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.

“Coup d’état” For the Three Things Challenge 141, Aug 3, 2025

 

Coup d’état

Build up all your borders. Put truth behind a scrim.
Remove all your immigrants. Trim and trim and trim.
Box up all your freedoms and lock them safe away.
Amend the 10 Commandments to “Ye shall not be gay.”
Dumb down all our children to increase control
so you can assure that you’ll retain control.
Tear apart two hundred fifty years of “free”
to put into your control what once was liberty.
Subjugate your citizens and say it is God’s will.
Then provide the Kool-Aid to see if they will swill.

Prompt words for the Three Things Challenge are: BORDER, TRIM, BOX

“Souvenirs” For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 717, Aug 3, 2025

 

Souvenirs

Not all souvenirs are ones that we can touch––
statues, postcards, T-shirts, baskets, rings and such.
We buy such things to crack the windows to the past
to try to free those memories that we know won’t last.
Yet memory itself is a siren that can free
remembrance in melodies that we cannot see
except in mental echoes that come wave after wave,

showing us for free what our mind chooses to save.
Whether they prompt nostalgia to excite or soothe or sting,
deep within our minds are souvenirs of everything.

 

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 717, the prompt words are: souvenirs free touch know cracks siren window waves sting show ring give. Image by Bianca Ackerman on Unsplash.

Lines, Colors and Patterns, for John’s Lens Artists Challenge #359

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

For John’s Lens Artists Challenge #359Lines, Colors, Patterns

Last on the Card for July 31, 2025

Both of these photos were taken on July 31, 2025 in the Phoenix, AZ area. Click on photos to enlarge and see captions.

For Bushboy’s Last on the Card

“Forest Sunset” for Friday SOCS

Version 2

Forest Sunset

In the forest, wild and lush,
hear the music of the thrush
break the stillness of the brush.
If else disturbs it, make it hush,
for we have fled the world’s mad crush
with all its craziness and rush
that grinds sensation into mush,
distilling it as mindless slush.
The world flares up, the clouds are plush
as we see all its bloodshed flush
into the sunset’s subtle blush.

The Friday SOCS prompt is “blush.”

“A Bone to Pick––Versed Versus VerSED” Prompt from Forgottenman, July 31, 2025

Yesterday, I phoned Forgottenman from my bed in the frigid prep room of the hospital I’d gone to in Phoenix for a bone marrow biopsy and told him that although I’d be conscious during this operation that two years ago I’d had done fully-sedated and unconscious, that this time I’d just be administered a weak dose of Versed and Fentanyl to relieve anxiety. He of course did his usual “thing” and researched both of the drugs thoroughly, and when I got back to my sister’s house after this 5-hour process–most of it spent in registration, waiting and preparation–I found the blog you will read below drafted in my blog, along with a challenge that I answer it.  The following section in italics is his. My response to him in bold print is below it:

Not sure you’ll recall my mention of this with all the twilight drugs you are/were on, but somehow, “Versed Versus VerSED” sounds like some first-year Latin student was trying to convert “Veni Vidi Vici” to a past participle (or some such grammar thingie) like “I will have come, I will have seen, I will have conquered.” I had to look it up, and in case you don’t know what it is either, here’s a definition from Wikipedia of the drug VerSED. 

And although I had texted him after the operation, describing it, I hadn’t seen his above draft in my blog, which he suggested I answer. Here is my response to Forgottenman’s above posting:

Versed in VerSED

Now that you’ve read
my text A to Zed,
of that place I’ve been led
by the reins of this med
that I have been fed
through a tubular thread
meant to remove a dread
that had long gone unsaid,
have you “got” what I said?

Fears have been put to bed
in my well-VerSED head!

In short, it was not at all as bad as I suspected.  After the initial insertion of the needle, the only way I can describe it was a sensation for a minute or two of someone sipping something with sharp edges up out of my bone through a soda straw. 

