July | 2019 | Bertram's Blog

Housewifery

July 20, 2019 — Pat Bertram

People keep asking me if I’m writing, but . . . no, not to the extent that I’m actually putting words on paper (or what passes for paper in the computer world). I am still thinking of my next book, however, mentally putting together bits and pieces of my new life as a housewife (houseowner, actually, but it sometimes feels as if this house is a significant other, as if we’re married to death do us part).

I do have a victim for this potential book — someone I would like removed from my life: a fellow who plays his music way too loud too often, with the bass turned up (turned down?) so that it vibrates my windows and my brain pan, and can be heard for blocks away. (Someone said he’s letting his customers know his drug “store” is open.) Considering that he’s also been rumored to sell tools he’s stolen from a mutual neighbor, there would be a whole list of possible villains. (Though is it villainy if the doer gets rid of a neighborhood problem? Isn’t it more like pest control?)

But this vague musing is the only writing activity I’ve been doing. Mostly, I’m doing house things such as stuccoing over a doggie door, framing and painting a new door, and setting up solar lights. Ah, the things one does when it comes to the caring and feeding of one’s house!

The yard still holds a surprise or two. I woke the other morning to this little glory. It’s amazing anything can survive this heat, but some plants seem to like the area. Now I just have to find more things that can take care of themselves.

As for taking care of myself — I have days where I take care of myself and days when I don’t, but I am trying not to let the heat make me too much of a hermit. Yesterday I went with a couple of friends to see the Koshare Dancers — a pretty amazing troupe of dancers that tries to live up to the spirit of the native dances. And other excursions are in the planning stage. Oddly, considering that for years I spent hours every day roaming the desert, I seldom walk just to walk any more. Maybe when the house projects are coming to end, maybe when it cools off, I’ll be more likely to hoof it for the sake of hoofing it, but now, I merely walk for transportation — such as going to the library, to an occasional exercise class. Or to the hardware store. I’ve never before been on a first name basis with hardware store workers!

Such an adventure, this owning a house.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in life, writing. Tags: adventures in owning a house, housewife, married to a house, new house owner, planning a book, stucco patch, villainy or pest removal. 9 Comments »

Being Found

July 1, 2019 — Pat Bertram

During all the years of feeling lost after the death of my life mate/soul mate, I wondered how one restarted a life. I knew I couldn’t continue being a virtual nomad, knew I needed to go somewhere, but where? When you can go anywhere, how do you choose? And once you’re there, how do you start over?

Well, here I am, in the midst of my new life, and to be honest, I still don’t know the answer to my quandary. It’s as if I was lifted out of one life and plopped down in the middle of another, with no real transitional period.

Within just a few days of being in my new home, I made friends. Although many of the people I’ve met have lived in this area their entire life, they are not at all cliquish, but have welcomed me into their midst. And each acquaintance, each friend, has introduced me to others, so that I am building a strong base. It doesn’t seem as if I’ve been here less than four months. I’m right smack dab in the middle of . . . well, a life.

Recently, I ended up going on a train ride through the Royal Gorge sponsored by a senior group. The only way to see the gorge from below is by that train — the walls of the gorge are too steep to hike down, and at the bottom, there are only the engorged Arkansas River and the thin line of tracks.

As I was sitting on the train, staring out the window, I had a hard time making the mental adjustment from the desert to the river. It didn’t seem real. How did it happen, that such a short time ago, I was a somewhere else, and now I was here?

Mostly I don’t think about such things. I just go with the flow, though occasionally the miracle, the blessing of my current life — like the Royal Gorge — strikes me as being so very immense.

I once was lost, and now I have found myself living a life I could never have imagined. I always aspired to a simple life. Owning not much of anything.

I suppose in some ways I pictured my life as that Royal Gorge trip — traveling light, going with the flow, seeing what there is to see.

But the train stopped.

And now, when my peers are downsizing, I am upsizing. I never wanted to own a house — way too much responsibility! I never even wanted to own any furniture, and yet here I am, with a house full of furniture.

It makes me wonder how else the years of grief have changed me.

For the better, I would hope.

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