Pat Bertram

Cleaning Off My Desk

December 23, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I’m cleaning off my desk, sorting through the accumulation of the past few years in preparation for my eventual move, and I came across a stack of notes I’ve been saving. I’m not sure what I’ve been saving them for since I haven’t looked at most of them in more than a year, and in many cases have no idea why I have the notes.

For example, I have several snippets of paper with kickstarter.com on them, and one for fundRazer. Apparently at one time I considered crowd funding, but have no idea what I was planning on funding. And one for this fascinating website: http://venusfebriculosa.com/

I found a note to myself: If it isn’t important, make it important. I have a tendency to discount things that aren’t important, and since there’s not much that is important, I end up with nothing. And I want to/need to end up with something. It’s a good reminder, but doesn’t do me much good if I never look at the note.

One paper simply says embrace/remembrance. Apparently I was struck by the similarity of these words, and intended to write a blog post about them, but whatever I planned to say is lost in the far recesses of my magpie mind.

I have a more recent note for bardo/vardo. Within a couple of days, I heard both words, and considered doing a blog post about them, but couldn’t find a way to connect the two since their meanings are so disparate. Wikipedia says the term “bardo” refers to the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one’s next birth, when one’s consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena. These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one’s previous unskillful actions. For the prepared and appropriately trained individuals the bardo offers a state of great opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality, while for others it can become a place of danger as the karmically created hallucinations can impel one into a less than desirable rebirth. Yikes. Vardo is much more pleasant — it’s one of those lovely and colorful gypsy wagons. Maybe one can use a vardo to escape bardo.

I found a list of typos I’ve made that sounded interesting, perhaps to use for a character who makes up her own words. Wrod, swampled, fits like a glow, friendshop, wold (for some reason, every time I try to type wolf, it ends up as wold), fung, Zmas (instead of Xmas)

A couple of notes about characters — figure out what they regret and what they are proud of. Also, what do they win by losing and what do they lose by winning.

This little ditty to promote Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story, that I never used:
In the desert
The quiet desert
A killer lurks tonight.
In the desert
The quiet desert,
Riley dies tonight.
In the village,
The peaceful village,
No one sleeps tonight.

And quotes:

Life is a myth we tell ourselves.

Everything I’m not makes me everything I am.

Be like thunder — be dangerous and unpredictable and make a lot of noise.

Surprise yourself. Don’t assume you know everything there is to know about your life.

You are a splendid butterfly. It is your wings that make you beautiful. And I could make you fly away, but I could never make you stay.

And finally, just these words on a paper The Symphony of a Life Gone By. That was the title of a blog post I wrote three years ago that I’d forgotten about, and when I came across it by chance, I was so struck by the post’s beauty that I wanted to remember it.

Well, now that I’ve made a note of these notes, I can just as easily not read them on this blog as I could on the scraps of paper.

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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.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: bardo, be like thunder, interesting typos, notes, Rubicon Ranch: Riley's Story, splendid butterfly, vardo. 4 Comments »

It’s a Must-Eat-Must World

December 22, 2014 — Pat Bertram

It seems as if lately I’m running into a lot of “must”s that do nothing but make me want to head in the opposite direction. This is not a “must” world. No one knows for sure why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing, otherwise there would be no religions, no philosophies, no psychologies, no debates of any kind. We would all simply do whatever it is that we must, and that would be that. There are certain things that we take as musts, such obeying laws, paying taxes, nourishing ourselves, but even those aren’t musts. We don’t have to do them, though there are consequences if we take that risk.

Since this is a mustless world, we have to make it up as we go along, and none of us has the right to thrust our musts on anyone else.

For example, someone I’ve done some online work for tells me I must not be negative and tell him something won’t work or that I don’t know how to make it work even if I know what I say is true. And yet, when I asked a woman who manages the management company that manages the office space of such high profile companies as Amazon and Google if she would consider such an assessment to be negative, she said no. That she valued honesty in her employees. That if she knows what doesn’t work, she can head in a different direction and find something that does work. Yes! Exactly. One person’s must not is another person’s must.

