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
A few weeks ago, I burned a pan. It was the whole circus — smoke everywhere, screaming smoke alarms, me running around pulling the pan off the stove, opening windows, turning on fans. So fun! Well, no. I’m being facetious. It was the opposite of fun. One of the worst things for me is that because of Colorado laws regulating placements of smoke alarms, I have four within a few feet of each other — one outside the kitchen, one in the hall, one in each bedroom. All those alarms would make sense if my house was bigger but considering that all the rooms open into a very short hallway, it makes no sense at all. Especially since my overly sensitive nose detected the smoke before the alarms. But sheesh! The noise that all four of those alarms make at the same time is enough to deafen any post that wasn’t already deaf.
I had to toss the pan. There was just no way to clean it. I blamed myself for the mess, of course, because there’s no one here but me, but I didn’t think I was that negligent. That made the situation worse — thinking that perhaps I was losing it, whatever “it” is. My mind? My focus? My reactions?
Anyway, I bought a replacement pan, the same brand because I liked that pan. And what do you know — the first time I used it, the same thing happened. Smoke. Alarms. Running around opening windows and turning on fans. And again, I had to toss the pan. So, when it came time to buy a new one, I got a different brand. I don’t like the pan as well, but at least, I wasn’t burning it, though it did seem to heat up mighty fast and cook quickly, so I had to stand over it to make sure everything was okay.
A couple days ago, I briefly heated the pan with a touch of butter, poured in beaten eggs, and those eggs cooked immediately. I mean, ready to eat in seconds.
Then it finally dawned on me: the problem wasn’t the pans. Nor was the problem me. The problem was the stove. The element heated up and kept heating up, and I realized then that it had lost its ability to regulate the temperature.
I called my appliance insurance people. I didn’t expect anything because the last time I called them about an appliance, they told me they didn’t cover that sort of appliance anymore. I’d argued, mentioning that my insurance was up to date and that I’d never got a notification of any cancellation, but to no avail. As it turned out, they’d discontinued it just the week before. Yeah, typical.
So I was surprised when they came out the very next day, agreed with me that the rheostat was shot, said they’d order one and would be back the next day. And they were. Yay! Now I have to get used to the stove all over again because it heats up a lot slower than it had been.
I’m sure I paid way more in insurance than the bill would have been, but I got the insurance for someone to call, sort of like having someone on a retainer. The closest repair people are in the next town over, and they’ve never returned any of my calls — hence the insurance.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this or why I’m chronicling this episode. There’s certainly no moral to be gleaned, no real point to the story, but it is part of the “day in the life of” series of posts I used to do before I got sidetracked into paying attention to what’s going on in the world.
Luckily, my stove story had a happy ending. It’s the sort of thing that could have ended with a burning house and me out cold from smoke inhalation. I’m grateful that it wasn’t my mind giving up on me that caused the problem. Grateful to know my response time is still good. Grateful to know that my insurance wasn’t cancelled the week before. Grateful for a lot of things. Which, perhaps, is the point of this essay after all.
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
Today is the first day of summer, and I’m still not acclimated to Daylight Saving Time. It’s too light too late for my body to understand what it’s supposed to do. Usually in the early evening, even before the sun has set, the day is winding down into a gentle twilight, not being revved up by a continuing glare. I’m sure this has always been the case at the beginning of summer, but in previous years, either I didn’t notice the light, or I unconsciously made the physical adjustments.
Not this year.
This year the clues as to what I’m supposed to be doing at the close of day are all wrong. Is it late afternoon? Early evening? Almost night? I don’t know. Of course, a clock would tell me the truth — or at least the way it sees the truth — but the light cues don’t bother to tell me to look at the clock.
Oh, well. This certainly isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me — not even close. Nor is it the most confusing. It is, however, a bit puzzling since I had no idea I’d ever even experienced “light cues.” At least not in the summer. In winter, of course, when it gets dark at 4:30, it’s obvious that I need to turn on lights, wind down, gradually end the day’s activities.
I suppose this could be another of those weird signs of age, like getting up to do something and forgetting to do it or not adjusting to outside forces as quickly as I once did. (Outside forces being weather or variable inside temperatures or interruptions or any of a number of things that never used to faze me.)
