My Small Life

September 9, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Someone asked me today what helped me find joy in life again after Jeff died. I didn’t even have to think of the answer. It’s been long enough that I have some perspective, so I know that any joy in my life came from just living — doing things that the two of us never did, doing things I never imagined doing, creating new memories. Taking dance classes helped. Traveling helped. Gardening helped. People say that time helps, but it’s not time that helps but what you do with that time. Still, it took years for me to come to a place of renewed interest in life. Obviously, it wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t easy, but here I am, almost seventeen years later, still chugging along.

Today what joy I find comes in paying attention to the little things — to each flower that blooms, to the almost daily surprises in my yard, to the seasonal changes. I find I am happiest when I keep my focus small, to accept as real only that which I experience with my senses: what I see in my immediate environs, what I smell (when my sinuses allow), the food I taste, the sounds I hear, what and how I feel, even what I do. Anything else is too immense.

For years, his death left me with a bewildering cascade of questions: what is the meaning of death, where is he, is he having as much trouble with the separation as I am, how do I find meaning or at least a reason to continue living, do I need a mate in order for my life to have meaning. And on and on and on. Though I do occasionally still wonder about those things, the intense asking has pretty much faded, which helps me stay into the reality my senses show me rather than the mental flights into the unknown and unknowable that troubled me for so long.

I’m lucky in that I have the ability and the means to stay within myself, my surroundings, and what I can experience firsthand. It might seem a small life to most people, but it encompasses all I can know at the moment, and that is an immensity of its own. I’m grateful for that life and for whatever joy comes my way.

May you find such joy, too.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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The Halcyon Days of Fall

September 8, 2026 — Pat Bertram

For the seven or more months of my gardening year, I see a lot of changes, a lot of color that comes and goes. From the first sign of awakening in March, to the late-spring larkspurs, the early summer wildflowers, the purple magnus echinacea, the lily tree forest, there is always some color in my yard to offset my struggle to keep things alive during the debilitatingly intense heat of the summers out here on the high plains.

Each of those comings of the various blossoms are to be celebrated — and I do, with a moment of appreciation (well, lots of moments!) and a photo f I remember.

Oddly, despite the beauty of those spring and summer gardens, this seems to be an area that favors fall gardens. There is generally a long, warm fall to pamper the plants as well as a lessening of the intensity of the sun’s rays. A few spring plants manage to put out a second-generation bloom. The echinacea as well as a few others develop lovely fall-colored seed pods that add dimension to the fall garden. The ever-blooming petunias still sing their colorful song. And, since my grass is a heat-resistant cool climate grass, its struggles to remain intact through the summer suddenly pays for my care with a joyful green lawn.

Luckily, I realized in my early gardening years that fall around here is conducive to gardens of vast color, so I thought to concentrate on fall plants, especially chrysanthemums.

And this year, I reaped those benefits.

So much color!

And such a joy, both in the experience and in the memory of those halcyon days of fall.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Migrations

September 7, 2026 — Pat Bertram

This year seemed to be a year of migrations.

First, of course, the tarantula migration. I say of course because I’ve been hunting (and haunting) the migratory paths of the tarantulas for several years, ever since I moved within driving distance of the Comanche National Grasslands, and so far, I’ve only seen a single tarantula, and that was many migrations ago. Most years, it’s been the hunt that’s been the experience.

The migration isn’t really a migration. It’s just that around the beginning of autumn, the usually solitary male tarantulas creep out of their burrows to try to find a mate, so this is when it’s possible to see them. I saw plenty of burrows out on the grasslands, but none of the inhabitants.

What I did see (and experience) was a part of the Santa Fe trail, the immensity of the grasslands, and the ability for life to show itself even in the most extreme conditions.

The second migration isn’t an “of course” situation. In fact, it came as a total surprise. And it came to me. For the first time in my life, I experienced a small part of the monarch migration. There were dozens — perhaps hundreds — of monarchs stopping by my place to make use of my butterfly-friendly utilities. According to locals, the monarchs used to pass through here in the spring, though they haven’t in many years, but apparently, they were never seen as much in fall. It makes me wonder if the rain we had around that time (five inches in thirty-two hours) made a difference to their flight path because they showed up the first dry sunny day after the storm had moved on.