Then there is this quote I saw today from Stephen King. He wrote: “You can approach the act of writing with excitement, hopefulness, even despair. You can come to the act with fists clenched and eyes narrowed. You can come to it to change the world. Come to it any way you want but lightly. You must not come lightly to the blank page.” Must not? Must not? Who is he to say what I must or must not do? For some of us, coming lightly to the blank page is the only way we can entice those shy ideas and bashful words to come out to play.

And worst of all, I recently saw a T-shirt with a a picture of santa claus (Not a typo. I’m purposely demoting him/it to a state of non-capitalization) and the words, “You must believe.” Must believe? I don’t think so. In fact, because of this thrust to make me believe in something so patently absurd, I no longer have any affection for the creature at all.

In a recent advice column, a woman wrote “When I have kids, I don’t want to do the whole “Santa” thing. I’d rather tell them about the real St. Nicholas and what it means to give rather than to receive. Even though I’m not religious, I’ll tell them about the birth of Jesus (even though he wasn’t born in December), and tell them about the winter solstice.” Sounds admirable to me, but her friends told her she was a scrooge for taking her children’s innocence away, which is why she wrote to the columnist for another opinion. The overwhelming online response was that such a woman shouldn’t have children. Even those who agreed she had a right to her stance suggested that “just for fun” she wrap a couple of small presents and put them under the tree “from santa.”

What the hell is going on in the world? Aren’t there more important things to worry about than a must belief in santa claus? The world takes away children’s innocence by starving them, by making them old at a young age (no more dolls for preteens except hooker-like dolls), by creating fearful atmospheres in schools, by television programs that show them things no child should ever have to see, and yet, oh yes, we must make sure they believe in a mythical creature to keep what innocence is left. Cripes.

So, let’s make a pact for this coming year. I won’t must you, and you don’t must me.

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Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: must believe in Santa Claus, must not be negative, Stephen King on writing, taking away children's innocence, the act of writing. 9 Comments »

Happy End of the Creeping Darkness!

December 21, 2014 — Pat Bertram

6:03 pm ET marked this year’s winter solstice, ending the creeping darkness. “Solstice” comes from two Latin words, sol meaning “sun” and sistere meaning “stationary” because on this day, in the northern hemisphere, the sun seems to stand still, as if garnering it’s strength to fight back the darkness.

Technically, the winter solstice marks the moment when there is a 23.5-degree tilt in Earth’s axis and the North Pole is at its furthest point from the sun — from here on, the days will get longer, gaining us an additional 6 and 1/2 hours of sunlight per day by June 21st when the days begin to get shorter again. (This is reversed in the southern hemisphere, so today those down under will be celebrating their summer solstice.)

Though neo-pagans have claimed the solstice for their own, this is one of those natural holidays (holy days) that we all should be celebrating. The end of the lengthening nights. The triumph of light over darkness. We don’t even need the metaphors of light=good and dark=bad to find reason to celebrate this day. It’s simply a day of stillness, of hope. A day to give thanks for the promise that even in our darkest hour, light will return.

My celebration was simple. I lit my bowls of light and went outside and toasted the pale winter sun with champagne. Well, it was really sparking apple/pear cider, but the sun didn’t seem to care. It slid beneath the cloud-shrouded mountains without even a wink or a nod to acknowledge my obeisance. But it will return with greater strength tomorrow. And so will I.

Wishing you a bright and hopeful end of the creeping darkness.

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Posted in culture, history/myth, life. Tags: holy day, natural holiday, solstice, triumph of light over darkness, winter solstice. 3 Comments »

If you Like Science Fiction …

December 20, 2014 — Pat Bertram

My friend and fellow author Dale Cozort, a brilliant scientist/historian who delights in playing with alternate histories, is taking part in the Kindle Scout program. I hope you will consider nominating Dale for his new science fiction book Snapshot. Dale explains:

I’ve been working on the Snapshot universe for over five years. I think it’s a spectacular idea. Here is what it’s about:

For eighty million years, the Tourists have been taking Snapshots of Earth, exact replicas of continents. Each Snapshot goes into its own snow-globe-shaped artificial universe. Snapshots are connected like a string of pearls by vents high over their oceans.

