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.

Swan Lake Reunion

If you can watch this one without crying, you have a stronger will than I do.

https://twitter.com/akkitwts/status/1325997407461502976

 

Grandma’s Escape Note

Click on photos to enlarge.


Grandma’s Escape Note

I’m juggling my remembrances of all you said and did
way back in the past when you were just a kid,
when I was so uptight and the scalawag was you,
causing all my looks of disapproval and of moue.
But now that I am seventy and you’re a kid of fifty,
the fact that things are changed around is somehow sorta nifty.

I’m the one who’s acting up while you are disapproving.
You registered your angst when you heard that I was moving
off to wild Mexico, away from kith and kin,
leaving far behind me all the things that I have been.
The stuff stored in the attic? I’ll leave it all to you.
I don’t have time to deal with it. I’ve still so much to do.

The house is up for sale, so you’ll want to get right to it.
I’ve planted a surprise up there. You’ll know it when you view it.
I’ve cashed out the investments that your dear dad and I
saved up for the future—he was such a frugal guy.
But now that he is gone, I want to be off, too,
so I split up all the money, some for me and some for you.

My part is for my future—a small sweet  hacienda
and provisions and comestibles I’ll buy at the tienda.
Your dinero’s in the attic, some tucked here and some tucked there
to insure that you look closely and make sure that you take care
in examining the past and all those years I cared for you
so you do not dispute what I’m about to do.

If I have twenty years left, I’ll be lucky, so it’s fair
that I have another chance at letting down my hair.
I want to go out dancing and drink shooters and get wild.
I’m tired of a life that is grandmotherly and  mild!
And so I don’t embarrass you, I’m moving farther south,
away from prying eyes and away from word of mouth.

I’m doing you the favor that you didn’t grant to me
all those years you got in trouble and I was there to see.
Now I’ll be the adolescent and you can click your tongue,
for I’ve waited all these years for me to be the one who’s young.
Kiss my grandkids and your grandkids and tell them it’s from me,
but that I can’t stick around because I’m off in search of me!!

Prompt words for today are moue, scalawag, juggle and remembrance.

Seeing Red: Cee’s Fun Foto: Dark Red

Please click on photos to enlarge:

 

For Cee’s Fun Foto: Dark Red.

Curlicue: FOTD Nov 11, 2020

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

For Cee’s FOTD:

Fore!!! (Ousted)

Fore!!! (Ousted)

He wasn’t fit, he wasn’t deft.
Of brainpower, he was bereft.
So it should have been a landslide loss
that demoted him from being boss,
but it seems that daftness is in vogue.
Too many voted for the rogue.
Yet when I heard, to my delight,
we’d been  delivered from four years’ blight,
I whooped my whoops and cried my cries.
No constant orange would greet my eyes
whenever I turned on the tube.
We’ve exorcized the bungling boob!

Prompt words today are delight, landslide and  deft. 

Monday Windows, Nov 9, 2020

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

For the Monday Window prompt.

Terrace Tour, FOTD, Nov 10, 2020

The light looked good yesterday, so I picked up my camera and took a little tour around the backyard terrace. If you want to come along, some of the photos are below. Others will crop up on Flower of the Day  later on in the week. In the third photo, that’s Colima Volcano that you see in the distance.

Click on first photo and then the arrows to take the tour.

For Cee’s FOTD

Poinsettias

My poinsettias are just beginning to show their color. Love this stage.

For Cee’s FOTD

Failure to Launch

Click on Photos to Enlarge.

Failure to Launch

When it comes to doing tasks promotional or clerical,
I find that I’m becoming increasingly hysterical.
It’s tough for me to concentrate. I would rather plot
the next word of a poem. A promoter I am not.

I find that my mind wanders when it comes to drafting
queries and proposals. I prefer to spend time crafting
poems, books or stories; but I find it tough
after creative efforts, doing that extra stuff
to place them or to sell them. Though I do not mind the working, 
when it comes to the rest of it, I simply end up shirking.

Words pile up around me. My file drawers burst apart,
for when it comes to their dispersal, I find I’m weak of heart.
It’s not that I am hoarding words. I’d gladly send them out
into the world to find their place. That’s not what it’s about.

The fact that such acts bore me is a fact that’s inescapable.
I’d like to hand them over to a person who’s more capable.
I delight in going inwards and seeing what is there, 
then putting it on paper for everyone to share.

It would be an equal triumph, I have not a single doubt,

if I could find a person I could pay to send it out;
but, alas, I’ve found a new way in which I am resistant,
as I keep putting off locating an assistant!

Word prompts today are tough, hysterical, capable and triumph.