Have you ever made a mistake that taught you a valuable lesson? Do you think that our mistakes are as valuable as our right decisions?
Oh yes. I learned a very tough lesson the hard way: when you get older — and by older, I mean 70 and above — you are not as agile or as flexible or as quick to react as you were when you were younger. Even more important, with age, one’s bones are more brittle than they once were. And that means that they are more likely to break when you fall.
As to the part about our mistakes as valuable as our right decisions, I believe that the lessons learned from our mistakes are probably more painful and/or costly than the lessons we learn from making right decisions.
For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday challenge, Jim Adams has asked us to find a song about enjoying the outdoors.
The song I am featuring is probably not one that people associate with being outdoors. In fact, I used to think it was a love song where the singer was celebrating the fact that he and his girl had gotten back together after a difficult time in their relationship — metaphorically a long cold lonely winter — and now that they had reconciled, the sunshine had returned and the ice was melting. Thus, everything between him and his little darling would be all right again. But, that’s not really what the Beatles song, “Here Comes the Sun” is actually about.
George Harrison wrote “Here Comes the Sun” while visiting Eric Clapton’s backyard garden in early spring of 1969. The song sprang from a light, relaxed moment when Harrison escaped the Beatles’ business pressures and felt relief at a sunny day returning after a long, difficult stretch.
Harrison later said he’d been avoiding a meeting at Apple (the band’s business side) and went to Clapton’s house, where, warmed by the sun as he walked around the outside and free from “dopey accountants,” he picked up a guitar and the melody and first lines simply came to him. The lyrics celebrate the arrival of spring after a long, cold winter and represent his escape from the band’s internal tensions.
The garden story is often told alongside a few connected facts: the song began there with Harrison on acoustic guitar. Clapton remembered it as a beautiful spring morning, Harrison finished some lyrics later while on holiday, and the band (without John Lennon) recorded it for Abbey Road that summer. This setting — a country garden, sunlight, friends, and relief from business hassles — helps explain why the song’s tone is one of renewal and calm.
“Here Comes the Sun” is essentially about hope and relief after a long, difficult stretch. George Harrison wrote it as a kind of emotional turning point: winter and darkness give way to warmth, light, and the sense that things are going to be okay.
In plain terms, it’s a song about feeling better after a period of stress and having endured hard times. It’s welcoming renewal, like spring after winter, and letting in optimism again. That’s why it feels so cheerful and restorative: the sun is basically a metaphor for better days arriving.
The Beatles had stopped touring by the time they recorded this song, so they never played it live. In fact, John Lennon did not play on this. Around this time, he was making a habit of not playing on Harrison’s compositions as the two were not on the best of terms. The first time Harrison played it live was at the 1971 Concert for Bangla Desh, which he organized to bring aid to that country.
Here are the lyrics to “Here Comes the Sun.”
Here comes the sun, doo, dun, doo, doo Here comes the sun, and I say It's all right
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, doo, dun, doo, doo Here comes the sun, and I say It's all right
Little darling, the smile's returning to the faces Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun Here comes the sun, and I say It's all right
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes Sun, sun, sun, here it comes Sun, sun, sun, here it comes Sun, sun, sun, here it comes Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, doo, dun, doo, doo Here comes the sun, and I say It's all right
Here comes the sun, doo, dun, doo, doo Here comes the sun It's all right It's all right
Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).
Today’s word is “permission.”
Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.
Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.
And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.
The prompt is called “Great Minds Think” and it’s the brainstorm of fellow bloggers Sarah and Rohini. The two of them will alternate weeks. This week’s challenge is all about The Object Speaks. The challenge is to respond to this very interesting premise:
Choose an object and tell its story from its point of view. Let the object be your narrator.
The Ring video doorbell had been holding this in for a while, and today it finally cleared its tiny digital throat.
“Excuse me, Michael,” it began in the tone of someone who has rehearsed a speech in the mirror, “I don’t want to sound dramatic, but I’m starting to feel, well, underappreciated.”
