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.

Lantana, A Bouquet in One Flower: FOTD, May 27, 2021

 

For Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge.

Dressed to Kill the Blues

Dressed to Kill the Blues

If you’re feeling washed out like your blossoming’s through,
feeling less than capricious and aged and blue,
why not ransack your closet to find something gaudy,
colorful, crazy, a little bit bawdy?

Don’t nurse a depression that you can dress up.
Why be a sad dog when you could be a pup?
Wilder clothes make you happy. Put joie in your vivre.
Tight clothes and stilettos—a  trick up your sleeve.

That impulse to give up is something to hide.
Folks will respond to what they see outside.
So when life deals the doldrums, why give in and mess it up?

You will feel better if only you  dress it up.

Prompts for the day are washed out, nurse, capricious, ransack and  blossoming.

 

Lest you think this is how my friends and I always dress, I’ll reveal that this was a Poor Taste party I threw one New Years Eve. Friends were to come dressed in the worst possible taste and to bring a dish that was tacky but delicious. It was a fun party!!!! 

Neighborhood Rhythms–Then and Now

 

 

I’ve been down swinging in the hammock, listening to the neighborbood sounds and talking to my friends Marti and Patty on the phone and writing to Forgottenman on Skype. This was part of our conversation:

Judy: Lots of bats flying around right now..soaring around in droves.some poor doggie howling and howling a distance away glad my two haven’t joined in. Frogs, katydids and rainbirds making a din—plus some drummer down below. Rainbirds just started up again LOUD….have you ever heard them?

That led him to send me these two links:

Judy: Both of those sound just like what I’m experiencing now.. Right down to the music coming from across the street. I think you should reblog those. So nostalgic. Wish you were here doing the same now.

What he describes in them is exactly what I’ve been experiencing for the past hour or so, so I decided to reblog his pieces. It is now fully dark after a long lovely sundown and leg and foot cramps ousted me from the hammock so I’m about to go in for a swim. Hope you will enjoy Forgottenman’s eight year old posts as I did. The world doesn’t change that much after all, except for the fact that I’m the one in the hammock now.

Just click on the links above to see what he had to say way back when.

Making Hay

Making Hay

Take dinner at your leisure but with breakfast please make haste
lest one minute of your day you should think to waste.

Contemplate your choices. Delegate with care.
Of capricious working mates, I warn you to beware.

If you nurse idle habits, they’re sure to grow and thrive,
so don’t rest on your laurels while you are still alive.

Life is given as a gift so please don’t abuse it.
What a waste of riches if you choose not to use it.

Prompt words today are breakfast,  capricious, haste,  delegate and nurse. If you don’t understand the  allusion in the title, go HERE for enlightenment. Photo by Niklas Hamann on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Moon’s Eclipse. May 26, 2021

I woke up very early this morning after only 4 hours of sleep. I collected the day’s prompts–those that had been posted this early–and decided to check my Facebook. Thankfully, someone had posted a notice that the moon was in almost total eclipse. Thus began a hour’s flurry of activity, first trying to photograph it with my hand-held iPhone, then searching the house for my long-neglected Canon with 80X Zoom, only to find all of the SD cards were full or nonfunctional for one reason or another. I erased one, then went in search of my tripod and spent another 15 valuable minutes trying to get the horizontal pivot to work.. No success. Finally, I took it out to the terrace again only to find that I didn’t need to pivot it to get a shot of the moon, but at that exact moment, the sky started to lighten from pitch black to a pale gray and the moon vanished entirely! Luckily, I earlier managed to capture one sliver of moon on my iPhone, and here it is–the blood moon almost totally drained.

Garden Image: FOTD May 26, 2021

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Arete Flower FOTD May 25, 2021

 

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Birthday Heist


Birthday Heist

The rumors are untrue. He is a scurrilous liar.
I did not steal the birthday cake. I did not start the fire.

My serenity is not a ruse. I’m innocent of error.
I swear I had no hand in your recent birthday terror.

The dog has done his utmost to brand me as the thief,
but the fool is barely lucid. Could you not see his relief

when you started to upbraid me as he chased me, headed south,
crumbs falling from his chest hair, frosting around his mouth?

Oh that I knew your language and I could tell you that,
but instead, for ever after, you’ll be blaming “that damn cat!!”

Evidence of an earlier crime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvtfDaBi8XE

Prompt words today are liars, lucid, scurrilous, utmost and serenity.

Tsundoku

Please click on photos to enlarge.

Tsundoku

What is tsundoku? Dare we guess?
I’m not too sure, I must confess.
We may surmise what it may be.
Perhaps a sushi canapé?

A puzzle type or summer storm?
A Japanese poetic form?
A kimono sash or even, maybe,
a plush Godzilla made for baby?

All this time in speculation
has given rise to consternation.
It’s clear that since I have no clue,

I must find something else to do.

And so I’m driven to express
there is a truth I must address.
What, in the end, tsundoku is,

is just an irritating quiz.

If you don’t know, what good’s expressing
all this speculative guessing?
Such stressful thoughts may lead to cancer.
Use Merriam Webster for the answer!

 

All photos by me except the image of the books, which is a photo by Forgottenman and the photo of plush Godzilla, which I found on Amazon.

Purple Passion

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

For Travel Talk’s Life in Color prompt: Purple.