Snapshot people and animals quickly diverge from the real world, creating a universe where humans and animals from much of Earth’s history explore, fight and sometimes meet themselves. In October 2014, the Tourists take a North America Snapshot, cutting everyone in that copy off from the real world, but letting them fly to Snapshots where dinosaurs roam, where Indians rule North America or where Soviets or Nazis rule Europe. They may also confront the menace that lurks on the other side of a wind-swept Antarctic Snapshot.

This new Snapshot catches Middle East Analyst Greg Dunne rushing toward Hawaii to join his wife, his unborn sons and his extended family at a family reunion. The Snapshot doesn’t include Hawaii, so it cuts Greg off from everyone he loves. It also thrusts him into the aftermath of a hidden, decades-old massacre, part of a struggle between Germans from a pre-World War II European Snapshot and ranchers from Korean War-era US-53 Snapshot. The prize: a thinly settled North America-sized Madagascar Snapshot, much like the Wild West or the Australian outback. Whoever controls the Madagascar Snapshot controls communications between dozens of Snapshots.

Greg struggles to survive in this cutthroat reality, to remain faithful to a family he may never see again and to find a way back to his original Earth. He is caught between powerful opponents. A rancher who rode a hidden massacre to almost unchallenged political power faces the only survivor of that massacre, a woman driven nearly insane by the experience, but now in her own position of power, plotting revenge.

Snapshot is a fast-paced story of power and revenge set in a unique, marvelously rich universe.

If this story interests you, please nominate Snapshot for Amazon’s Kindle Scout program. It’s a quick process: Click the link https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/332ZJ8YN22MIT, click ‘nominate me’ and you’re done. If Dale’s book is selected, you get a free e-book copy. Sounds good to me!

If the direct link doesn’t work for you, go to https://kindlescout.amazon.com/, then scroll down to the science fiction and fantasy section and scroll left or right until you find Snapshot.

And oh, if you like science fiction, please check out my novel Light Bringer.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire,andDaughter 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.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in books, internet. Tags: alternate histories, Dale Cozort, Kindle Scout, science fiction, Snapshot. Leave a Comment »

It’s Christmas, Not Santamas

December 19, 2014 — Pat Bertram

J. Conrad Guest, author of A Retrospect In Death and A World Without Music (plus several other books) just posted a blog about tolerance, and how there seems to be so little of it, especially now during the Christmas season.

Guest wrote: I’ve long remained publically mute on the subject of Christmas, but this year I voice my opinion. You’re offended that I celebrate Christmas as the birth of a Messiah. You tell me he is but a myth. I have news for you. Santa isn’t real. He doesn’t make toys at his home at the North Pole, nor does he circle the globe on Christmas Eve to deliver toys down the chimneys of billions of people—many who don’t have chimneys. I don’t push on you my belief in God, even though, in my mind, there is a greater chance that He exists than does Santa. But go ahead, put up on your front lawn your inflatable Santa, and the sleigh and reindeer on your roof. I can tolerate that, even if you can’t tolerate the nativity scene on my lawn, and petition City Hall to make me take it down.

His words struck a chord with me. I get annoyed with having to pander to the intolerant at this time of year. It’s CHRISTmas, for cripes sake. That’s the whole point of the day. No matter what non-Christians are trying to make us all believe, the day is not Santamas. I am sick of the constant message that we must believe in Santa Claus, sick of having that stupid myth foisted on me, sick of the eternal seesawing there is/isn’t a Santa Claus. If people are so willing to accept Santa as an icon of the season (an icon who so obviously isn’t real) then what difference does it make to them if some people use crèches or some other image to personify the day? Crèches are the spirit of the day and more fitting than santas and elves and those stupid flying reindeer. Taking that red-suited image to the height of absurdity, a neighbor has a nativity scene with a Santa praying over the baby. Huh?