When I first came to this isolated part of the country, I used to see what I thought were monarchs, but what I actually saw were Viceroy butterflies — lepidoptera with the same coloration of the monarch, but much smaller and with an extra stripe across the wings. It wasn’t until I’d seen more than a few of those very large butterflies that I realized they were monarchs and that the migration had graced me with its presence.

The sandhill cranes flew high overhead on their yearly migration southward, not seen so much as heard as their song of passage drifted down to earth. There were (and are) other migrations, such as the migration of the seasons, each season coming to us in turn and then moving on. It’s not a progression we generally notice except in a casual way, but as a gardener, I now tend to be more aware of that particular migration than I used to be. With my advancing age, the seasons seem to pass by ever more rapidly, so there’s that, too.

Which brings me to another migration. Mine.

I am part of my own migration — my migration through the years. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, and time is migrating through me. Either way, I am fortunate to be able to experience the migration of life, both mine and that of the world around me, even though the tarantula migration continues to elude me.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn

September 6, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Prester John or Presbyter John was a supposed mythical figure, a priest of an Eastern Christian church and ruler of a famed kingdom of untold wealth, that people of the Middle Ages hoped would help quell the rise and encroachment of the Islamic world into Christian countries. Although some people believe he was a real historical character, Prester John’s origins have been traced to 1145 and a letter that was said to have been written by him and later shown to be a forgery. (Though that supposed forgery, in itself, could be a myth.)

Although I’d been aware of Prester John’s story for decades, I’d never thought about it until I started reading the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series by Tad Williams, but seeing the name rang an internal bell. The first book of the series begins in the kingdom of the realm King John Presbyter, and although the book is not about the mythical king, apparently Tad Williams borrowed the name for his own fictional king. I shrugged off the coincidence until later in the series when the young hero ends up in the house of a sort-of wise witch. She helps the young hero escape the bad guys, and while on the run, he stumbles on the stilt holding up her house and is shocked to see that it resembled a chicken foot.

Just like with King Presbyter John, the hut on chicken legs rang a bell — Baba Yaga, of course, a witch/wise woman in Slavic folklore. Then I realized that this series, like the Wheel of Time, took its inspiration from various myths and legends.

There are many other folkloric creatures in the series that I’ve noticed, such as the Kilpa, water spirits that lure sailors to their death, based on Scottish legends of the Kelpie. Sithis, the sort of good fairies based on the Irish Sidhe, and the Norns, the human-hating fairies based on Norwegian Norns. Certain episodes in the tale are based on historic battles and famous people, such as the War of the Roses and King Alfred the Great of England and three burnt cakes. And the religion of the story people seems to be based on the Osiris myth.

Although I spent years digging through all the references in The Wheel of Time series, not just the legends and myths, but world religions and philosophies, historical references and costumes, I’m not sure I want to do the same with Tad Williams’ series. But still, as I pointed out, many references echo in my head, so I might end up decoding his influences by default.

Two things stand out for me. One: that both these series —The Wheel of Time and Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn — that are based so much on real world mythologies and histories began to be written about the same time. Though Tad Williams’ books were published first, there’s no doubt that Robert Jordan developed his ideas separately. It seems perhaps as if ideas are floating in the ether, and they belong to whatever writers happens to catch them. And two: that not only was The Game of Thrones inspired by Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, much of it seems to be a rip off, but who knows. Although The Game of Thrones came out much later, it’s possible Martin himself grabbed the similarities from the ether.

It does seem as if the fantasy genre that interests me is mythic based, which makes sense that so few fantasy novels appeal to me — too many are based on totally fake history and mythology and worlds that I cannot connect to.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Preparing for Visitors

September 5, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Until the hyperawareness of other peoples’ germs that held during the Covid years, if I had company, I always cleaned house super well before guests arrived and didn’t worry about cleaning after they left. During those years, I wasn’t all that concerned about cleaning beforehand, though I made sure to clean extra well after any guest left.

Now? I’m not sure what to do. I’m expecting out-of-town guests in a little more than a week, and of course, I want the place to look it’s best, but I don’t think I have it in me to do a deep clean twice in a short period of time. (Once before and once after.) Actually, I’m not sure I have it in me to do it once, so I’m taking it easy, doing a bit at a time. Mostly the house is company-ready — fairly neat and presentable except for hard-to-clean corners, but I feel as if I should put in an effort.