I’m not complaining, at least I don’t think I am. I’m just making an observation. Of course, by the time I get used to this late evening glare, the creeping darkness will have begun to do its thing, and I’ll be complaining about how quickly it gets dark.
But that’s my prerogative. (Hey! I spelled it correctly! For some reason, for most of my life, I thought the first syllable was spelled “per,” and frankly, without spellcheck I probably would never have discovered I was spelling the word wrong.)
Anyway, despite the confusing light cues, I’m doing okay. As is my yard. No swaths of sunburnt grass or plants yet. I’m hoping the weather folk are right about this being an El Nino year and we actually get a monsoon season for a change. That would be lovely. Still, whatever happens, today is the beginning of a new season with all its possibilities.
Happy first day of summer!
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.
I’m not sure what misconceptions people have about happiness since I don’t know how they perceive happiness.
I do know that happiness is elusive. If we go chasing it, we don’t always find it. If we stop chasing it, happiness often finds us. And even if happiness doesn’t find us, there are other things that are just as important: contentment, being at peace, meeting challenges, living a meaningful life, making a difference to someone, helping others find happiness, creating something, growing a garden.
Sometimes, too, not being particularly happy is a proper response. Most reasonable people, in a tornado, try to get out of the wind, not revel in the devastation. Most reasonable people do not revel in misfortune, theirs or others. And, unless laughter is one’s way of dealing with anything intense in life, unhappiness during a time of grief is an entirely appropriate and reasonable response.
Neither happiness nor unhappiness is a constant state. Both are in flux and either can change in a moment. And so can one’s perception.
Studies have indicated that happiness is found mainly in retrospect. For example, happy children don’t know they are happy. They simply are. It’s only later, when they look back, perhaps after a terrible time in their adult lives, that they realize they had been happy in their early years. For another example, when someone is involved in a challenging situation that takes all their time and energy, they don’t realize until later they were happy. In fact, often while going through this situation, people thought they were decidedly unhappy.
Think of some of the happy times in your life. Back then, were you aware you were happy? Chances are, you were involved in living and didn’t bother to stop to think how you were feeling at the moment. You just lived. Not pursuing happiness as such, just simply living with whatever happiness came your way.
Oddly, happiness can also be found in anticipation. When a person is going through a difficult time, sometimes they get through the days by looking ahead to future happiness. Those who are grieving can hope for a time when joy might come again. If work is difficult, people can find happiness in planning a vacation.
In other words, happiness is not generally found in the present; it’s a construct of both the past and the future, which seems to make happiness irrelevant to the present.
Perhaps oddly, I have never considered happiness something to pursue. Even before I realized happiness was something lived in retrospect, I never thought it was relevant. I thought other things were more important. Trying to be a good person, for example. Doing the best I could for myself and others. Learning, for sure — I have always pursued knowledge, have always searched for a deeper truth.
I wasn’t happy very often, but it didn’t seem to matter. In fact, being not happy (neither happy nor unhappy) is my default state, so perhaps I’m not the best person to be blogging about happiness.
Still, having said all this, whatever your conceptions of happiness are, I hope you find what you are looking for.
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
One way I have grown this year? Older. I’ve grown older. I don’t really feel any older than I did a year ago, but there is one indication of that growth: some things don’t heal as fast as they once did. Well, one thing — sinus congestion. So far, I’ve tried just about every possibility, both medical and natural, and still, I have that sinus pressure and post-nasal drip. I’m waiting it out now, hoping it will cure itself. It did once upon a time — when I was young, I had allergies so bad I was almost comatose, but for some reason, I got over it. Maybe I will again.
Maybe not.
That acceptance of what life deals out is part of growth, I suppose, though such acceptance isn’t a recent growth experience for me — it came from years of grief over my various losses and all the living that followed.
I’m sure this blog prompt is about personal growth, though I tend to think I’ve grown up as much as I am going to get. I’m not even sure I want to develop further. At this point, will any sort of growth make my life better? I suppose it’s possible, but I also suppose it’s possible that a period of de-growth will be coming as I continue to age. I hope not — I appreciate the lessons I’ve learned in life, and I hang on to whatever wisdom I gleaned from them. I’d hate to think I’d forget those lessons and have to learn them again. It was painful enough the first time!