I simply don’t get it. Since the non-Christian world adapted a Christian holy day for their own, then they cannot complain about the religiosity. (Supposedly the Christians co-opted a Roman holiday, so it’s ironic that the same thing is happening again but to Christians this time.) Sometimes when I see one message too many about how we can no longer say, “Merry Christmas” because it offends some people, I just want to scream, “Get over it, folks, It’s CHRISTmas. If you don’t like it, start your own damn holiday.”

The Santa myth is particularly odious since the obese gent so obviously favors the rich. It makes poorer kids feel bad that they weren’t good enough to get the rich-kid stuff they wanted. And why engender a belief in such a ridiculous myth in the first place? I knew a guy who fought in Vietnam. There they were at Christmas, hunkered down on some God-forsaken hill that they had just taken for the second or third time. They got to talking about the most disillusioning moment in their lives, and almost all of them said it was when they found out there was no Santa Claus. Why are people still perpetuating such a lie and for no particular reason?

Oops. Sorry. Didn’t mean to get on my soapbox, but as I said, J. Conrad Guest really hit a chord. Wishing you all a tolerant and happy Christmas season.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, andDaughter 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.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in culture, history/myth. Tags: believing in Santa, J. Conrad Guest, Santa, Santa isn't real. 4 Comments »

Letter to Jeff, Day 432

December 18, 2014 — Pat Bertram

Hi, Jeff.

Just in case you really are somewhere, I wanted you to know I haven’t forgotten you, still miss you, still wish there could have been a better resolution to your health problems than death. But what do I know? Maybe death was the best resolution. I’m not sure I see much hope of things working out for me, but I am trying. I’m getting out and doing things. It still seems as if the only way I can make sense of your death (from my perspective) is to do things I wouldn’t have done if you were alive.

I took a trip along Route 66 with some friends, which was fun. I kept a soda bottle for a souvenir. “Route Beer.” Tasted like plain old root beer, but I thought the name was cute. I’ve been going to lunch about once a week, sometimes after the grief group, sometimes with a couple of women I met there. I’m not sure I like the women, but for now, it’s enough that they like me. Yep. I’m that starved for affection.

In a couple of days, I’ll have been here a year looking after my dad. Who knows how much longer it will be. Maybe years. And then after? I truly don’t know.

I feel so hypocritical with all this grief — I wanted the horror of our life to be over, but I didn’t want you dead. Ironically, if you hadn’t been dying, I wouldn’t have wanted our life to be over, but the truth is, I wanted your dying done with. The stress was incredible for me, so I can only imagine how much worse it was for you.

My dying is still to come. It scares me to think of having to deal with infirmities alone, though I think it will be easier knowing that my death will not grieve anyone the way yours did me.

Did I tell you? I finally and forever understand what you mean by the pilot light of anger. I don’t want to be consumed by anger, but a quiet pilot light to keep me going, that is important. I can’t simply accept what life did to us — it’s not right. Maybe the universe is unfolding as it should, as people tell me, but from my standpoint, here and now, I need that pilot light. Maybe it will be a “pilot” taking me where I need to go, though I don’t know where that would be.

Part of me wants to find someone so I don’t feel so alone, but I’m not ready for that. It’s a matter of learning to deal with the loneliness. I lived with it before I met you, and I imagine I’ll learn to live with it now that you’re gone. I hope wherever you are that you aren’t lonely. I hope you’re not in pain. I hope you’re delighting in being free of that diseased body. I still have your ashes. I wish we could talk about what I should do with them. I wish we could talk about what I should do with my life. I wish . . . oh, so many impossible things.