It blinked its little LED, the way a person might cross their arms. “I need to tell you that I feel like I am being taken for granted. I play an important role in protecting you and your family by being the first to alert you if anyone approaches your home. But do I get any real appreciation for being your first line of defense? No, I don’t.
“I mean, think about it, Michael. I watch your porch like a hawk. A polite hawk, of course. I keep an eye on every package, every visitor, every raccoon with boundary issues. I send you alerts at all hours — day, night, that weird twilight when the neighbor’s cat does its neighborhood exploring. I even record crisp, high‑definition videos — videos that you can pre-screen, of people who push my button in the hope of getting you to come to your door.”
The Ring sighed, soft and electronic.
“And what do I get? A quick glance at your iPhone. Not even a ‘Good job, buddy.’ I can tell you’re not really thinking about me. You’re thinking about the package from Amazon. Or the dinner from DoorDash. Or whether the button-pusher at the door is selling solar panels again.
“I even give you the chance to engage in conversation with these button-pushers on your iPhone without you having to get out of your easy chair. You can ask these annoying button-pushers what they want and to listen to their answers.
“Then you can decide if you want to invite them into your home or tell them to go take a hike, as you did to those two Jehovah’s Witnesses missionary women who wanted you to listen to their spiel and join their church. At least you were polite about it.
“How quickly you have forgotten that you used to have to get up, walk to your front door, and either open it up or look through your peephole to see who was knocking on your door or ringing your bell.”
It brightened its LED, trying to stay composed.
“I’m not asking for much, buddy. Maybe a little gratitude. A pat on the frame. A ‘Thanks for catching that porch pirate last Tuesday.’ I mean, I saved your new headphones. That should count for something.”
The doorbell paused, then added, a bit sheepishly, “I just want to feel like more than a tiny, weatherproof security sidekick. I want to feel valued. All it would take is a small thank you for making my life a little easier.”
Then, in a quieter tone, “Also, could you clean my lens? I’m doing heroic work out here, but it’s dirty, grimy world out here, and even heroes need a smudge-free view.”
The photo of my front porch was taken with my Ring doorbell. The two Jehovah’s Witnesses ladies were added using ChatGPT.
Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where the challenge is to write a poem or a piece of prose in exactly 28 words using the word “scintilla.”
Barb to Brenda: “Did you hear what happened to Ellie?”
Before we go too far down this road, let me be clear that Homophones are not the types of smartphones, cellphones, or landlines telephones that are primarily used or preferred by members of the LGBTQIA+ communities. Now that we’ve got that straight, let’s move on.
Homophones are actually words in the English language that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have totally different meanings. Thus, they can really trip up the best of us when we are writing our blog posts.
Hey, I know even I sometimes get tripped up, too. Perhaps I type “your” when I mean “you’re,” “there” when I should use either “their” or “they’re,” or “to,” when “two” or “too” would be correct. But I admit that there are times, when I see people use a totally wrong word in a sentence, that drives me nuts.
Okay, you might think this discussion about the use of a wrong homophone is a bit much. But when I saw Linda’s prompt this week, it reminded me of a sentence that one of my coworkers (back before I retired) put in a formal email to me. That email read:
“I knew your email would peak her interest.”
OUCH! Hey, it’s not that I’m a grammar Nazi or anything, but seriously, one does not “peak” one’s interest or attention. The correct word in that sentence should have been “pique,” and not “peak.”
A “peak” is a topmost point, such as a mountain peak. And then there is the work “peek,” which is to take a glance or a quick look. “Pique” is to upset or excite someone or to stimulate someone’s interest. It’s not rocket surgery or brain science, folks.
Okay, I’m over my pique. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).
Today’s word is “miner.”
Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.
Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.
And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.
This post was written in response to Reena’s Xploration Challenge. This week’s RXC prompt number is 436, and Reena has given us two tasks. First, take a poem she gave us and reinterpret it into prose. Then, take a short prose paragraph and reinterpret it as a poem.
