Tag Archives: Solitude

Solitude for RDP and CFFC

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Solitude

Borne, then born.
Clothed, fed, shorn.
Housed and cuddled,
brain filled and muddled.
Schooled, polished, allowed to roam,
to make the world into a home.
Later settled, now sedate.
Content to let my life abate.

Find worlds inside and there abide,
to let what happens be my guide.
To try to live with less precision.
To fear less the world’s derision.
Why so hard to be oneself?
Easier when on the shelf.
Now here I pull my world around me,
memories and dreams surround me.

My solitude a crystal jar
that lets me ponder from afar
the current of my life, its tide,
to reach without and pull inside
the things that help me try to see
just where my life has taken me.
I contemplate and sometimes share
the truths that I’ve discovered there.

I’ve  come to read, to judge  and learn.
I’ve finally learned how to discern!

 

For RDP: Solitude
and for CFFC: Evening

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Isolated Subjects

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This single post sticking up far from the shore of Lake Chapala is the epitomy of isolation, but as I zoomed in on it, I learned more of its story.

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It is in fact a handy perch for this solitary night heron.

Cee’s prompt was “Isolated Subjects.”

Solitude

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The beach makes solitude look good!

Please enlarge photos by clicking on the first photo.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/solitude/

One: Photo a Week Challenge

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The prompt this week was “One.”  Hope it didn’t mean to post just one!  These were the photos I could find that most gave me the feeling of solitude or “oneness.”  You can click on the first one to enlarge them all.

 

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2016/10/27/a-photo-a-week-challenge-one/

Oners: Cee’s Black and White Challenge, Isolated Subjects

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Isolation can have a beauty of its own, especially in contrast to details that might invite company.  If you’d like to see these photos better, please click on the first one. Also, please be patient as it may be necessary to wait for a few of the photos to come into focus.

 

The prompt was “isolated subjects.”

Going Solo: Hugh’s Weekly Photo Challenge, Week 20, Solitude

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Solitude

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Who can resist a selfie of their shadow on the beach?
My friend’s dog seems to be imagining sea adventures on the wild main.

http://hughsviewsandnews.com/2016/04/05/hughs-weekly-photo-challenge-week-20-solitude/

Absence No Longer Has the Chance to Make Our Hearts Grow Fonder

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Absence No Longer Has the Chance to Make Our Hearts  Grow Fonder

When I was young, I wandered far from relative or friend.
They had no idea where I’d been or where my trail would end.
Months between our letters and years between each call,
how I fared from day to day they didn’t know at all.

Although I moved from place to place, each new spot I was in
was the only place I was, the last place where I’d been
was fully left behind me. Only memories bound me there.
As I moved ever on alone, Australia to Zaire.

No cellphone in my pocket, no Facebook there to see
what friends had for breakfast or congratulating me
on my latest hairstyle or showing me their hives
reporting the minutiae of their daily lives.

Back before the internet made contact never-ending.
I could simply concentrate on my present wending.
But this was how I wanted it. I wanted to be lost.
To fully live a new life, my old life was the cost.

Absence no longer makes our hearts grow fonder ever fonder,
for it’s impossible to leave our loved ones when we wander.
We see them every day on Skype, each minute a new text.
They tell us about yesterday, then what they’re doing next.

We are no longer absent from anyone we know
anywhere we wander, anyplace we go.
At any given moment, no matter where we roam,
our past invades our present, bringing us back home.

In this era of devices–– laptop, tablet, phone––
we’re in perpetual company. We never are alone.
The longest that we’re ever safe from texting, tweeting, beeping
is probably the hours when we leave them just for sleeping!


The Prompt:  What’s the most time you’ve ever spent away from your favorite person?  https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/my-favorite/

Odd Little Saturday Morning Poem

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Odd Little Saturday Morning Poem

I lie in bed, flat on my back, head raised by pillows,
computer raised to eye level
by a wadded comforter over bent knees.
I listen to raised voices in the village down below,
the staccato of an inadequately mufflered car revving up,
a hammer falling on wood, birds in the coco  palms.
A pianissimo chorus of dogs spread
over the surrounding hills swells to a frenzied crescendo,
then falls silent but will swell again.

I have dropped obligations
like clothes shed for a lover.
My Saturday morning pool aerobics and zumba,
I slipped out of years ago.
Group luncheons hang from doorknobs and chair backs.
Committee meetings lie sloppily abandoned in the hall.

I have retired from the running of the world
to run my own small universe on paper.
Saturday morning is my brainstorm session
with “Me,” “Myself” and “I.”
“I” suggested feeding the dogs,
but they are quiet now, so
“Me” suggested we let them lie.
“Myself” laid out some words to dry
in the heat of the fire of our communal
inspiration, laying them smoothly on the page,
rumpling up others in her fist to send them sailing
to join the crumpled singles event invitations in the corner.

This slow Saturday morning dressing of pages
and stripping them bare
is a sort of ceremony celebrating seizing time
and making it my own.
Pages  fill up with passion, angst, anger,
irritation, joy, laughter, camaraderie.
There is more than one word for each.

Imagine such control over your world–
not having to live the world of any other.
If you could have any life you wish?
Imagine a Saturday morning  building it.

 

The Prompt:  Me Time–What do you like to do on Saturday morning?  Are you doing it now?

Lassitude, Guilty Pleasures, Solitude and TV in the afternoon!

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Am I weak?  Undisciplined?  The minute the NaPoWriMo whip was removed, I sank into lassitude and solitude again and haven’t posted on this blog.  The truth is that I’m absolutely exhausted, both physically and mentally.  The blade of “the book” has been hanging over me for so long that I think now that it is removed that I crave actual retirement for a few days or weeks or months.  Of course, this isn’t possible.  Tony and I are giving a talk about the book tomorrow and have another talk scheduled in June. I have 4 more rhymed children’s books I need to find an illustrator for and I need to promote the “Grief Lessons” book. (If you have any ideas, please share them.)  I have another book I want to get on Kindle and Amazon and although that should be easy as it is already in print, it means combing old computers to find the Word file and actually meeting with Tony to figure out the process by which he put Grief Diary on Amazon.  It takes a very little effort, but I feel laaaaaaazy and have people coming for Mexican Train and pizza tonight and need to get in gear for that soon.  So, I’m going to shirk life’s responsibilities for another few hours and watch episode 13 of “The Americans” and pretend for a few more hours that I am really retired.  Please don’t give up on me.  I like connecting with you all in this way—both those I know and those I will know.  I enjoy seeing who has linked and some day I’ll figure out how to link with you or follow you.  In addition, I will figure out whether those are one and the same thing.  New to blogging, not new to life!

Question of the day:  Did anyone else out there ever make Maybaskets and fill them with candy and leave them on friends’ doorsteps on May 1?  You’d ring the doorbell and run.  If they caught you,Imagethey could pinch you or kiss you.   Pictured is a maybasket I made from shredded Kozo paper.  The flower is made from cardboard egg cartons cut up, glued and painted.  The candy was yummy.  I know because I couldn’t deliver this one on May 1 and ended up eating all the candy and had to go candy shopping again yesterday, when I gave this to my friend.  More secrets revealed!!  oxoxox Judy