hair,
turns windmills and dries white sheets upon a line.
It  twists into a tornado
and lifts a house off its foundations,
sets it down in a mountain meadow
where zephyrs stir the trees.

The breath of the world blows a bee from its branch,
inhales its pollen and puffs it into nostril hairs
that launch a hurricane of sneezes,
sending a whirlwind of powder
from a powdered sugar donut out the window
onto the shoulder of a passing immaculate black tuxedo.

The breath of the world launches sailboats,
   then sends them into safe harbors as it swells into a typhoon.
     As it exhales, it lifts kites high into the air
              and as it inhales, sends them plummeting to earth.
                   It fuels our lungs to blast a wind of words: expletives or adamant prayers,
                              anthems or a tyrant’s raves, benedictions or cheers for a favorite football team.

Windy cities draw their nicknames from the breath of the world.
Wind in the Willows names our books.
Woodwinds breathe out melodies
Wind gives a name to our direction as we struggle windward.
Hurricanes quench our thirst in airless bars.
Breezes give monikers to our dispositions.

Whirlwind, breeze, zephyr,
hurricane, gale, draft, blow,
tornado, crosswind, cyclone—
from gentle puff to wild tornado,
it is  the world’s breath 
that sets everything into motion.

 

 

For the Fake Flamingo September Poetry Challenge  hosted by Rebecca, which was to write a poem about the wind making use of anaphora (a repetition of lines.) Image of sheets in the wind by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash. All other images by me.

Bad Zoey!!!! (Traviesa)

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If I had to collect photos of things Zoey has destroyed in my house since February, it would take a good amount of work and a sizeable amount of space in my media file to share them with you. So, I’ll only show what I just discovered upon walking into my bathroom. I had a brief foreshadowing in the way she zipped out of the room, into my bedroom and out the door onto the terrace as I got up to walk to the bathroom. This is what I discovered:

Before
ingesting Mom’s favorite Trahumara basket
Discovering toilet paper. Guess who?
Guilty!!!!

It was my favorite Tarahumara basket from Copper Canyon, which I used as a Kleenex holder. She had to jump up and get it off my bathroom counter. I don’t know how. My purse strap was also hanging over the side, down to the floor, so I’m sure it would have been next. Remember the last time she completely destroyed a 200 pesos bill? I’d been so careful to keep the bathroom door closed, but one lapse creates results. My friend Brad is going to Copper Canyon later this year. Perhaps he can find me another pine needle basket like this one. So much prettier than a cardboard Kleenex box. The half box of Kleenex that I’d placed in the basket was more easily replaced.