Being Noticed

July 12, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It rained the night before last, enough rain that not only did I not have to water yesterday, it was too muddy to work in the yard.

So I went for a walk. It felt good being out and about despite the heat and humidity, though I actually did more visiting during that hour than walking. First, I chatted with a neighbor who was thrilled with the almost two inches of rain, and then we moved onto other topics, such as theft. Solar garden lights are disappearing around town. Both of mine outside the fence went first, then someone came into my fenced yard and took one of my expensive solar lights, so I put the remaining light in the garage, where it will be safe. Useless, but safe.

Apparently, kids are stealing them to use as nightlights on their bicycles. Even if they were caught, no one would do anything about it. The sheriff, of course, couldn’t care, and the new local police force . . . actually, I don’t know anything about them other than that this town decided not to rely on the county anymore. And that they have brand new vehicles. I guess I should count myself lucky I have no information about them — it means I have no need of their services.

I continued my walk, and on the way back, as I paused to look at a tiny rosebush, a woman came rushing out of her house and said, “I’m so glad to see you’re okay.” I’d been introduced to the woman once, and had never spoken another word with her, but apparently, she’d noticed I hadn’t been out walking for a while. She mentioned that another woman, one I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen, had also been asking about me. It’s nice to know people notice and care, but the truth is, by the time they realized I was missing, my corpse could have been moldering in my house for months. But still, it is nice. And weird, too, in a way.

It’s funny — every time I go walking, I realize how much I miss it, but then something happens, like the ground drying out and my needing to do yardwork as it did today, and I never get a chance to get back in the swing of daily walking. But maybe. Someday. When it’s not hot. Or windy. Or cold. Or snowy.

Oh, who and I trying to kid. There’s always an excuse. But yesterday, I did take a walk, and it was nice.

***

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

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Keeping the Past in the Past

July 11, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s one habit that has improved your life the most?
View all responses

The one habit that has improved my life the most is training myself not to look back. What is done is done, and cannot be redone, so it’s best to look to today — what exists today — no matter how I got here, and then go on from here.

This philosophy was described to me using a golf metaphor. If your golf ball lands in the sand, you need to concentrate on the shot as it exists, not how you got there. At the time of making the shot, how you got there is immaterial. Only the conditions existing now are what counts.

Sometimes, of course, I do look back, or else I used to, but only to figure out what — if anything — I did wrong so that I wouldn’t make that mistake again. (In the case of the golf metaphor, the golfer can critique the fatal shot after the game is ended if the golfer so wishes.) Otherwise, the sand trap I am standing in (or the green I am delighting in) are the only things that need concern me.

A problem I’ve always had is what I call roundaboutation. It’s when my thoughts continually replay the past, a mental loop, always trying to come up with a different outcome. Unfortunately, that outcome is always the same because that outcome is . . . today. Getting rid of that mental loop and accepting that today is what counts in going forward (as the old cliché goes, today is the first day of the rest of your life) makes for a much more serene life.

Also, any problems can be looked at as simply themselves, not as what created them, not as what I wish had happened, but simply the problem itself without any backstory or history. It makes focusing on a possible solution less complicated because there’s not a lot of murky shoulda/woulda/couldas clouding the issue.

I wish I could teach people this lesson, especially those who so often refer to ancient wrongs committed by forebears, who think that because this country — like all countries — had a bloody and immoral past, it negates whatever good exists in the present. Concentrating on the past makes it easy to teach people to hate this country. If people could ignore the past, take today as it exists right now, where most of those situations no longer exist, figure out the direst problems today, and go from there, people would be much more accepting of the good. But no . . . grievance is about the past even more than the present or future, and a grievance culture needs the past.

Thinking of that is part of the sand trap for me. I need to concentrate on my own sand trap, not anyone else’s, even though their position on the sand trap might affect me.

Still, for serenity’s sake, today is the starting point — what is actually present in my life and what I can do, not what other people do that might (or might not affect me).

This serenity was hard won. I wasn’t able to slough off grief as so many people do. For me, for many years, my present was my grief (or do I mean my grief was my present?) Either way, I had to deal with all the burdens that came from losing that one special person (as well as my parents and brothers) until I could let go of the past. In fact, it’s those years of grief, way more than any golf metaphor that helped me. No matter how many times I replayed those last days, weeks, years, of our shared life, it always came out the same — him gone from this world. Me alone.