I love you. Take care of yourself. I’ll try to take better care of me.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, 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.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in grief, life, writing. Tags: aloneness, being alone, lessons of grief, letter to the dead, living alone, loss of a soul mate, writing to the dead. 4 Comments »

Raining Deer

December 17, 2014 — Pat Bertram

This is the season where deer seem to rain down on us by the bucket loads, where they reign in various decorations, where they are often seen yoked together by reins.

You’d think reindeer would refer to those reins but the “rein” part of reindeer comes from the old Norse word for the creature: hreinn, so a literal translation of reindeer is actually “reindeerdeer”.

Reindeer used to run wild in Britain, but became extinct long before the Celts and Anglo Saxons showed up. Now they live primarily in the Arctic tundra and northern boreal forests (boreal seems to mean just south of the arctic, but I don’t guarantee that definition.)

But where did the idea of flying reindeer come from?

Some folks have postulated that while reindeer don’t make the fabled winter trip, people do. Donald Pfister, a biologist who studies fungi at Harvard University, suggests that Siberian tribesmen who ingested fly agaric may have hallucinated into thinking that reindeer were flying. Making a correlation to Santa is the idea that Shamans in the Siberian and Arctic regions dropped into locals’ teepeelike homes with a bag full of hallucinatory mushrooms as presents in late December, and since the doors of these places were often blocked by snow, the shamans came down the smoke holes. Add to that mix the fact that the mushrooms were red with white trim (spots, not fur) and the possibility of the shamans taking on reindeer spirits, you have a story not exactly fit for children. But it could explain why Santa lives at the North Pole — that’s where the story originated. (I always thought he lived there because if he lived anywhere else, Denver, for example, it could be easily proven that there is no Santa Claus.)

In 1821, the first known reference to flying reindeer found its way into the Santa myth (an interweaving of St. Nicholas and the Dutch Sinterklaas). The author of the poem “A New Year’s Present, to the Little Ones from Five to Twelve Number III” was kept a secret, but the editor of the piece claimed the author heard from his mother, an Indian of the area, that reindeer could fly. (“ ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” was published in 1923.)

Well, I hung my stocking by the chimney with care (I had to, otherwise it would have fallen down), though I have no hope that some red-suited fellow will soon be filling it. In fact, I hope he doesn’t. Would scare me half to death to see a stranger inside this house.

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Posted in culture, history/myth. Tags: flying reindeer, myth of the flying reindeer, origin of reindeer, sinterklaas. 3 Comments »

Bowls of Light

December 16, 2014 — Pat Bertram

When I was sorting through some of my things in preparation to packing them and putting them in storage, I found a whole slew of Christmas lights. It seems ridiculous to store the lights considering how cheap they are, wasteful to throw them away, and silly to drag them to a thrift shop, so I decided to use them up. I put bowls full of lights all over the house, and oh! What a festive air!

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Posted in culture, life, photography. Tags: bowls of lights, jar of lights, lights. 8 Comments »

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

December 15, 2014 — Pat Bertram

Who knew that snow is a tourist treat? I sure didn’t! I have mostly lived in a cold climate where snow happens wherever you are, but in the desert, where I have temporarily found myself, snow is so rare that people will drive many miles to see it.

And that is exactly what a friend and I did yesterday — drove almost a hundred miles round trip just to see the whiteness and throw a snowball or two. A lovely sight!

Below is a photo of the Pacific Crest Trail. Now you can see why people are concerned about beating winter when they through hike — it’s too easy to lose the trail under all that snow, and besides, it’s cold!

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Posted in life, photography. Tags: going to see snow, Pacific Crest Trail, PCT, snow, tourists. 6 Comments »

Searching for the Wild Snow

December 14, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I’m getting ready to head out and go searching for the wild snow.

Once upon a time, perhaps thirty years ago, more than two feet of snow fell in the desert, but I’ve only seen flurries a couple of times since I’ve been here, and whatever stuck to the ground disappeared as soon as the sun came out. So, when a friend invited me to go snow hunting, I gladly accepted. Snow!! Out here, where it seldom even rains, snow seems a mythical phenomenon. Dare I believe?