April | 2016 | Bertram's Blog

The Most Beautiful Place on Earth

April 7, 2016 — Pat Bertram

I visited Callaway Gardens on a perfect Georgia day. Warm. Cloudless. Soft breeze.

At the beginning, I wasn’t all that impressed. The place was scenic in a “seen it” sort of way. Roads meandering among wooded areas and around lakes. Golf course. Pastoral views. Then I reached the Overlook Azalea Garden, and oh, my!

Callaway Gardens calls the Overlook Azalea Trail the most beautiful place on earth, and although I would hesitate to agree — there are many spectacularly beautiful places all over the world and especially in the United States — the trail through the azalea garden is truly lovely. At times it seemed as if I’d wandered into an impressionist’s painting. Other times it seemed as if I’d turned a corner into a heavenly sent and heavenly scented eden.

I lucked out in that without planning it, my visit corresponded to the bloom season. Such beauty seems hard to fathom, but there it was, all laid out before me, as if the very earth were so glad I had come for a visit, it donned it’s loveliest raiment.

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(Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”)

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Posted in Adventure, life, photography. Tags: azalea garden, Callaway Gardens, most beautiful place on earth, Overlook Azalea Trail, visiting Georgia. 4 Comments »

Seduced by the South

April 6, 2016 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been struggling with allergies ever since I hit Florida, so when I discovered that I felt well driving after I left Amelia Island (outrunning the pollens that bedeviled me?), I kept driving.

I’d seen a picture on Facebook of Callaway Gardens near Pine Mountain in Georgia, and since Amelia Island was only a long days drive from Pine Mountain, I decided to head that way. I set my phone to Google maps and let Google lead the way. It took me through many small towns, some very lovely and oh, so southern, such as Euphaula, Alabama. (The tree-canopied highway swept past well-kept mansions, some with ornate gingerbread trim, some with classic columns.)

I’d planned to spend the night halfway, making it an easy two-day journey, but I didn’t see anywhere I particularly wanted to stay, and since I continued to be able to breathe easily, I kept driving. I was way too late to get a place in Callaway Gardens, but luckily I found a small motel in Pine Mountain. And what a find! White Columns Motel is family run, inexpensive, and has all the charm of a resort bed and breakfast. (In fact, they did fix breakfast for me after my good night’s sleep in a four-poster bed.)

I am now sitting in the sun on a swing outside my room, breathing azalea-scented air, basking under cloudless blue skies, bonelessly relaxed. A sporadic breeze blows away the flower scent and brings me the cool clear odor of pine from the forest behind me.

I suppose I should go visit the gardens as I had planned, but the swing has seduced me. I feel like a heroine in an historic novel, a southern belle with nothing to do but indulge my indolence. Luckily, I am not such a character, because after the indolence comes chaos (otherwise there wouldn’t be a story), and I am enjoying this moment far too much to have it interrupted with plotlines.

If you don’t hear from me in the next few days, don’t worry. I’ll still be here, letting the gentle movements of air and swing caress me.

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Posted in Adventure, life. Tags: azaleas, Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain Georgia, southern belle, southern heroine. 8 Comments »

Gator Aid

April 5, 2016 — Pat Bertram

The very word “swamp” makes me itch. Visions of marauding mosquitoes, clouds of black flies, and other inhospitable creatures come to mind, so I had no real interest in visiting Okefeenokee Swamp. Still, the swamp called to me before I had completely passed the entrance to the Okefenokee Swamp Park, so I cut across the highway and headed down the five-mile road. Part of this journey is about facing my fears, and I fear mosquitoes the way some people fear bees. The bites swell enormously at times, and often the site of old bites itch when I get a new bite as if to welcome the company. (I still have scars from all the bites I got last summer.)

I sprayed myself with the most natural bug spray I could find (some eucalyptus & lemon thing manufactured by Repel that Consumer Reports had found to be as effective as Deet) and hoped for the best.

About a mile in, I got caught behind a car parked in the middle of the road. Young boys were hanging out the window, so I glanced to where they were pointing.

Oh, my. Alligators!

I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me to look for alligators in the swamp, maybe because I hadn’t seen any in Florida, but it was a great thrill to see the beast less than ten yards from my car. Very respectfully, I got out of my car to take a photo, then continued to follow the car. Several other times those same boys aided in my spotting an alligator.