And that’s what I deal with. My life today. And it’s a good life.

As long as I leave the past in the past, anyway, and don’t create — or recreate problems that don’t exist today.

***

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

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All the World’s a Stage

July 10, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It’s only recently that I’ve become aware of politics as identity and identity as ideology. Somehow, I thought people were bright enough to stand apart from what they believed, to see themselves as a person believing a thing, not believing that they were the thing believed. But apparently not. When some people buy into a political ideology, they identify with that ideology, and when the ideology is attacked, they think that they themselves are being attacked, not just their idea.

I can’t imagine holding any idea so strongly that a destruction of that belief would destroy me, but that is not the case with a lot of people. Decades ago in a theology class, the teacher broke down everything we believed. His intent, if I remember correctly, was to make us rethink what we thought we knew. To get us to start building up a new way of thinking. Before he got to that point though, a student in the class got really upset, and told him he was destroying everything we believed without giving us anything to replace it. It was as if he had destroyed us, since those beliefs were the foundation of our lives until then, and most of the class were as upset as that one student, but it didn’t bother me. It was just something else to learn, is all. (As far as I was concerned, nothing I learned in school was ever about me. It was just the curriculum.)

To be honest, that’s the only thing about that class I remember. Well, there was one other odd thing that has stuck in my mind all these years. He taught that “Love is the movement of an appetite toward a recognized good.” (His exact words.) I think the discussion that day centered on the supposition that if this were true, then what we think of love is really like and vice versa. But the upshot of that class is lost in the shadows of time. Or rather, in the shadows of my mind. Odd that I remembered those two bits.

A more recent example comes from The Wheel of Time. In the books, there is a people, a warrior society, that takes their entire identity from their belief that they were always warriors, that what sets them apart from others and makes them morally superior is that they use spears rather than swords, their thinking being that spears can also be used for hunting while swords can only be used to kill other humans. When this ideology was proven false, a huge percentage of those people couldn’t handle it and ran away, not just from their culture but from themselves. (It often seems to me that these books are a brand-new allegory instead of a decades-old fantasy series.)

The odd thing is that the story of this warrior society helps me understand many politically motivated people today, while at the same time, these people today help me understand the people in this warrior society.

Another odd thing is that in the book, the chiefs of this society knew that the destruction of their beliefs and their people had been prophesied, but as a chief said, “It’s one thing to know prophesy will be fulfilled eventually, another to see that fulfillment before your very eyes.”

This statement certainly rings true to me. It’s one thing to spend a lifetime studying “prophesy,” aka history, both overt and hidden, and to know that one day we will be balanced on the knife edge of keeping our country a constitutional republic or turning into another sociologic cesspool, but seeing it happen before my eyes is . . . disheartening. It’s also weird to see all the political, global, and economic machinations that had been going on behind the scenes my whole life, suddenly appearing on stage as if it’s no big deal. I’d always presumed I’d be gone by the time this new world order would be put into effect, but it’s happening faster than I expected. I try to look at it as seeing history in the making — both the push toward socialism and the pushback of the republic — but it’s hard to continue to see it all as “out there.” It comes too close, at times.

Still, whatever happens, I will still be me. My identity is only as a truth seeker, not as a victim or oppressor. (And even “truth seeker” is only a surface identity. I am . . . me. Period. I am not my ideas. Not my writing. I’m just me. No further definition needed.) And, if I am being truthful, there is a chance I will never see the fruition of this current push since part of the “ideology” has always been to get rid of the old folks who are perceived by the young as using up too many resources without contributing anything.

But who knows. The curtain is up. The play is still going on, and we have yet to discover the plot.

***

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

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Lily Tree Forest

July 9, 2026 — Pat Bertram

When I first started thinking about a garden, I came across photos of a luscious flower called a tree lily, a hybrid between an Oriental lily and a trumpet lily. (For obvious reasons, they’re also known as Orienpet lilies.) I’d always thought lilies were a rarified flower that only professional gardeners could grow, but apparently not. I loved the idea of a lily tree forest, so I decided to take a chance, even though the bulbs aren’t cheap.

