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.

Casa Gaviotas, My Home Away from Home

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Allenda asked me to take a photo of Casa Gaviotas, where we are staying for a week. For years, I rented this lovely little house right on the beach in La Manzanilla, Mexico for two or three months a year. I always rented the bottom floor of the house and over the years got to be friends with a number of people who rented the upper level. This year my friend Brad rented the upper, I rented the lower for just one week and friends Kristine Trejo and Isidro Xilonzochitl came with us. We have been having a great time.  Here is the house.The palapa  with  hammocks  is  the front porch of  the  house.

Daniel used to be my neighbor but now it is a boat rental agency and coffee shop. Miss Daniel who was a town institution for many many years.

The Numbers Game #57, Jan 20, 2025. Please Play Along!

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Welcome to “The Numbers Game #57.”  Today’s number is 178. To play along, go to your photos file and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and  post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title.This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below. Here are my contributions to the album.

Guanajuato is a UNESCO world heritage site, and as such, most of the buildings in the central part of town are protected from change.

An Apple a Day, for The Sunday Whirl Wordle, Jan 19, 2025

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An Apple A Day

Witches use them for enchantment.  Kids give them to their teachers.
Trees dangle them from tree limbs to turn passersby to reachers.
Everyone craves apples at one time in their life.
Even Adam reached for one offered by his wife.
Latchkey kids  would miss them as a snack when home from school.
We’d miss them in our stocking toes if absent from our Yule.

It would be a small catastrophe if apples were not able
to snuggle with bananas and peaches on the table
or for folks with bows and arrows to use cucumbers instead
of apples for their targets, balanced on the head
of some trusting  assistant who surely would be pissed
if that smaller target meant that the archer missed!

Wouldn’t it cause chatter? The story would take wings
It would become that ballad that everybody sings
About the gifted archer whose limits were revealed
when he struck an unplanned target which alas, has never healed!
And, alas, no catalyst has ever been suggested
to solve the riddle of just how an apple might be bested!!!

(While posting this poem, I looked for an illustration in my photo file, I finally found the photo of the cored apple I had taken in the past so I used it.  Then I went out to the beach and found this apple lodged under the support of my beach chair. How it came to be there, I have no idea. I needed an apple and nature provided! So I had to post it as well.)

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle  the prompt words are: enchantment latch apples chatter crave catalyst catastrophe wings gift sing miss limit

More Beach Shots, La Manzanilla Jan. 16-18, 2025

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Click on photos to enlarge.

For Cellpic Sunday

That’s my friend Christine Anfossie singing at a local beach venue.  The little boys worked for hours to dig a big box in the beach, then to build three rounded chairs in it  to sit in so they could observe the sardines they collected in buckets along with sea water to fill it.  Their own aquarium. I asked if they were going to eat them and they said no, just watch them.

Seascape Sunsets, Jan 18, 2025

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Hard to pick a favorite sunset in La Manzanilla.

FOTD Jan 19, 2025

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For Cee’s FOTD

When We Let Our Leaders Fail Us for the Daily Prompt, Jan 18, 2025

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When We Let Our Leaders Fail Us

Way back in my innocence, I thought the world was fair.
My biggest daily decision was what I chose to wear.
The probability of danger then was very rare.
The world, not yet insidious, was still one I could bear.
I knew I could accomplish all that I would dare.
I didn’t fear the water or anguish o’er the air.
The very thought of fire did not move me to despair.
But as men work to turn the dream of nature to nightmare,
most of those in power do not seem to care,
letting some wreak damage as others simply stare,
mouths open in horror over  the whole affair.
Protestors standing in the street, protestors on the stairs,
poets writing poetry, crouched within their lairs,
looking at what God hath wrought and tearing at their hair.
Will our help come from heaven or approach us through the air,
coming from other galaxies to see how we might fare,
finally making contact not to conquer but to share,
setting down amongst us not to pillage, rape or tear,
but rather as our saviors, bent upon repair.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Daily writing prompt
What makes a good leader?
View all responses

Geometrical Shapes for Becky’s Squares

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Geometric Squares for Becky’s Squares

Dumbfounded for MVB, Jan 18, 2025

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It’s never too late to experience growing pains. If it is our onus in life to grow and to change, with no cutoff point after which we are absolved of this duty, then why are we dumbfounded when those pains of adolescence occur again and again at each stage of life? We perhaps grow more serious over the years, but need we become less sensitized? Does the snub, the willful wounding, the being overlooked, the derision become less important? If so, why? Perhaps it is a mark of self-worth, and that is good, but if it is merely the building of a cocoon around ourselves, except in the direst of circumstances, it becomes more of a punishment than a defense.

We are born into this world to experience and therefore, are given defenses to deal with the negative, but when those defenses grow to isolate us, then they become more than protective blankets. They become walls which become our prisons. We were meant to experience and to be vulnerable to changes. And lest we atrophy, from the cradle to the crematorium, we need to fight to keep ourselves open to those experiences that invite change.

For MVB the prompt is “Dumfounded.”
I wrote this advice to myself four years ago on my birthday, but decided to remind myself again of its message.

“Pick”led for SOCS, Jan 17, 2025

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“Pick”led

Pack a peck of pickle parts
in a silver jar.
If you feed them to a lover,
he will not stray too far.
Neither pocket book nor hockey puck
will sway his thoughts for long.
You’ll have him humming melodies,
then you’ll pick out your song
repeated in sweet harmony
as he sings along.

For SOCS the prompt is: “pack/peck/pick/“pock/puck.” Use one or use ’em all for bonus points—it’s up to you!  https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/24840312/posts/5529707414