Spring Reflections

Spring is a time of love and sorrow for me…

March brings me reminders of my father’s death day and also the anniversary of my marriage to the ex. Happy and sad memories are triggered in both cases. There’s also the joy of my youngest daughter’s birthday.

April blossoms with the dates of Dad’s birthday, Mom’s death day, and another ex’s birthday. My own birthday falls at the end of the month, and, again, reflecting on that event conjures up a mix of feelings. A few weeks later in May is Mother’s Day, summoning joy and grief all at once.

June is another emotional tangle, containing my sweet little granddaughter’s birthday, Mom’s, the ex-hubby’s, Father’s Day, etc. That’s a lot of mental snapshots to sort through and process. There are times it’s a pleasure; other times it’s a trial.

Mom was a huge fan of Johnny Cash and passed that love onto me. He had such enormous talent that he transcended the country music genre. For a while, I kept my fondness for country on the down low, since so many fellow rock fans proclaimed a flagrant loathing of it. But I don’t care anymore and will shout that I like the sound of country comfort!

Today, Jim Adams posts about one of my favorite JC songs “Man in Black.” It feels appropriate to listen to right now because of my own memories and also because of all the sadness and injustice throughout the world. I share with you a cover of “500 Miles” (aka “The Railroader’s Lament”) by Johnny’s eldest daughter Rosanne Cash, who is successful in her own right, has had many No. 1 hits, and writes books too.

The writing credits to this song are a bit murky, but it is generally credited to Hedy West. There have been many versions, including Johnny’s. The 1963 cover by Bobby Bare was the most commercially successful.

Written for Eugi’s Weekly Prompt and Jim Adams’ Thursday Inspiration.

Image from Lovethispic.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Happy Birthday, Dad [repost]

It was fun looking through the box of unsorted photos and finding this gem from around 27 years ago ~ Dad and my eldest in the backyard of our old Huntington Beach house. If he were still around, I’d probably be baking his favorite fudgy brownies for a birthday celebration tonight. Miss those days. Love you, Dad, RIP.

~*~

Image is mine.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

I Dreamt I Was the Moon [repost]

I dreamt I was the moon, distant and translucent, and you were my divine horse, my Pegasus.

You sailed over the pink pearl seas, steady as a heartbeat. Lavender dawn enveloped the earth as you flew on, silken wings tirelessly playing the rhythm of our love song.

You never left me crying in the mortal night, not when I was the moon, surrounded by eternal skies and tended to by stars. You forgot to bring lightning to the gods; that’s how enraptured you were.

Your devotion drifted through me like a cloud… angelic mist, of no use to me now.

~*~

Image from Pixabay.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Light Paulas [repost]

They’re out there somewhere…
Not a joke.
I catch glimpses of their lives
Floating through mine
Via misdirected emails:
The other Paula Lights.

One of them has DISH TV–
That might be nice,
All those channels.
I could watch anything
And everything!
Well, I do have trouble with choice;
This is known.

Another one, married,
Bought homeowners insurance;
They seem like a solid couple,
Smart financial planning.
I was like that once,
With a house and a husband,
Doing all the things
I was supposed to do.

Sad day–
One of the Paulas has a tribute page
Posted for a deceased relative.
The confirmation came to me.
(Please do not reply.)
I probably should have done
Something like that
For my parents.

One shops at Wal*Mart
And I get her alerts,
No way to unsubscribe.
She bought a granite-topped cart,
Which looks pretty cool.
I had a cart once,
In that house with the husband.
They’re convenient, at times:
Carts and husbands.

Fun! One of them just visited
Margaritaville Casino
In Bossier City (Bossier!),
Louisiana.
The casino asked me
If I enjoyed my stay–
I’m sure I did.

These other Paula Lights
Are in the Midwest,
Where I once lived too
Among the blizzards and ‘nadoes.
For all I know,
They’re the same person,
Or maybe they’re reflections of me,
The OP,
Living my parallel life.

~*~

Poetry form: free verse.

Image from Pixabay.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

The Rosie Project [repost]

The Rosie Project is an interesting book by Graeme Simsion. It’s a romance novel, but it’s written in first person and 100% from the man’s POV. Not just any man though ~ the narrator Don is on the spectrum. He makes plans and lists, scheduling his time for maximum efficiency. Although he is very judgmental about other people’s inefficiencies, brainpower, and BMI, which could have been annoying to read, the narrator infuses it all with humor, and Don is often able to engage in a bit of inadvertent self-mockery. Those factors make TRP fun.

At the start, Don begins a “wife project,” which reminds me of dating site questionnaires and tests. There’s nothing that weird about Don’s method, except he devises his own complex questionnaire rather than going online and doing a canned version. Of course, the method fails, as they do, because love doesn’t spontaneously generate from a pile of matching scores. I don’t mind the predictability of this because it is a romance, after all, and true to formula, but at a certain point I become a little bored.

I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say that The Rosie Project turns repetitive toward the end. It also suffers the fate of all first-person romances, which is that while we are treated to Don’s thoughts and feelings in glorious detail, we’re never in the heroine’s POV, so her moods and actions are as inexplicable to us as they are to Don. What are we supposed to make of Rosie’s abrupt changes of mind? Idk, because she may or may not be telling Don the truth ~ perhaps she isn’t sure of it herself. Don has a difficult time processing other people’s confusing behaviors, and since we are in his head, it’s hard for us to do that as well. In that sense, it may be a good portrayal of someone on the spectrum, yet it lags a bit as a romance novel.

Given that, TRP was entertaining overall and I recommend it.

~*~

Image from Pixabay.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Birds of a Feather

Some people claim that opposites attract, but I’ve always thought (and observed) that couples who are more alike than different have better success with long-term relationships. Not every item needs to match, but it’s hard, for example, to sustain a romance with someone who craves constant travel when you’re a homebody. And how do you compromise on religion, children, politics? I guess a person who loves cake could live with someone who only likes pie. Perhaps! But the big goals should line up, imo. Of course, there are always exceptions, but I prefer playing the odds. And indeed back when I dated I met plenty of odd men… but thankfully those days are over and I can now simply opine cluelessly from my comfy chair.

Swans are often used as a symbol of eternal love because most pairs mate for life. “Divorce” is rare; only a small percentage of the birds split up and take another mate. I received a beautiful pair of crystal swans as a wedding gift and still have them with only a few scratches. The marriage itself shattered however…

In “My Guy,” Mary Wells sings about how well she and her man go together, so well that she could never be torn away from him. She seems to be singing to another man who may be trying to seduce her, and she rejects his advances by explaining how her current relationship could never be upgraded.

There’s nothing you could say
To tear me away from my guy
There’s nothing you could do
‘Cause I’m stuck like glue to my guy
I’m stickin’ to my guy like a stamp to a letter
Like the birds of a feather
We stick together
I’m telling you from the start
I can’t be torn apart from my guy

Ronald White and Smokey Robinson wrote these great lyrics for the 1964 hit. Enjoy!

~*~

Written for Jim’s Thursday Inspiration.

Image from Pixabay. Info from Wikipedia.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.