Luckily, they will be staying at an Airbnb across the street, which gives us all space as well as comfortable quarters for them (and their own bathroom), so I won’t have to give up my bedroom for them. I imagine I’ll end up doing what I always do when it comes to housework — do the least possible until I get one of those rare urges to clean every corner and polish every surface. Hopefully, the urge will come before they get here. If not, well, they are getting older, too, so perhaps they will be as blind to dusty corners as I am.

Meantime, there is the yard. I’ve mostly been keeping up with that, too, and what doesn’t get done will just have to be chalked up to . . . I was going to say old age, but honestly, not working as hard as perhaps I could is more of an inclination than a physical impossibility.

There are some areas I can’t do much about. During one of my lopping sessions, I trimmed an overgrown bush, and what was left was mostly trunks and a few branches that were too thick to cut. The bush is growing new leaves, and perhaps there will be enough of them to cover the scraggly mess of branches, but if not, oh, well. The same goes for the area where I pulled up dead sunflowers and cut back the pumpkin vine to allow more room for the rest of the wildflowers to grow. Again, I’ll just have to hope it looks all right, and if not, it will be another case of “oh, well.”

The third mess I made in an effort to clean up is in my raised garden. I lopped off the heads of the marigolds that were taking over to give the remaining plants breathing room. Since I ended up with a lot of empty spaces, I fill in with my collection of fairy houses.

With any luck, the yard will dazzle. In the next week or so, it’s possible the chrysanthemum will pop, the holes in the gardens will fill in, and the grass will continue to green up in the cooler weather.

For sure, though, there will be plenty of pretty sights to see. As I’ve learned, it’s only me who sees the holes where I chopped things back. Everyone else sees the overall beauty as well as specific plants, which makes my concern just that . . . a concern and not a problem.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Quite Contrary

September 4, 2026 — Pat Bertram

There are always contrary things to see in a garden — mildew that shows up on a lilac bush, weeds that infest a lush lawn, insects that hungrily eat everything in sight, plants that die without giving a reason. So many things!

Luckily, some of those contrary things are fun enough to keep gardening from being a totally frustrating experience. For example, the morning glories that showed up in my garden a couple of years ago. (Leftover from the previous owners, I think. Apparently, the flowers were waiting to see if I would be a good caretaker before they showed their pretty heads.)

Those first morning glories were dark purple with a sun-like shine in the center, but this year, for some contrary reason, they came in all shades of blue and purple. The blue could indicate a more alkaline soil, but the soil has always been alkaline (a leftover gift from ancient oceans).

Still, they seem healthy, glad to be alive, and preening before my appreciative eyes.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Telling the Difference Between a Flower and a Weed

September 3, 2026 — Pat Bertram

So, you want to know how to tell a weed from a flower. Come to think of it, you probably don’t. If you are a gardener, chances are you already know. If you aren’t a gardener, then you probably don’t care. Still, I came across two foolproof ways of telling the difference that I thought were both funny and apropos.

[Are we still allowed to say “fool” proof? Isn’t “fool” a derogatory term? Something that is foolproof is something that is safe even from the mistakes of a fool. I looked up synonyms — surefire and infallible would probably be better terms, unless, of course, I am talking about myself. And I do admit, I can easily be “fooled” by the various things that grow in my garden.]

Digression aside, one of the infallible ways of telling a weed from a plant is to pull up the plant in question. If it pulls up easily, it’s a flower. If it resists, it’s a weed. I can vouch for this bit of not-funny wisdom. There is a weed that grows copiously in my yard — leafy spurge. With roots that resemble large carrots, it cannot be pulled up. It must be dug up, and even then it’s hard to remove. A spurge weedkiller only partly damages the plant while killing all flowers in the vicinity. Oddly, another impossible-to-pull-up weed is a different plant from the same family. Instead of a carrot-like root, it has roots that spread underground while the leafy part grows above ground in a mat. The stems of this particular spurge are so thin that they cannot hold together enough to pull up the root. Luckily, a spurge killer will get rid of it, though again, the problem is that the poison also destroys all nearby vegetation.