Some of the original bulbs never came up, so the next year I planted a few more. And a few more after that. A couple of years ago, the lilies started to grow tall and to bloom. And oh, how lovely those lilies are! Large than my hand, on stalks taller than I am, they manage to deal with the weather extremes of this area very well. Even the late frost didn’t do much damage.

My one nitpick with the plants is that they need to be staked to keep them from growing in crookedly, but how does one stake a six- or seven-foot plant? I do fine when they’re young with my 2-foot metal stakes and the three-foot bamboo stakes, but after that, they’re on their own. I could tie them to the fence, but it would take a lot of plant ties or twine, and I’m afraid I’d forget it was there and trip on it or decapitate myself. Well, not decapite, of course, but something unpleasant anyway.

Although the forest looks as if it’s a narrow swath, the tallest lily and the one most needing to be staked is six feet from the fence. Still, leaning or not, my lily forest is awesome. The plants are just starting to bloom, and since each has multiple flowers that bloom at different times, I will have lilies to enjoy for over a month. (The flowers on the lower left-hand side of the photo are purple magnus echinacea.)

It’s amazing what an amateur gardener can do with no expertise but a head full of hopes. I’m still an amateur, of course, but after five years of gardening, I do know a few things, such as water them, remove weeds and weedy grasses, and let them do what they want to do.

Luckily for me, what they want to do is . . . bloom.

***

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

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Betrayer of Hope

July 8, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What villain actually had a good point?
View all responses

In The Wheel of Time books, there are several villains, all with their own reasons for turning to the Shadow aka the Dark One. A music lover wanted to be able to make and listen to music forever, so he figured it was a good bargain. Some turned because they wanted immortality and power beyond imagining. A few turned because they were simply evil. And then there is Ishamael, also called the Betrayal of Hope.

In the prologue of the very first book, after a horrendous ten-year war, Ishamael tells “The Dragon,” (the defender of the light and the hero of the story):

“This war has not lasted ten years, but since the beginning of time. You and I have fought a thousand battles with the turning of the Wheel, a thousand times a thousand, and we will fight until time dies and the Shadow is triumphant!”

The Dragon is a man who was created to fight this eternal battle, though he doesn’t remember his previous lives. (Ishamael apparently does remember.) And since The Dragon never had a choice in the matter, he was just reborn at the proper time to fight the Shadow, I can only presume (on this reading, anyway), that Ishamael himself has no real choice in the matter, either, and was always born to fight the Light.

That’s assuming, of course, that Ishmael is telling the truth. One of the interesting aspects of the books is that each point of view character isn’t privy to the whole of the story, and sometimes they mistake what is going on. Another interesting aspect is how that world runs — the wheel of time keeps turning, and ages come and go and then come around again. Although there might be small variations each time, I get the impression that each age is pretty much the same as it was before.

Which means that these two men are fated to fight forever.

That is why Ishamael turned to the dark — the only way for him to get off the wheel, to end this terrible and terribly meaningless cycle, is to destroy the wheel, which, in his mind, means that the Dark One must be the winner of this eternal battle. Whether he saw this destruction as the ultimate act of mercy for the world or only for himself, isn’t clear. But still, to be stuck forever in a life he sees as futile, remembering fighting the same battle over and over again seems so very tragic.

Although some of the other minions try to kill the current Dragon Reborn at various times, Ishmael sometimes helps him stay alive because if the Dragon Reborn dies before the final battle, then Ishmael continues to be stuck forever in the endless cycle.

It makes me so very glad we live in a linear world, or at least we presume we do, where the past stays in the past and doesn’t come again. There is a fatalism to the books stemming from the wheel, where each age will be repeated when the wheel comes around again to that age again. Which also gives them their belief that you can change your life in small ways, but not large ones. Not an easy philosophy to live under.

Ishamael sees that fatalism, too, so unlike the other minions of the Dark One, he doesn’t seem evil, just driven to end the interminable cycle. And, in the world of The Wheel of Time, he has a good point.

***

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

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Where I Want to Live

July 7, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
View all responses

Ha! I bet you can guess my answer to this blog prompt!