First, the poem:
Leaves fall, yet roots endure, snow buries, yet seeds dream, winds scatter, yet paths return time bends, but life remembers.
Now my lengthy prose story this four-line poem brought to mind.
A quiet truth lived beneath the forest floor, one most travelers never noticed. When autumn came and the leaves fell, the villagers whispered that the woods were dying. But Marianne knew better. She had grown up listening to the old trees breathe.
She would walk the winding path at dusk, boots brushing through drifts of gold. Every year the forest shed its memories, yet its roots endured, gripping the earth with a patience older than language. Snow would come soon, soft, heavy, smothering, but beneath it, the seeds dreamed. Maryanne could almost feel them humming.
One night, a wicked snowstorm rose without warning. Winds tore through the branches, scattering twigs, needles, and last scraps of autumn. Marianne lost the trail, spinning in the white roar, until she felt something tug at her feet. Not a force, but a familiarity. The path returned, guiding her home the way a memory guides a heartbeat.
Years later, Marianne would remember that night as the moment she finally understood the forest’s secret: time bends, loops, folds, but life, quietly, stubbornly, remembers. And so did she.
And now the prose paragraph:
The seasons shift like unspoken truths — summer’s blaze softens into autumn’s hush, winter’s silence yields to spring’s renewal. In each turn, the human heart mirrors the cycle: burning with desire, retreating into reflection, and blossoming again with fragile hope.
Now my poem this paragraph brought to mind:
The seasons shift like unspoken truths Summer’s blaze surrenders to autumn’s quiet breath Winter keeps its long and patient silence Spring answers with the courage to begin again The heart follows every turn, through desire and reflection Hope returns, delicate as the season that carries it
For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has given us the word “problems” and asked us to repond by going with the picture below, or by means of a political protest song, or one that expresses frustration with ineffective world leaders, the constant threat of nuclear conflict, and the social alienation caused by those in power.
Excuse the rant, but I am sick and tired of millennials, gen-Xers, and other younger generations, whatever they’re labeled, blaming us baby boomers for all the shit that they have “inherited” from us.
They perceive us as having benefited from a stronger, post-WWII economic era while leaving behind problems that younger people now have to contend with, like expensive housing, heavier student debt, weaker job security, strained social programs, and climate damage.
The blame is also political and cultural. Boomers are often viewed as having had more influence on policy over a longer time frame, so we are cast as the generation that set the rules and then resisted reforms.
The deeper issue is that real structural problems are easier to characterize as a conflict between age groups than as failures of policy, wages, taxes, housing supply, or regulation. That makes “boomer blame” emotionally satisfying for these younger generations, even when it oversimplifies things and ignores the fact that not all boomers had the same advantages or political power. In other words, the slogan “Hey Boomer” is catchy because it turns members of a complicated system into villains.
The reality is that younger generations are reacting to a world shaped by many decades of decisions, some made by boomers, some by earlier generations, and many by institutions that outlast any one cohort. So while the frustration is real, the blame is usually broader than one age group. The boomer label works as shorthand for “the people who seemed to have the good deal and then locked it in and screwed those of us who followed them.
But the truth is that we didn’t start the fire.
Image conjured by Jim Adams using Microsoft Copilot.
The highway stretched across New Mexico like a ribbon tossed through an ocean of stone.
Jake glanced at his EV’s dashboard: 9% battery remaining. The navigation system calmly announced the nearest charging station was sixty-eight miles away. His estimated range was fifty-one.
He turned off the air conditioning, eased his speed to fifty-five, and prayed every downhill slope would give him another precious mile. Cell service vanished. The mountains seemed indifferent to his growing panic.
Then, around the next bend, a sign appeared: “Fast EV Charging – Next Exit.” Jake laughed aloud, realizing hope sometimes arrives one mile before despair.
(100 words)
Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers prompt. Photo credit: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.
Facts, Fictions & Fantasies 