The second way of telling if something is a weed is to cut everything down. What grows back will invariably be a weed.

Ironic, isn’t it, that supposedly the best way to tell if something is a flower rather than a weed is to destroy it.

The weeds that grow around here tend to replicate, so after a while, some identification is possible. Even though I can’t get rid of it, I can recognize both the mat-like prostrate spurge and the tall leafy spurge. (There are 2,000 different types of spurge. Yikes! Luckily I only have to deal with two of them.) I can also recognize the yellow wild mustard by its frilly leaves and the purple wild mustard by its horrible sour milk smell. And I know dandelions, of course, as well as a few of its relatives. Then there’s kochia, also known as fireweed and often confused with ragweed, that was brought here from Eurasia as an ornamental plant, but it’s pretty much taking over Colorado. Apparently, it likes our soil and climate (and doesn’t seem to care that the sentiment is not returned). It’s easy enough to recognize and pull up when it’s young, which is necessary because left to itself, it can grow up to seven feet. (The photo accompanying this post shows the kochia that once blocked access to my garage until I managed to dig it all up.) Though there are maybe only a dozen weeds that infect my yard (I got tired of listing them all) they are so ubiquitous, there might as well be thousands of them.

I better stop this — I’m just depressing myself with all this talk of weeds, which is funny since this was supposed to a rather humorous article about telling weeds from flowers. I guess I missed that target!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Spinning My Wheels

September 2, 2026 — Pat Bertram

During my years of studying grief, both from the inside and the outside, I learned that anger is not a stage of grief, but an integral part of the process. Since much of grief is visceral — a response to perceived danger — grievers experience a tremendous fight or flight hormonal upsurge. The panic they feel after the death of a life mate is a natural part of this survival mechanism; it alerts them to the danger of being suddenly alone. Anger is the other side of this mechanism, the part that generates the energy necessary to take action.

Sometimes anger is an emotional response, especially if there is a direct action that prompted the anger, such as a doctor who downplayed the seriousness of the loved one’s illness, taking from the griever the opportunity to say goodbye. Other times, even though that anger feels emotional, it’s strictly a physical response to the flood of hormones in the systems of grievers. Their minds scurry around trying to find a reason for how they feel because as rational beings, people cannot accept unfocused anger, so they search for a target, for a reason for the anger. People can always find a reason, which masks the truth that in many cases, the anger came first, and the reason for the anger second.

Listening to people haranguing others who have a different lifestyle or belief, I wondered if this same lesson I learned from grief could hold true in a wider context. In almost every discussion, people seem to descend into name calling rather than trying to find a common ground or to explain why they think the way they do. The hatred and anger is almost palpable, more so than if it were merely an act put on for the benefit of their peers.

Like with grief, could the anger have come first and then only later did that anger go in search of a target? I know that many younger people are angry with their lives and seem to want to tear down the country and the system they think created the situation, but the anger seems so over the top. Are they just angry and their political stance is what they chose as a target for that anger?

I also wonder if that anger is catching. I do know people who think alike tend to support each other in what seems to be folie à deux, so it could just be that they exacerbate each other’s inclinations. It could be that the anger makes them feel alive, drugged as they are on adrenaline, but it could also be something else. For example, the only times I got blindingly angry, ready to smash someone with a baseball bat, was when my bipolar brother would dump his anger on me, back when we were both stranded in California. Out of his presence, I was fine, but oh, that reflected anger was more than I could handle. Well, almost more. I did handle it, and we all survived that situation, but it sure was bizarre to experience especially since I tend to be a rather phlegmatic person.

None of this matters, I suppose. To be honest, little of what I write about matters since there’s nothing I can do about any of it, but here I am, spinning my wheels anyway.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Pretense

September 1, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It’s funny to think how often I’ve done this: sitting at my computer, staring at a blank “page,” trying to think of something to write about.

Nowadays, the problem isn’t so much what to write, but whether or not I want to write what’s in my mind, but still, whatever the reason, I am sitting here as I have so often over the nineteen years since I started this blog, just . . . staring.