Yep, it’s true. If I could live anywhere in the world, I would choose to live exactly where I am living now — in this tiny forgotten town, in my own house with my own yard and my own flowers, and friends that I seldom make the effort to see but know they are always there for me.

It’s taken me decades to get to this point, decades of uncertainty, sorrow, and fear of not being able to afford to live anywhere. This last is not an uncommon fear among women — even those with financial security worry about becoming a bag lady. In my case, the fear was exacerbated by the growing requirement of being able to pass a credit check when renting, and with my lack of any sort of credit rating, I simply did not know how I was going to navigate that morass. Assuming, of course, I wasn’t priced out of the market.

Exactly ten years ago today, I was feeling rootless, feeling suspended over an abyss with nothing to hang onto, worried as always about my uncertain future. At the time, I’d just returned from my cross-country trip and was staying in a fleabag motel. (Actually, it was a mosquito-bag motel. Eek.) I had no real reason to go back to that town, other than friends and dance class, but I had no place else to go. As I wrote back then: “I have looked at tiny windowless rooms scarcely larger than closets with a higher rent than the three-bedroom house Jeff and I lived in, gated communities that are merely fenced rooming houses, apartments with incredibly stringent requirements. . . . Maybe I don’t belong here in the desert. Maybe I don’t belong anywhere. But then what?”

A few years later, through a series of unexpected events, including an unasked-for email from Zillow showing me a place they said I might like though it was far from that desert town, I found my “then what.” Now here I am, living in the very house Zillow picked out for me, a house I once dreamed up.

I’m sure there are many wonderful places to live, places I might even like to live, but my days of looking beyond the perimeter of my own yard for something more are long gone. With any luck, this is where I will live out my years, with even greater luck, I might even be able to continue taking care of the place. (I still find it humorous that my goal when I got here was to have a care-free yard, and what I ended up with was a mini park that requires several hours of work each week.)

If I could tweak one tiny thing, it would be to have a wilderness walking trail nearby, but considering that I’m not as fanatical about walking as I once was (in fact, I seldom walk at all anymore), that missing trail isn’t as much of a lack as it used to be. The truth is, any outdoor time is spent in my yard. Just this morning, I went out for a quick tour to see how everything was holding up in this heat, and ended up trimming a bush, cutting back leggy yarrow, lopping the tops off New England asters to keep them from browning out, staking the tomato plant, and various other small chores.

Since I wasn’t planning on doing the work, I hadn’t doused myself with mosquito repellant, so I ended up with several new bites, but it’s all good. It’s all part of being at home in my own place, insects and all.

***

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

Posted in gardening, home, house, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 12 Comments »

Favorite Blogger

July 6, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
Who is your favorite blogger to follow?
View all responses

I always tend to bring everything back to myself. I hope that doesn’t make me seem as totally self-absorbed as I think it does, because the truth is, just about the only time do think about myself is when I am writing a blog post and need to figure out what to write about. And since what I know is me, that’s what I write about.

This blog prompt is no exception to my bringing everything back to myself. I check out a lot of blogs, and though I appreciate the bloggers, I hesitate to name any lest I hurt the feelings of those I leave out. The only one who does come to forefront as a special favorite is someone who disappeared from the internet, and who no longer answers his email. I worry about him, but have no way to find out what happened.

So, there’s no single person to list as a favorite blogger, except perhaps for me.

It’s not that I follow my own blog (unless one considers writing as following), but every once in a while, I come across one of my own blogs and think, “Wow. I didn’t know that,” when the truth is that I must have known it at one time to write about it.

My latest “didn’t know that” moment came when I was searching for . . . I don’t even remember what . . . and I came across a post entitled I Am an Escribitionist.

Huh? Escribitionist? I sure don’t remember ever hearing that word, and yet, there it is on this very blog.

To keep you from clicking on the above link (unless of course you want to), I’ll go ahead and tell you that escribitionists are those who blog about themselves, their experiences, and their reflections. It sounds like such a bad thing, connoting, as it does, exhibitionism, but it’s simply a way of distinguishing the diary-like bloggers from those who write from a more journalistic point of view.

