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.

Word Pie

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Word Pie

I take them as a milestone, these long afternoon naps
that make my late nights possible by filling in the gaps
between compulsive writing sessions to meet the assignment
of all these daily prompt words coming to us by consignment!

Blogging’s become a nightmare that’s turned me slightly manic.
Prompts have me fully frustrated and in a mid-life panic.
(To be truthful, only “midlife” if one forty is my lifespan,
which, if I had my druthers, really would become my lifeplan!)

Prompts now come like a waterfall that’s turned on every morning.
I might have just ignored them if I’d only had a warning
that I’d become obsessive in using one and all.
(I have them in my bookmarks and must daily heed their call.)

That WordPress prompt now seems like poverty. One short month ago
we only had one daily prompt site where all of us would go.
Every day, we waited for it like the early morning sun,
but now we face a heat wave for there isn’t only one.

Ragtag and Fandango have become Daily Addictions—
not to mention other Word Prompts that demand our daily fictions.
Cee’s Share Your World still tempts us, as does that dVerse Poet.
We could have stuck to only them. Alas, we did not know it!

Now we are all scrambling to fill  all their demands.
It keeps our poor brains busy, not to mention how our hands
cramp up from all this typing as our lives all go awry
as we all line up to get each daily slice of prompt site pie!

This poem is an attempt to meet all of the below prompts..Ooops, sorry “Heatwave,” I slipped a photo prompt in without realizing it.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/rdp-29-milestone/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/poverty/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/06/29/fowc-with-fandango-nightmare/

https://weeklyprompts.com/2018/06/27/word-prompt-frustrating/

https://weeklyprompts.com/2018/06/23/photo-challenge-heat-wave

https://ceenphotography.com/2018/06/25/share-your-world-june-25-2018/

 

https://weeklyprompts.com/prompts/

https://weeklyprompts.com/2018/06/27/word-prompt-frustrating/

Birds Of A Feather: Cee’s Black and White Challenge

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Please click on first photo to enlarge all. Better when viewed full size.

 

For Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Birds

Murdo Girl…It was me

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I love this post by the little girl who grew up in the same town I did, but who was a few (ahem) years behind me. At least the brother mentioned was three years older than me. That redeems the family a bit. I identify so much with this blame issue. For me, it is Yolanda, my housekeeper, whom I blame…but in fact she’s always the one who finds the article I lost.

Mary Francis McNinch's avatarThose 70ish Girls

A while back, (before GPS), my brother, Billy and I met in Denver, where I was going to run in the Boulder Bolder. I flew in from Texas and he flew in from California. After we both arrived, we rented a car and off we went to make our way to my mother-in-law’s home in Loveland, where we were staying. We might have gone by way of the race track. I don’t remember. Anyway, I was the driver and Billy was the map reader.

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About thirty minutes into our drive, we realized we were lost. Billy suggested we pull over and figure out where we went wrong. I thought that meant we would take a look at the map and together determine the best way to get where we were going.

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I forgot my brother is just like most guys I know. He spent the next several minutes trying to figure…

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Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy retiring. Take action to protect Roe vs. Wade

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Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy–the critical swing vote protecting Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion–announced his retirement. This news will set off a furious fight to replace him that we absolutely must win, because Trump has vowed to nominate ONLY justices who will vote to overturn Roe.

This is a CRISIS–but if we mobilize right away, we can protect our rights. Rapid, intense pressure has moved the Senate–including swing votes like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Bob Casey–to do the right thing. Their votes will be key in any nomination fight–and that’s why your voice is so urgently needed to put pressure on them now. Can you sign the petition?

https://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/emergency-roe-v-wade/?referring_akid=29433.223012.2Of_MB&source=mailto

Thanks.

Swimming in the Rainy Season

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Swimming in the Rainy Season

To the end of the pool and back again,
I love swimming in the rain.
The economy of it is such
that though you’re wet two times as much,
it’s clear as day to sage or dunce—
you only have to dry off once!

The first two lines of this poem came to me as I was trying to get in a hurried exercise session in the pool before dressing to drive into town to a poetry group I belong to.  It was, in fact, raining, but there was no thunder and lightning as there always is at night, so I had put a shower cap on over my hair and done a half-hour session.

When I got back into the house after my pool session, I realized that I had only ten minutes until I had to leave, so I hurriedly scribbled the two lines  down on a sheet of paper in the bathroom as I put on makeup and brushed my teeth. I finished it when I got back home a few hours later.

For dVerse Poets open Link.

Eating Crow

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Eating Crow

There are a plethora of reasons why you didn’t win my heart.
It had been captured by another, who had it from the start.
But now I am reduced to this—knocking at your door.
I’m seeking some attention. Have you any more?

Love at first sight is a bomb. A victim of its blasting,
where once I was engorged with love, lately I’ve been fasting.
That love affair is over, and so I’m once more casting
to try to find a romance that I hope will be more lasting.

Your timing was just off before, but if you’d try again,
I’m reconsidering my Rolodex of rejected men.
I’m casting off my present, reconsidering where I’ve been
and right here on your card, I see I rated you a ten.

So if you’d like to give romance another little spin,
if you are still interested, if you have a yen
to set your sights on someplace where you’ve already been,
call 726-9483 and tell me where and when!!!

 

 

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/06/28/fowc-with-fandango-captured/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/rdp-28-reduce/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/plethora/

Flower of the Day, June 28, 2018

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For Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge.

Regeneration

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Regeneration

Hobbling around on the stump of a life,
nobody’s lover and nobody’s wife,
her children and grandchildren all raised and grown,
out of her life and out on their own.

Is her life over? Is it near its ending,
or has she another life that is just pending?
Has she a talent for regeneration?
Is the first sixty years mere education?

A single shoe dropped is only one shoe.
Life isn’t over until it is through.
Perhaps she’s less active removed from the past,
but wind can still fill out a sail at half mast.

The stub of a life can still get us around.
A heart can still beat and the blood can still pound.
Go after adventure for all you are worth,
for every new day is a part of your birth.

The Daily Addictions prompt is generate.

Chocolate!

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My talented singer/songwriter friend Christine Anfossie has just sent me the musical version of a poem I published earlier on my blog.  Here, again, is that poem and below is her musical rendition!  Love it.

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Chocolate

You’re being good and I am not.
I broke my diet and got caught.
I’d have resisted if I could,
but chocolate cake just looked so good.

I bought a piece, not a whole cake.
I thought a meal of it I’d make.
But now you feel you must rebut
my obvious need for chocolate.

Will you soon go? It’s getting late,
and there’s this chocolate on my plate.
And though I know it’s impolite,
the chances that I’ll share are slight.

Of your smug lecture I’ve had enough
and now it’s my turn to be tough.
If you must fall from your high throne
and dine on cake, go buy your own!

Click on the URL below to hear the musical version of my poem.  Thanks, Christine!

Sun or Moon and Smooth or Rough

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Opposites make the world go round! And certainly make it more interesting, if not always comfortable. For dVerse Poets.

lifelessons's avatarlifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

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Sun or moon and smooth or rough,
old or young and clothed or buff––
opposites contrast each other––
tough or easy, breathe or smother.
Shadows can be made with light,
though sun is opposite of night.
Sarcasm depends on this:
words that praise, but really diss.
Life consists of contrasts that
give yin for yang and tit for tat.
If you can’t find a life to fit,
just change into its opposite!
Reach for the hidden, release the found.
Contrasts make the world go round.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/contrast-2/

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