Personal growth supposedly contributes to fulfillment, self-awareness, mindfulness, well-being and happiness, which I’m all for when it comes to younger people, and was all for when I was young. But me now? I’m as self-aware as I want to be (any more awareness would turn me too far inward); I try to be mindful whatever I am doing for safety’s sake if nothing else; I have as much fulfillment as I can handle; and my sense of well-being is doing as well as can be expected. Does that sound smug? I don’t mean to be. I am grateful for where I am in life.
Gratitude. Acceptance. Mindfulness. Those are all lessons I’ve learned, things I practice. That seems enough. For now, anyway.
As it is, the only growth I celebrate is what is in my garden. That sort of growth I can get behind!
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
I’ve always prided myself on my vocabulary, a vocabulary gleaned from my vast reading over the years. This vocabulary doesn’t translate to speaking because many words I know and know how to use I don’t know how to pronounce, and I’m leery of using such words ever since I was made fun of at a young age for mispronouncing “macabre.” At the time, I was being driven home by the father of the children I’d been babysitting, and for some reason I used the word, pronouncing it as “mackaber.” I still remember his laughter. So, since I’ve never been able to handle being made fun of, I only use words that everyone else does, though I don’t hesitate to use any word I wish in my writing, confident that my spelling is correct.
Well, I was confident until yesterday. I was writing something, I don’t even remember where or what, and I used the word “miniscule,” which is how I’ve always seen the word written. Whatever spell check that particular site was using flagged it as wrong, and said the word was “minuscule.”
Not believing the program since I’d never seen that spelling and since neither MSWord nor my blog has ever flagged the word, I looked it up online, and sure enough, the word is “minuscule.” How is it that I have lived all these decades and not known that? It’s also pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable. I did not know that either.
Further reading tells the story. “Minuscule” used to refer to lower case letters (the minus coming from Latin meaning less) as opposed to “majuscule,” referring to uppercase letters. It seems to me that since “minuscule” refers to something being simply lesser, rather than something very tiny, “miniscule” (pronounced with its emphasis on the first syllable) should be a word in its own right.
And it’s getting there. Although “miniscule” is still considered a typo by purists (which I thought I was but apparently am not), the correct spelling is “minuscule.”
Except when it’s not. “Miniscule” has been used since 1871, though it wasn’t until the 1940s that it became an accepted variation that wasn’t always flagged as a typo. My print dictionary includes “miniscule,” and mentioned that it’s a variation of “minuscule.” So whew! Maybe I’m not as far off as I thought I was.
So even though it may or may not be a full-fledged word, I will continue using “miniscule.” It sounds like what it should mean: something vanishingly small.
It is funny, though, that a word such as minuscule/miniscule is only slowly evolving, but other words are almost instantaneously accepted, like my most unfavorite word, “veggie.”
Oh, well. I learned something, which is always a good thing, even if it did deflate my already under-inflated ego.
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
Sometimes I find myself amusing. Not often because . . . well, because I’m not really amusing, and anyway, it’s hard to be amusing by yourself. But yesterday was different.
I went to a fundraiser with a friend. I’d been told about the event by the woman in charge, and I thought about going, but that’s as far as it went. It’s hard at times to break through the wall of inertia that seems to descend upon me when I spend too much time alone, to throw the thought of doing something out ahead me and following it, which is why I seldom do anything unless someone actually comes and gets me. So, when a friend said she was going and asked if I wanted to go with her, I jumped on the chance. Inertia overcome!
The fundraiser was a Paint and Palate event. (Oh, funny! I just got the pun: Palate? Palette? Cute.) The goal was to have fun, paint, nibble on charcuterie, and help support a local school activity. I’d done such an event years ago where an artist had us paint a moon-lit scene while she showed us every step of the way. I could do that; I have no real artistic ability, the kind where you paint what you see, either in your mind or in a photo, but for that one day it was fun pretending to be an artist.
This event wasn’t like that. A canvas, palette, paint and brushes were supplied, as well as photos of possibilities, but the decision of what to paint and how to paint it was up to us.
“I can’t do that,” I told my friend. “All I know how to do is paint by number.”
Those words gave me an idea that cracked me up. Paint by number! Or paint numbers. Sort of like the opposite of a paint-by-number kit where you paint over the number. Well, I painted the numbers over the paint.
Yep, sometimes I amuse myself.