Sometimes I do sink into a more journalistic point of view, especially lately when so much of the political scene seems to bring out the pedant in me, but for the most part, I just write . . . whatever.

I’d intended to write about that escribitionist post, and when I saw this blog prompt, I figured out it would be a good place to plug in my musings about my own blog, which pretty much proves that for better or for worse, I truly am an escribitionist, since it always does seem that I bring everything back to me.

And no, that’s not my cat. It’s my sister’s. She took this photo the last time I visited her.

***

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

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Orange You Glad

July 5, 2026 — Pat Bertram

When my little brother was small, three or four maybe, he was annoyingly smart. He’d ask if I wanted to play a particular game, and if I said no, he’d say, “I’ll let you win.” That’s how smart he was — he knew how to beat me (even though I was more than a decade older than he was) as well as figure out how to let me win. He also had an infectious laugh. He used to tell one of those knock knocks that kept repeating the refrain, and when he got to the punchline, he’d just laugh and laugh. I’d have to laugh with him, even though by the time he finished, I was sick of “bananas.”

You know the joke:

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? Knock, knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? Knock, knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn’t say banana again?

As I was sorting through the photos I took for today’s blog, I noticed that they were mostly yellow and orange, and it reminded me of that joke.

The flowers are no joke of course — they are a delight to the eye. My eye, anyway.

Although the spring flowers are gone, and the few summer flowers I planted — wildflower and dwarf zinnias — haven’t yet come in, there are a few flowers showing their colors.

Daylilies.

This shy pumpkin blossom.

A dainty cantaloupe blossom.

The first moss rose. My raised garden is filled with the greenery of flowers that planted themselves, but so far, there’s only this one yellow rose.

And then there’s this tree lily flower. I always thought lilies were an exotic flower, only able to be grown in special circumstances, so I was delighted when I found out I would be able to grow a forest of lily trees. (Lily trees are a hybrid of oriental and trumpet lilies, enormous flowers sitting stalks that grow to six feet or even more, and I have dozens of them yet to blossom!)

I realize this pink lily doesn’t fit with the color scheme of the rest of the blog, but orange you glad I posted it anyway?

***

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

Posted in gardening, life, photography. Tags: , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Happy Birthday, USA!

July 4, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Happy birthday, USA. Thank you for letting me live a part of your history.

You’ve made me who I am today, and for that — and for so many things — I am truly grateful.

***

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

 

Posted in being me, history/myth, life. Tags: , , . 2 Comments »

78 Degrees

July 3, 2026 — Pat Bertram

There’s not much to laugh about when it comes to socialistic energy restrictions, or even simply grids so old that such restrictions are necessary, but I do find the current 78˚ restriction in some places amusing. For most of my life, despite living in the intense heat of Colorado summers, I didn’t have air conditioning at all, so 90+ temperatures in the house weren’t that uncommon. I’ve also lived a couple of places with air conditioning, but the person in control of the thermostat blasted air into the room so icy that I had to close the vents.

Now that I have air-conditioning and control of the thermostat, I have it set at 80. Sometimes, if I’m hot, I’ll lower it to 79, especially since my “office” is the least cool room in the house, but usually the room fan works as well as lowering the temperature.

Even if this weren’t a temperature I could get used to, I’d probably do it anyway. During my years (decades!) of no air-conditioning, I learned that the warmer the inside temperature, the less impact walking out into the heat has on one’s system. Going from hot to a blasting air-conditioner or from refrigerated air to extreme heat can be dangerous. For most people, the physiological stress is brief, but for others, it can strain the heart and worsen cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. And even if it weren’t dangerous, it’s easier to adapt to the outside temperature when the difference isn’t so great.

Too be honest, though, if a communist mayor were to tell me to raise my thermostat to 78˚, I’d lower my usual temperature to that setting just as a rebellion.

Or maybe not. Paying out money I don’t have to make a point seems silly. And anyway, I prefer to be able to set the temperature to my preference even if it does fit into someone else’s agenda. Having the choice is something to celebrate, especially during this holiday weekend when we’re celebrating 250 years of freedom.

***

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

Posted in culture, dealing with old age, home, life, writing. Tags: , , . 6 Comments »
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