This wasn’t the first time I received such gator aid — at Davis Bayou, I was taking a photo of a heron when a woman walking her dog came and pointed out the alligator all but hidden in the mud a few feet from the bird.

I’ve always known I wasn’t observant (I’d be one of those witnesses to an accident who wouldn’t be able to tell you the color of the cars or even the victims), so I was glad of the help in getting attuned to looking for the prehistoric creatures until I could find them for myself.

Almost as big a thrill as seeing the alligators was seeing the lily pads with blooming flowers.

On my way out of the park, I again stopped by the side of the road. No alligators, but I did see turtles sunning themselves on a log. (They were shy and slipped into the water before I could take a picture.) In the quiet, I heard a long low call, too gutteral to have been a bird, but I never discovered what sort of creature made the noise.

The lovely outing was made even lovelier by the lack of mosquito bites. I can’t verify the efficacy of the spray I used because to tell the truth, I didn’t see or hear a single mosquito.

Still, I am just as glad I didn’t hang around until dusk so the day-shy denizens of the swamp could find me.

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Posted in Adventure, life, photography. Tags: alligators, blooming lily pads, Okefenokee Swamp, Repel, unobservant. 5 Comments »

Turtle Time

April 3, 2016 — Pat Bertram

I have spent the past three days on Amelia Island, taking walks and resting. I’ve been fighting a cold or a sinus infection. I don’t know which — sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. All I know is that I’ve been congested, enervated, and had a tendency to crankiness. Even worse, I haven’t been feeling the thrill of this journey. In my defense, it’s hard to be wide-eyed with wonder for weeks on end (eight weeks so far!), especially if one is fighting to breathe.

Still, this has been a lovely place to roam around — walks on the beach and hikes through Egan’s Creek Greenway, a 300-acre nature preserve. On all those excursions, the biggest joy, besides the lovely scenery of course, was catching glimpses of turtles. Often they were shy and slipped into the water before I could get a photo, but a couple of times they stopped and pretended to be rocks. One fellow even posed for me.

Despite signs warning about the presence of alligators, I didn’t get to see one. The rustling in the bushes that I thought might be an alligator turned out to be a rabbit, but I did see a lot of dragonflies and one lone cardinal.

My idyll on Amelia Island is coming to an end. Tomorrow I head into Georgia. I hope I can ditch the crankiness and muster the enthusiasm necessary to make the most of the opportunity. There is so much to see and experience and be grateful for.

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Posted in Adventure, life, photography. Tags: allergies, Amelia Island, Egan Creek Geenway, feeling cranky, turtles, wide-eyed with wonder. 11 Comments »

The Difference Between Today and Some Future Tomorrow

April 1, 2016 — Pat Bertram

I was talking to a woman about grief today, and I realized something. It doesn’t get better, it gets different, and in that difference, we can find happiness again.

Easter Sunday marked the sixth anniversary of my life mate/soul mate’s death, and except for a brief acknowledgement of the day, it passed without incident. No tears, no upsurge of sorrow. Just . . . difference. I’m different, I think. (It’s hard to know for sure — I can barely remember what I was like back then, barely know what I am like now.) But for sure my life is different.

At the moment, I am in Florida, staying a couple of blocks from the beach, visiting a woman I had never even heard of a week ago. (Oddly, because of my blog, she knows me very well.) It doesn’t even seem strange to me, this almost blase attitude when it comes to visiting strangers, though I am sure that in my more cautious days, such behavior would have appalled me. But I have learned that unlike other authors, I don’t have fans — I have friends. Most of those friends are as yet unmet, as yet unheard of, but friends nevertheless. It is our shared sorrow, our shared determination to find renewal after a devastating loss that connects us. Because of this, there has never been even a moment of discomfort when I do finally meet these friends.

The difference for me, the difference that allows me to find happiness despite my missing him, is a willingness to embrace life no matter what it brings. To accept myself without censure. To simply be wherever I am or who I am with.

As the years continue to pass, when the seventh, tenth, fifteenth anniversary comes, there will be more differences. More opportunities for happiness.

For those of you new to grief’s journey, I hope you will find comfort in knowing things will not always remain the same, that in the difference between today and some future tomorrow, you will find joy again.

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