The challenge was to supply the cover photography and name for a book.
A Mexican Retiree’s Guide to Sloth
The Inept Photographer’s Guide to Beach Photography
Finding A Direction in Life
PB & Jellyfish
Natural Recipes
for Long Life and Happiness
Pond & Garden
Filling her Shoes
(Confessions of a Birkenstock Stepmother)
Beach Love Affair
The Prompt: Local Color—Imagine we lived in a world that’s all of a sudden devoid of color, but where you’re given the option to have just one object keep its original hue. Which object (and which color) would that be?
If all at once, all color were bleached out from the world
and suddenly a universe of whiteness were unfurled—
the rainbow, flowers, trees and art all newly bleached and pearled—
I know what single object I would choose to retain
in all its colored glory, in every hue and stain,
in sun and shadow, snow and hail and dust storm, drought and rain.
Its natural color changes every day we see revealed
over every continent: forest, city, field—
over every place from which the colors will be peeled.
This one glorious object would retain its vivid hues.
It would be the whole world’s canvas and every poet’s muse.
Every lake and river, its reflection would infuse
with all the colors nature has selected for that day:
blue or gold or purple, salmon, orange or gray,
according to whatever whim of moisture, dust or ray.
If I select the sky as the object that I’d choose
to retain its myriad pigments that only start with blues,
there are a thousand colors that we wouldn’t have to lose!
And the whole world could see them in the daytime or the night.
All the colors of the rainbow would not be lost to sight,
as every day and every hour, a new one’s brought to light.
Daily Prompt: Masks Off—We’re less than a week away from Halloween! If you had to design a costume that channeled your true, innermost self, what would that costume look like? Would you dare to wear it?
I want to be an artist, a writer and a wife—
juggling all these masks with just a minimum of strife.
A lover, mother, daughter, cousin, sister-in-law, sister.
A friend to every woman and a temptress to each mister.
A master to my canine friends and slave to all my cats.
A pal to all my blogger friends, not just to swell my stats.
As well as to some Facebook friends and email friends and Skype.
(I no longer use snail mail—I’m simply not the type!)
So, if I were being truthful and I didn’t give a fig
about what others thought of me, I’d dress up like a pig.
Why the porcine costume? The tail curled in a ring?
Because in my life choices—I want everything!
The Prompt: Finite Ceatures—At what age did you realize you were not immortal? How did you react to that discovery?
This journey of our lifetime is a one-way ride.
I realized the truth of this the day my father died.
But in the living of it, I forgot again—
concentrating on the present and where I had been
instead of thinking of the future and mortality.
There’s something in a busy life that sets the spirit free,
convincing us that we’re immortal. That we’ll always be.
The many times that I was made to see I might have died:
the time I was abducted and taken for a ride,
the time he held the gun up to my head and pulled the trigger,
as I fell to the street, somehow my life seemed to get bigger;
and I saw all of it at once, spread out there below me,
and somehow though I wasn’t dead, I felt that I was free,
and for awhile, I found it was enough to simply be.
There have been other times when death has had me in its clench:
the time not long ago when that limb missed me by an inch,
the time I nearly drowned when I knew I was gone for sure,
yet somehow, death rejected me—released me from its lure.
It’s just at night when I’m alone that all comes tumbling back
and I begin to calculate all that my life might lack,
and life becomes a tempting peddler opening his pack.
The places never visited, the loves I let pass by,
and all the other things I thought to do before I die
all tumble out to tempt me and I think perhaps I still
have some things to do before I climb that final hill.
I think, perhaps, there’s one more love. One journey yet or two.
So many things that I have left I always thought I’d do.
So I am getting ready—only waiting for my cue.
That’s why at night I lie awake, sometimes remembering.
At other times just wondering what this next year will bring.
If I am lucky, I have thirty years or more till death
takes away these memories and stills my final breath.
Until then, I’ll live life fully and go where I must go.
I’ll follow my own pathway and ignore the status quo.
Instead of drifting lazily, I’ll row and row and row!
Match the “C” with the picture: Casks for Pisco, Clouds, Candelabra Island Nazca Lines, Christmas lights, Cricket, “Cristal” Truck, El Catador Pisco Distillery
To see other Sunday Photo Challenges, go to: http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/sunday-stills-the-next-challenge-the-letter-c/
(stock photo)
The Prompt: Fourth Wall—You get to spend a day inside your favorite movie. Tell us which one it is — and what happens to you while you’re there.
That bouquet of sharpened pencils? They had me from the start.
Who knew that Mr. Hanks had that effect upon my heart?
I know it was the writers. I’m a writer. I’m not dim!
And it was just a role he played—it really wasn’t him!
Nor was it his main character that penned those words so fine.
It was his alter ego that he only used on-line!
Suspending disbelief is what we writers count upon.
In another lingo, we might call it a fine con.
We take our readers from themselves into a new dimension,
where we create a world that’s purely of our own invention;
and there we spin a fantasy that catches them within it—
offering a prize so rare that readers want to win it.
And films use music, too, to try to capture our emotions,
wiping out our common sense and filling us with notions.
