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.

“Far from the Madding Crowd”:

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Solitary Confinement

My world is a clam with me gathered up in it.
With no one else to arrange it or spin it.
I do not deviate, wander or travel.
No complications for me to unravel.
Life proffers no parties and no invitations.
No drop-in guests and no visitations.
Gatherings are not my present domain,
so if I were invited, I’d surely abstain.
I’m sealed in my world— happily, sublimely,
for group celebrations are simply not timely.
Lately for me, the crowds are not madding.
It’s taken a virus for me to stop gadding.

Prompt words today are clam, deviate, timely, proffer and gather.

Succulent Curlicue: FOTD, Sept 22, 2020

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I photographed this charming succulent planter at David and Sergio’s house, next door.

For Cee’s FOTD

Give Me That Blue (Quadrille for dVerse Poets)

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Not the blue of a heart before forgetting.
The blue of the sky above Colima Volcano,
no other clouds in it except one puff
of earth’s hot breath becoming visible
in the cool morning air.
Like blue caught in icicles.
Give me that blue.

 

A personal note of interest. The water in my house is heated by this volcano!
For dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Sky

School Reunions

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School Reunions

Entangled in the distant past, we recall and illuminate
those fifty-year-old stories as we gather to ruminate.
Pranks, first loves and scandals so far back in our past,
it’s as though it was a movie in which we all were cast.

That thumbtack “someone” placed upon our history teacher’s chair.
Will the scoundrel confess at last? But no, he doesn’t dare.
And in our sixties, will we snitch? No, there is not one.
Not one of us reveals the answer to that smoking gun.

The raided slumber parties, the trips up England’s hill,
we tell the stories of our past until we’ve had our fill,
then jump to doleful stories of tragedies and sorrows—
the few of those lost in their youth, deprived of all their morrows.

Hayrides by the river, pep rallies and school dances,
boys passing girls in cars on Main, pondering their chances.
Wild Homecoming raids on barns where we were building floats,
whisperings in Civics class and furtively passed notes.

Both schools we passed those years in have been felled by wrecking crews,
replaced by newer buildings, erasing all the clues
of years we spent within them, the carvings on the desks,
all our various antics as we lived out youth’s burlesques.

Our memories getting dimmer, each five years, we choose to meet
to reminisce and chew the fat. To drink and dance and eat.
We don’t discuss the present. It’s as though it’s in a haze
as we go back to live our half-remembered yesterdays.

Prompt words today are entangle, doleful, ruminate and jump.

Succulent Series, FOTD Sept 21, 2020

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Click on photos to enlarge.

For Cee’s FOTD

Expats in Mexico

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Well, no one stopped me, so here is a lovely essay about American Expats in his native Mexico by Arturo Garcia, who is now a Mexican expat and wonderful artist and poet living in the U.S. I guess we traded places:

If there were Americans in Chapala, in Ajijic there were even more. They met at the Old Posada, at the Plaza, at the restaurants in La Montaña, and at the Lake Chapala Society. They had large houses in La Floresta, in Rancho del Oro and more in the heart of town where they felt part of the native community. Those who chose to live in town were not bothered by the cocks that began to crow in the corrals at five in the morning or by the dogs that barked all night at some opossum or some nagual soul that arrived in the shape of an owl. For them, the superstition of the people was ancestral mysticism and they saw it as part of our culture that they had learned in books and that the townspeople without knowing, lived by innate wisdom and by being direct heirs of the Indians who survived the conquests. People had that in their blood and Americans were attracted to it because everything was authentic.

Americans who were touched by the magic of the town left everything behind to stay. Many set aside their piece of land in the municipal cemetery because that was how great their love for the town was. Sometimes they used the politics of their country or the state of social decline as an excuse, but the real reason they did not return was not known to them. They were simply bewitched by the spirit of Ajijic and there was nothing to separate them, not even death.

They, the Ajijic Americans, stood out by their way of dressing, by the efforts they made to speak Spanish and did not judge the native ways of some inhabitants who refused progress, on the contrary, they went to the store with their huaraches and embroidered morral bags made by Huichol Indians while the women came out with their Oaxacan blouses looking and feeling like Frida Kahlo herself. It was nice to see them with their Mexican hearts blending with the locals, putting aside their cameras to hang Wixarika morrales on their shoulders when they decided to stop recording memories with the 35-millimeter camera roll to start storing them on the roll of memory living the experience permanently.

Photo: Pedro Loco. Inside Lakeside.

HERE is a link to Arturo’s website. Go here to see his art. 

Someone Stop Me Before I Blog Again!!! (New Pants)

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On September 12, I posted a photo of a pair of khaki pants hung on my towel rod in my bathroom to encourage me to stick to my diet. At that time, I couldn’t get them zipped up. A week or so later, I could get them zipped and buttoned but they were pretty uncomfortable. Well, today, good news! They zipped and buttoned easily and were wearable. So, they are being retired and a new pair going up in their place. These are even tighter than the khakis were, so may take longer. It’s a great incentive to see them every time I go into the bathroom, day or night. So, here goes. It is September 20 and I’m counting down. I hope.

The Deposed:

The Newest Denizen of the Towel Bar:

Incredible Leaf Cutouts

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These leaf cutouts are so wonderful that they defy description. Click on link below to see 30 of them:

https://www.boredpanda.com/japanese-artist-cute-leaf-cutouts-lito-leafart/

ON THE DIME or “ON THE NICKEL?”

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If F.D.R. was our 32nd president and Trump our 45th, what is the difference between? Good old unlucky #13.  Is it any coincidence that 13 presidents later, after one of our best presidents was elected, one who is definitely our worst was elected? Our culture needs to smarten up and start putting people first, money somewhere down the line. What good is a good economy if only the richest profit from it???? With our economy, our health and our morale at an all-time low, too many have gone “on the nickel” under Trump’s administration. Whereas FDR led us out of a depression, Trump has determinedly led us into the threat of one.

“On the Nickel” refers to 5th street in downtown Los Angeles, which is a location where many of the homeless hang out.  A mission on 5th street is known as “The Nickel,” taken from both the name of the street and the phrase “on the nickel” which describes someone homeless and perhaps begging for nickels.

In the song “On the Nickel” (Heart Attack and Vine) Tom Waits sings: “And what becomes of all the little boys who never comb their hair? They’re lined up all around the block on the nickel over there.” This is one of my favorite Tom Waits songs. Listen to it here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvCKEi0cAFo

 

FROM C.S. LEWIS, A QUOTE TO PONDER ON GOOD AND EVIL IN THESE MODERN DAYS

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If you only read one thing today, read this–a reblog of an exceptional and scary blog by Marilyn Armstrong.

Marilyn Armstrong's avatarSerendipity - Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

A remarkable quote from C.S. Lewis, the author of many remarkable quotes that never seem to get old or lack current veracity in the real world — even a hundred years after their original publication:

“To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism (Meaning: baseness, dishonesty, double-dealing) will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colors…. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink or a cup of coffee, disguised as a triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still–just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naive or a prig–the hint will come. It will be the hint of something, which is not quite…

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