Sorry for this rather contrived poem. I simply cannot turn down a challenge and it was the best I could do, given my own nature. Too late to blame it on the drugs!

“It’s Mostly About Me!” For Fibbing Friday, Aug 1, 2025

These are funny phrases Pensitivity101 found on the internet and she admits to having no idea who said them, so who would you suggest as the speaker?

1. I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right.  “Some” wives––but of course not me!!!!
2. My bed is a magical place where I suddenly remember everything I forgot to do.  Who has been reading my mind?
3. My diet plan: make all of my friends cupcakes, the fatter they get, the thinner I look. Who has been reading my diary? 
4. My wallet is like an onion. When I open it, it makes me cry. Mike Tyson.
5. You never realize what you have until it’s gone. Toilet paper is a good example. Anyone, during the Covid-19 Epidemic. 
6. Chocolate doesn’t ask silly questions, chocolate understands. Wisdom taught to me by my mother, largely by example.
7. I don’t need a hair stylist, my pillow gives me a new hairstyle every morning. Albert Einstein.
8. My favorite exercise is a cross between a lunge and a crunch… I call it lunch. Anyone on a diet/exercise program.
9. Whoever said nothing is impossible has never tried slamming a revolving door. Anyone who voted for Trump.
10. I don’t sweat, I sparkle. Sparkle Plenty, during menopause. (If you don’t know who Sparkle Plenty is, you are much younger than “ME”!

Fire!!! (With update 2 hours later) (And another update the next day.)

My neighbors across the street in Mexico just called to tell me the transformer on the pole above my studio is on fire.  I’ve been talking to her and to Yolanda’s family for the past half hour and it is still burning. They are waiting for the Electric Company to turn off the power because evidently they can’t put out an electrical fire with water. I am still in the U.S. Going home tomorrow. This is been quite a day. I spent the first half of it in the hospital having a bone marrow biopsy. Not as bad as I feared, but still…..

Just got a message from my neighbor in Mexico that Antonio from the Raquet Club and another man  climbed up on my studio roof and  put out the fire with an extinguisher. I can sleep in peace. Such a relief.

Aug 1––2:53 PM I’m home and all is well. Have electricity!!! Yay.

Unfortunate License Plate Spotted in Billings, Montana

My sister Patti spotted this license plate in Billings, Montana in 2016. We think he must have meant it to read “Retired.” We both saw it as something else!!! Hopefully he has since changed his vanity plate. (That last letter is a “d” not an “o”.)

“Song of Mexico” for dVerse Poets, July 30, 2025

(And yes, if you were wondering, the skull is actually part of the helmet of a man driving by on his motorcycle!)

Canción de México
(Song of Mexico)

This small café sits on the square,
or rather the rectangle.
The gas trucks pass by, blaring “Gaaaaas,”
their grounding chains a-jangle.

Trucks and cycles lacking mufflers roar by every minute,
accompanied by the beat of bass drums
pouring out the windows of the passing cars,
drowning out the music they were meant to accent.

The guinea fowl make such a ruckus that they sound insane,
but to complain about the noise in Mexico’s inane.
The daily garbage trucks, the water truck and all the rest
all live by the assurance that what’s loudest is the best.

I drink my coffee, eat my muffin, try to grin and bear it;
but when she sets a napkin down, I grab at it and tear it.
And even though one part of me says that I shouldn’t dare it,
I use a bit to wipe my lips. The other part? I wear it!

I stuff a wad in either ear, and though I still hear all,
I go by the illusion that I hear it from afar.
Sometimes I feel the threat of age, so quickly it is nearing;
but if I lose one faculty, dear God, please make it hearing!

This song is in jest, for in truth, I love Mexico, even her sounds, for in spite of this poem, not all of them are loud. Go HERE to read another piece about the music of Mexico.

The prompt for dVerse Poets was to write a poem about music that is meaningful to me. Go HERE to read poems others wrote to this prompt.