The track to “You’ve Got Mail” was as romantic as could be!
If little birds fly oe’r the rainbow, why, indeed, can’t we?
We all identified and put ourselves into the tale,
and when it ended happily, we all read, “You’ve Got Male!”
The Prompt: Reverse Shot—What’s your earliest memory involving another person? Recreate the scene — from the other person’s perspective.
My earliest memory is waking up in my crib and making a noise to let my mom know I was awake and then watching her walk in with a big grin. I remember very clearly thinking how delighted she was to see me and how anxious she must have been for me to wake up! Ha!
Mommy Think
I can hear the baby stirring, but she’s quiet for now. I guess I’ll try to finish the Daily Crossword before going in to see if she’s really ready to get up from her nap. If she’s wet or restless, she always lets me know—the same gurgle as usual, but a bit louder, to make sure I notice.
The divan I’m lying on is so close to the open door to her room that there’s no chance I won’t hear her if she really needs me. Hmmmmm. A Hawaiian goose. I’ve seen that a dozen times. Nene, I think.
Oh, Oh. There’s that little singing purr. She’s ready. So much for the puzzle for a little while, until I get her changed, liquified and busy with her toys in her playpen.
There she is. So adorable, peeking out from between the bars of her crib. I can see her eyes dilate when she sees me, one chubby little arm reaching through the bars, hand out, fingers spread. Waving hello like her sisters taught her. Face open in the biggest grin to see her mom. It’s like looking in a mirror. I can feel that same grin stretching my own cheeks. I can’t believe I’ve created this sweet girl. Me, the laziest woman on earth—I made this!
She’s gotten heavier and OUCH! those little fingernails need trimming. She wraps her chubby legs around me like a vise. Fat little toes for gobbling as I change her diaper. That strange arrow birthmark pointing straight down and filling the vee between her legs like a direction signal. So strange. My first child to have marks of any kind–the small port wine stain on her neck, and this larger brown birthmark in such an odd place. So glad this big one will never really show that much so long as she has any clothes on at all.
She’s perfect, so far as anyone else knows. I’ll put her with a cookie and orange juice in her bottle into her playpen and finish my puzzle. No need to change her clothes. Her dad will be home soon for his afternoon break and he’ll have her filthy from his field clothes within seconds of entering the house. They’ll both be asleep within minutes–him in his rocking chair with his feet up on the footstool and the glass of iced tea I’ve brought him sweating on his chair-side table, her stretched out on her tummy on his chest, little cheek pressed against his neck, wheat chaff and field dust on her sleeper and making light depressions on her cheek. I’ve never seen a man who loves babies more. When we don’t have one of our own, he borrows them from tourists in the restaurant where he meets his friends for coffee in the afternoon. “Want me to hold your baby for you while you eat?” he says, and they always say yes. The novelty of the big farmer in the J.C. Penny’s khaki work clothes and the straw hat holding their little city baby? They just wish they’d brought their camera in.
Hmmm. A South American Country. Peru? No, that’s just four letters. Chile? There’s Ben’s truck. Guess I’ll get the baby out of the playpen and have her waiting at the door for him when he comes in!
The Prompt: Reverse Shot—What’s your earliest memory involving another person? Recreate the scene — from the other person’s perspective.
(P.S.This is a pretty unremarkable post for my 300th posting, but I have an eye appointment in an hour so must hurry. Perhaps I’ll do another post later in the day…It was fun trying to write from my mother’s perspective. Sorry it had to be so hurried.)
(P.P.S. The eye doctor never showed up, although I waited an hour. I was sure it said I had an appointment in my calendar. I must need my eyes examined!)
2017 Note: It’s been three years since Word Press used the prompt “recreate.” At that time, I used the prompt to make my 300th blog entry. Now I have penned (or shot) my 3,444th entry, so it seems appropriate to reblog it. Thanks for reading it—and perhaps for reading it again.
A comment from loupmojo warrants its own reposting, so those who have already seen my blog today will see it as well. It is a perfect humorous illustration of my chopped liver post! Thanks, loupmojo. Hilarious.
So What Am I, Chopped Liver?
The first time I can remember feeling unequal was in college, in Modern American Literature class. I remember the teacher (male) asking questions and I would usually raise my hand and answer first. I would make a point about whatever we had been reading and there would be a moderate reaction on the part of the teacher and the mainly male members of the class.
Half an hour later, after much discussion, invariably, one of the male members of the class would repeat what I had said as his own opinion and everyone would laud what he had to say as insightful and brilliant and everyone would agree!
This happened time after time. It was as though none of them really listened to what I said, or perhaps that their minds weren’t ready to accept it unless they went through a period of inductive reasoning first and they needed all the accumulated comments of the class to bring them to acknowledge what I had known from the beginning.
What it felt like, however, was that they put no credence in the ideas of a woman. This is not the only time I have noticed this. It happens now and then in the small poetry workshop I am a member of. I am really curious about whether any other woman has ever noticed this same phenomena.
The Prompt: Unequal Terms—Did you know today is Blog Action Day? Join bloggers from around the world and write a post about what inequality means to you. Have you ever encountered it in your daily life?
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 