Word-Hopeful
When I come to this place each morning,
I am hopeful I’ll find a word
that attracts other words that are lovely
or heartbreaking or absurd.
I am wishing they’ll gather together
in a community––
to wake this fractured world up
and turn it o’er their knee,
then gather it in loving arms
of solidarity.
Sometimes words must shake our calm,
creating stormy weather,
just to come into our hearts
to bring us all together.
The prompt word today was hopeful.
Advance and Retreat
The farther we grow apart,
every time we try once more to merge,
the hastier the retreat must be
back to ourselves.
But still we try, over and over,
little incursions, trying to find
a level meeting place more suited
for festivities than battle.
We work our whole lives to become ourselves,
yet must regret losing those less-finished times
when we all floundered together,
no one right enough or formed enough
to be sure they were right.
Every step forward is
a step away from something else.
Every progress a departure, as well.
The prompt word today is “retreat.”
Christmas Morning Tradition
Every child in the county
will soon approach their Christmas bounty,
transformed from box-shaker and gaper
into a dervish, tearing paper.
Opening tablets, games and dolls,
jumping ropes and basketballs,
until that ultimate stage is reached—
that final Christmas custom breached.
Each child will have the astounding gall
of querying with, “Is that all?”
The prompt today was “bounty.”
Voyage
Each day, do you set out once more
on a voyage of discovery—
following a horizon you’ve been told
bends to itself with wonders in between?
Or do you trace a well-worn path,
fitting your feet to yesterday’s footsteps—
unfolding that map of yourself
that ventures deeper with each step?
How old are you now?
Old enough to know
both courses can take you
in the same direction?
The prompt word today was “discover.”
Old Friends
Peruse my stars or read my palm.
Your predictions raise no qualm
for sleep has spread its soothing balm,
and now my world is blesséd calm.
The dogs are stirring and at my door.
They have been fed, but they want more.
For their restlessness, I am the shore.
I am their center and their core.
My world once shaken is calming down.
I have no need to scour the town,
for though the planet may fuss and frown,
my world surrounds me like a velvet gown.
My friends are resting upstairs and near.
They have no reason to stir or fear,
for in my heart I hold them dear
and bless those bonds that brought them here.
Now I hear each leave her bed,
choosing company instead.
They brew their coffee but must be fed,
so from the pillow, I raise my head.
My pain diminished since my fall,
I move more easily down the hall
as camaraderie sounds its call,
and I go to join them all.
The prompt today is “calm.”
A little over a year ago, I wrote this post about an unfortunate fortune told me by a stranger. Because I have so much left to do today before company arrives tomorrow, workmen here now, more coming tonight and a trip to Costco in Guadalajara to accomplish before that, I’m going to link to my former post and perhaps write one later tonight, after I finish painting. Here is the link: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/12/10/flight-of-fortune/
I had forgotten writing it so perhaps even if you regularly read my blog, it will seem fresh to you, as well. Merry Xmas–coming up fast. So excited to see my friends tomorrow who will fly in from Wyoming and California.
The prompt word today was “fortune.”
A conundrum is a kind of riddle based upon some fanciful or fantastic resemblance between things quite unlike. It creates a puzzling question, of which the answer is or involves a pun. Solve this riddle and win a prize. (My admiration.) Try not to look at the comments until you’ve guessed the answer yourself. Then, please brag to me about it in the comments section!
What does not think but has a head?
Has many stories never read?
For each of us, just one, not many.
Contains much heart, yet has not any.
Some say once gone, you can’t go back,
and though one letter it may lack,
with it, if you hit the ball,
you’ll have the finest luck of all.
Add “r” and cover all the bases,
and you’ll bring smiles to many faces.
And when you finally come in free,
you’ll find you have come back to me.
Today’s prompt word is “conundrum.”
Transcendental Bad Boy
Nowhere to go, nowhere to flee.
I cannot run away from me.
I’m stuck inside with no way out.
Just me, with no one else about.
All the others are there outside
this place where I alone abide.
If I could climb out of my skin
and leave this body that I’m in,
escape myself from head-to-toe,
I wonder where I’d choose to go?
Perhaps a river, perhaps a sea––
anyplace that wasn’t me.
For one day, I’d be a cloud
if changing stages of matter’s allowed.
Floating high up in the blue,
I’d think of new things I could do.
I’d find parades for me to view,
then just for fun, rain on a few.
If I were water and you drank me,
I’d view you internally.
Tickle your uvula and then
slide down the chute inside your skin.
Inside you, I would rage and thunder,
from your throat to way down under.
If I were wind, I’d lift the skirts
of dour old ladies and teenage flirts.
I’d muss the hair of social mavens,
pluck nestlings from the beaks of ravens.
No telling what a menace I’d be
if I’d not been limited to me!
The prompt word today was flee.
Asthma Attack
I’ve left the house where I abide.
I can no longer live inside.
The dust has got the best of me—
my lungs, and all the rest of me.