You’d think this would be my prompt to forget about trying to blog every day, but then, what would I do with all the time I would have spent staring at the blank page? I’m already spending less time playing the hidden object game that once fascinated me and spending even less time reading news commentary articles, which leaves me with a lot of free time already. Giving up blogging would add even more free time to the free time I already don’t know what to do with.

Oddly, the days still pass quickly, perhaps because the early mornings are spent outside working on the yard, which takes at least a couple of hours. And then, of course, I need to get cleaned up and cooled down, and that adds to the gardening time or subtracts from the free time or whatever the math might be.

Periodically, I toy with the idea of not paying attention at all to the larger world (that is, the world larger than my own enclosed space) because really, it gains me nothing other than a deep-seated sadness at what I fear could be coming. (The fear isn’t irrational since the globalists and the sell-out politicians have been pushing us in a collective direction for more than a hundred years, but still, what good does it do me to give it mental space?) On the other hand, if I could forget about the outside world, I’d miss out on learning such things as “sciolistic.” What a lovely word! It was used by a cabinet member and refers to people who pretend to knowledge they don’t have, and that does describe too many of the folks in Congress. They seem to have perfected “pretense.” Not just the pretense of knowing what they don’t know, but also the pretense of working for the citizens they were elected to serve. (Too often the citizens they are serving are themselves.)

Of course, who am I to denigrate anyone for pretense, since here I sit, staring at the blank page (well, it’s not so blank right now, come to think of it), pretending for all the world I have something to say.

I suppose I should give myself credit for at least trying to say something, no matter how inane, but all that the effort really says is, “Look at me!”

And maybe that is good enough. Since I spend so much time alone, there’s no one to see me. Well, except for me, of course, and I’m not sure that counts as being seen. It also assumes that being seen is important. Perhaps it is. Though, of course, it could just be more pretense.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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My Mental Landscape

August 31, 2026 — Pat Bertram

“People will allow their faults to be shown them; they will let themselves be punished for them; they will patiently endure many things because of them; they only become impatient when they have to lay them aside.”— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I’m not sure which of the above quotes is the real one — I’ve seen both quoted and can’t find a definitive source. I suppose the difference could be in the translation, but either way, they basically say the same thing — that people are okay with being shown their faults and being blamed for them; they only resist when they are asked to change.

Does this still hold true today? It seems as if nowadays, no one admits to any fault. If they are shown what might be considered a fault, they not only fight the allegation of “fault,” but also insist on holding tight to that particular behavior in the belief that they can act anyway they want and to heck with everyone else.

I get the impression that today people are taught that they are perfect the way they are, and to a certain extent, I do believe that’s true since each person is uniquely themselves and beyond compare. But the problem with that idea is that it doesn’t give people any reason to try to improve, because why should they if they are already perfect? And without any incentive to better themselves, they can fall into a depressive state, because part of them — the part that needed the affirmation — still believes they fall short. A terrible thing to believe — that you are perfect, that you are the way you are and will always be that way because the truth is, no one really is perfect, and to believe otherwise seems to bring with it a whole lot of hopelessness.

(To be perfect in the eyes of God, as many people believe, is completely different than being perfect in one’s own eyes and in the eyes of others. It’s possible to accept a God-given perfection while at the same time accepting one’s human limitations.)

If, on the other hand, a simple word was added to the affirmation, it would make more sense. You are perfect the way you are for now. That way, you can celebrate who you are while you are doing your best to improve yourself. Being kinder, perhaps. Not being as self-absorbed, for sure.

This is all hypothetical, of course, because when it comes to me, I am perfect. Um, that’s a joke. Sort of. I don’t deal with perfections. I deal with today, and always today arrives with the attempt to do better than yesterday. Exercise more or eat better food or be less judgmental or clean house or whatever. Just something that makes me a bit more than I was yesterday, and perhaps a bit less than I will be tomorrow. On the other hand, if someone pointed out my faults, I would bristle, bite my tongue and try to ignore them. (Both the person and the faults.) I’ve always been my own worst critic, and since I do periodically clean my mental house and take stock of my emotional responses, I am wounded by criticism when it is heaped on me by others.

So, am I agreeing with Goethe or refuting him? I don’t know. I’m just wandering through my mental landscape, seeing what I can see.

 

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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