Sunday Haiku

March 30, 2015 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Mourning doves call at dawn

haunting echoes

I turn, drifting back to dreams.

Note: today is my birthday. Spent the day at a soccer tournament in Midland/Odessa watching my grandson play club soccer. Returned home to find, at last count, 82 birthday wishes on Facebook, greetings from all but two continents. Feeling grateful.

Gratitude

November 27, 2014November 27, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / 3 Comments

Usually, I plan my posts, write them out carefully, sometimes even proof a couple of times. Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. Even though I know all about the historical lies to cover up the truth about the supposed original Thanksgiving, I continue to think this is a useful and fun holiday for several reasons. Thankfulness, gratitude, remains the primary source of a happy life. The list of things for which I am thankful seems nearly endless:

-health

-living in a place filled with natural beauty

-my daughter

-my grandson

-my son, even though we talk only occasionally and he lives far away

-teaching

-my students, one of whom posted on Facebook this morning that he is grateful that he had me as a teacher ten years ago

-the friends who took me with them to Ethiopia this past summer

-all my other friends locally and from all over the world

-the exchange students who have lived with me and from whom I receive messages regularly

-my parents for whom I owe eternal gratitude for teaching me values, independence, tolerance, a love of beauty and knowledge, and a sense of wonder

-music

-my ability to sing

-horses

-wildlife, nature–here where I am so fortunate to live

-art

-my ability to write

-all the people who love my book of poetry and tell me they do–I might also include the people, mostly men, who find it shocking

-happiness and the choice I made to be happy all those long years ago

-red wine

-plentiful food

I could go on and on. However, it seems best to end with this fantabulous morning on my own little rim of wonder and say I am thankful for a life filled with so many astonishing events and experiences I never expected and for which I am endlessly grateful.

My Happy Mother’s Day

May 13, 2014May 13, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

Mother’s Day filled my heart. First, when I awakened in the morning, I made coffee and opened this computer. When I logged into Facebook, I found this pronouncement from my daughter:

“I’m so thankful to have an amazing, talented, smart, ambitious, honest woman as my mommy. You made me the person I am today and as I continue to grow, I see things you taught me passing down to my son. I’m the mom I am today because of the mom you were to me. I may not always show it or tell you but I love you so much.” I nearly cried; I am not a crier.

The flowers arrived Saturday from my son who lives twenty hours away if you drive. Look at these flowers!! Fantastic.

Then my grandson gave me a handmade card about 5 by 8 inches with this long note some of which follows:

“Happy Mother’s Day. I know your not my mom but your my mom’s mom so your a mother so happy mother’s day. Thank you for giving birth to my mom because if you wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t be alive right now so thanks….Thank you for all the things you do for me. You always watch me. Your always nice even when I’m mean and you spoil me. I love you and happy mother’s day. ” He is ten.

Then today I received a totally unexpected thank you card with a note from a young man who stayed with me a while last spring just before he graduated from college with an A average. He was experiencing an extremely painful time then. His hand written note: “Happy Mother’s Day! It has been one year since I graduated from college. I would never have made it without you! Thank you for the great help in my most difficult time. You are the small ray of sunshine that really brings me hope! Thank you!” I felt overwhelmed.

The bottle in front of the flowers above is Versace perfume–Mother’s Day present from my daughter.

Commitments, Hosting Benefits, and What We Take for Granted

May 4, 2014May 4, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Shortness of post is necessitated by the time. Why bother? Nearly three weeks ago, I committed to writing daily. Blogging seemed like a logical means to accomplish this. I expect others and myself to follow through on commitments. So here I am writing in the middle of the night.

Tonight I hosted a fund raiser for the Hilltop Senior Center here in Amarillo. We tried to sell tickets in advance but not all that many sold. The Director of the Center and I became a bit worried, but continued with planning, hoping some would show up even if at the last minute. They did. We had great Mexican food donated by Braceros on Sixth Avenue, wine, my wonderful well water, cheeses, fruit, and cakes. Even the silent auction proved to be a great success. However, nature became the real star of the event, nature and my dog Isabella. Unlike earlier in the week when the wind shrieked to 6o miles an hour creating several days of endless dust, today the wind laid low, the sun shone, and it was hot. This morning the heat went on and this afternoon the air conditioning as it rose to past 90. Thirty degrees difference between night and day is rather typical here and some days, like to day, this difference increases to nearly forty.

At dark the stars seem so much brighter out here in the country. Many of the guests walked back and forth on the patio, looking for different constellations. People came inside for a while only to go back out and look at the stars and the crescent moon. What I take for granted daily, became a wonder for my company. As I write this, I think about all the things each of us take for granted, things we eat, experience, feel daily. How often do we really take the time to appreciate these things, to realize that although they may be ordinary for us, for others they would be incomparable blessings. So now as I finish this, get ready for bed, and snuggle into my cool sheets, I will meditate and give thanks to the universe for the wonder of the stars.

Gratitude and Dust

April 30, 2014April 30, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / 2 Comments

Initially, I planned to continue my Apocalyptic Planet series, but today’s events caused me to choose otherwise. As I sit here writing this, I can see the endless blowing dust through the spotted window. Sometime today, while I was at work, it sprinkled while the dust blew. Now every window on the east and north side of my house appears as if someone had thrown handfuls of nearly dry mud at it. My black car looks the same. The wind whistles in the flue of the wood burning stove in my bedroom. This storm blows harder and longer than the one we experienced last week. Tomorrow they forecast more of the same.

Saturday I stopped by two greenhouses to purchase some hanging baskets and native flowers. The mesquite trees kept telling me, “Wait, wait. Cold will come again. Wait!” Normally, I obey what the mesquite trees tell me. They never come out until they know without a doubt the cold is over and they feel safe. I bought the flowers anyway. This coming Saturday, Hilltop Senior Citizen Center in Amarillo has their Gala at my house to raise money–complete with a silent auction, food, and drink to raise some much needed money. I want everything to look springlike and pretty. I heard the weather forecast on the radio coming home from work. I just looked again on the Internet. Frost predicted tonight and even colder tomorrow night. After I fed Rosie, placing the alfalfa as much out of the wind as I could, I brought the hanging baskets inside and poured a bunch of water on the other new plants. The native plants, tough, worry be little. The others will not survive 33 degree weather. Later, I will go out and cover them with old towels, hoping the wind relents and does not blow them off.

Everyone here posts photos of the dust on the Internet and gripes about this horrid weather. Although I certainly dislike it, I refuse to complain. This, too, is tornado country. I listened to the news this morning and again coming home from work. Thirty four dead, whole towns destroyed, a new school flattened. Here I see no devastation, only the endless, depressing, annoying dust and wind. My friends, family, and I are alive, our houses intact. Rosie huddles behind the barn, still healthy, neighs when she hears me coming. Gratitude engulfs me.