Two weeks of tile and concrete dust
have all built up until I must
admit my lungs gave up at last
with breath a function of the past.
I made it to the pharmacy
before my breath gave out on me.
Once there, gasping, voiceless, paler,
I pantomimed for an inhaler,
then asked how to make use of it
and for a stool on which to sit—
all with gestures wild and manic.
Attempts to breathe brought only panic.
A half hour more I struggled for air.
Clearly I needed help and care.
“Tranquilo, señora,” the store clerk urged,
every time my panic surged
because I could not breathe again.
I tried and tried, but all in vain.
Another spray, then I willed calm
to wrap me in its healing balm.
At last, I finally breathed free.
They called a friend to come for me.
She drove me home, and now I sit
above the dust and all of it:
debris, concrete, tile and grout.
I’ve left it all. I have moved out
to live in my upstairs casita
a saner, safer señorita
far above the mess and din,
lest this construction does me in.
If you’ve never had an asthma attack, I can only say it is one of the most panic-provoking experiences I’ve ever had, equaled only by my first asthma attack three years ago and an earlier time when I was pinned underwater and nearly drowned. I’ve said before that my greatest fear in life is not being able to breathe, and today I faced that fear again. After a month of severe coughing bouts and three trips to the doctor, I finally checked my meds on the advice of my friend Marti and found my blood pressure meds were known to provoke chronic bouts of coughing. I got my doctor to change my meds and slept well last night. It wasn’t until the man remodeling my bathroom arrived and started sanding and cutting concrete that I suddenly got a severe coughing attack again, in spite of the fact that there were two closed doors between us.
Although I had plenty of nighttime cold meds, I was out of Tabcin Activa, my daytime cold formula, so I decided to drive to the pharmacy to get some more. Thankfully, within the last few months, they’ve opened a Guadalajara Farmacia in my village. Otherwise, I would have had to have driven 5 miles to Ajijic. This synchronicity, I am sure, saved my life, as by the time I got to the pharmacy, I was coughing and wheezing so severely that instead of asking for Tabcin, I asked for cough medicine. The pharmacist brought out a lovely gift-wrapped conglomeration of kids’ cough medicine, stuffed toy, vitamin tablets and herbal tea. No, I insisted between coughs, just very strong cough syrup. By the time she brought it and I had ripped open the box and asked her to open the bottle, I was wheezing. I chugged the cough medicine, then went into a full asthmatic attack. I motioned wildly for an inhaler, and then for them to open it and show me how to use it. I used the inhaler once. Twice. Three times. I was presenting the most wild and frantic display of behavior but I knew, in fact, that I would die if I couldn’t breathe soon.
Eventually, I could take small gasps of air, interspersed with more closings of my air passages. I pointed toward a stool, which they brought to me, along with a glass of warm water. I took a sip and my passages closed again. Another inhaler blast. Tears were streaming down my face and I was shaking uncontrollably. Earlier, they had asked if they should call for an ambulance, but I knew if this were done, that my house had been left open with only strangers in it. Both of my computers were out in plain sight. The gate to the street open. The front door open. The workers would not know where I was. Anyone could wander into the house. What’s more, I’d left my cellphone at home along with my phone list. I didn’t have any numbers to call friends to come help. Of course this caused more anxiety and brought on another attack.
In the end, still unable to talk, I wrote a note asking for a phonebook. I finally found the number of a friend, had them call her and ask her to come get me. Unfortunately, she was not a native speaker of Spanish and didn’t understand what they were saying, but I was able to speak enough to say who I was, that I needed help and to come to the pharmacy.
She drove me home, got items from my house I needed, stopped by another friend’s house to see if he’d come mind mine for the day, and since I was breathing well by then, took me back to the pharmacy to pick up my car. On the way back home, I suddenly remembered I had an upstairs room that should be dust-free and so I relieved my friend, brought possessions upstairs, and here I am ensconced until construction is finished.
I must end here because I’m getting sleepy and think I’ll soon nod off. Ironically enough, what I had originally gone to get at the pharmacy was Daytime Tabcin, a multi-symptom cold capsule for what I thought was my cough and cold. Although I had the night formula, I was out of the daytime one. I had written my request to the pharmacist who had shown me a box. Yes, that was it I said. Now, safe in my upstairs room, breathing freely, I again felt a cough coming on and quickly opened the box and popped two of the capsules. Only afterwards did I think to look at the box. She had given me the nighttime formula! So in spite of the fact that it is just a bit past noon, I think I’ll be off to dreamland soon.
The prompt word today was “abide.”
Ephemera
I saw the shadow of a bird
vanished too quickly to be heard.
Yet with my curtain as a scrim,
for moments I caught glimpse of him.
Strangers at windows on a train
pass by so quickly, then gone again.
They heal no wounds and cause no pain.
Are merely there. No loss or gain.
All of life’s pleasures come and go
for nature has arranged it so.
We’re caught up in its ebb and flow.
We treasure life, then let it go.
The prompt word today was Treasure.