More than that, since my painting didn’t take all that long, I had plenty of time to nibble on the lovely snacks provided — watermelon, kiwi, cheese, crackers, salami, cookies — while others painted more realistic scenes. A lot of talent in that room! Luckily for me, my talent for cleverness — sort of — gave me a chance to participate without feeling too out of place.
I really liked that blank canvas. Maybe someday I’ll get some for myself just to play with. Or even better, the next time one of these events is scheduled, I should just go. As long as someone comes and gets me.
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
I read something interesting the other day. The writer claimed that the default setting of humans is poverty. Which is true when you think of it. For as far back in history as you can research or imagine, humans lived in poverty so vast that even the poorest person today is wealthy by comparison. People today seem to think that the hunter-gatherer culture was a myth, just a morality tale to make a point about being grateful for what we have. But that’s the way humans lived for tens of thousands of years. Even in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance years, where learning and the building arts were at a highpoint, most people lived in poverty. Not only was wealth in short supply, what there was of it remained in the hands of a very few, and even those folks — kings and other nobles — weren’t wealthy by today’s standards.
What is truly remarkable about our current life is that there is any wealth at all. Even more remarkable is that the overall wealth of the world is growing. So are opportunities to find your own source of wealth. Of course, most people don’t count wealth as I do — a warm place to live, a vehicle, appliances and all sorts of other labor saving-devices, food to buy in a grocery store rather than having the backbreaking job of growing it. There are also parks — local, state, national — to play in, and such open spaces had once been reserved for royal use only.
In today’s world, there are also all sorts of programs for people who either can’t or don’t want to work (and there are plenty of able-bodied people who simply prefer to sit around watching television six hours a day; this isn’t a guess — they make videos bragging about it). There are way too many homeless, though the money that was geared for those people seldom reached them and in fact was sometimes stolen and used by the administrators of such funds to buy multiple homes for themselves. And, too, a lot of homeless do cling to a life of addiction.
But for all that, we are generally living in a time of vast wealth — wealth that was created by human labor. (Except of course, for those who preferred to do such things as crash the currencies of other countries rather than come by their wealth honestly.) Human labor today is still creating wealth. Pulling assets from the earth, making things, selling those things, using that money to make other things and selling those other things and around and around it goes, with more wealth created every day. Working wealth — the wealth that is contained in on-going business concerns — is what keeps the world going. If there were no people creating more wealth, we’d all be scrambling for the bits that were left, until finally, the world would run down and we’d be back where we started — in abject poverty but with the memory of when we had it so good.
There is a growing hatred for the working wealth creators because people say that no one deserves the kind of wealth that some entrepreneurs have managed to accumulate (though they say nothing about the non-working billionaires who are funding the insurrections in this country), but the truth is, the wealth of the working rich is in their businesses. They do not have cash sitting in a bank. Very few of the working wealth creators have cash on hand. Their money goes into their businesses, which creates more wealth by creating more jobs, more products, even a higher standard to strive for.
Although the working wealthy are using their wealth to create more wealth for everyone, too many people think it needs to be stolen from them and given to those who don’t have the ability to create wealth. The problem is, if these working wealthy were to pay the vast sums in taxes that people think they need to pay, the wealthy would have to sell off large chunks of their businesses, which means they would lose control of their own companies, which means there would be a dearth of working capital, which means less aggregate wealth in the world.
With their money always in use, many (maybe even most) people who own high-performing businesses, borrow money to pay their employees because they are cash poor. Cash in constant circulation creates more wealth, more jobs, more . . . possibilities.
Humans are the ones who have created the wealth in the world today. As far as I know, dollars didn’t spew out with the big bang or on creation day or however the world came into being. Wealth came from human labor.
There used to be a time when people would hear of someone getting super rich and would think, “I can do that. Become rich. Maybe. Someday.” Now people see the wealth that’s created and they think, “They need to take his wealth away from him so I can get me some of that.”
Wealth isn’t a matter of everyone having the same amount of money because if it were, then there would be no money. If you take from the “haves” and give to “have less,” then why would anyone do anything to create wealth just to have it taken from them? They wouldn’t. Which would leave everyone sinking back into the default mode of poverty. Besides, if all the billionaires in the USA — supposedly there’s fewer than 1,000 of them — were taxed 100%, their taxes would fund the government for less than two years, so it’s much better to let them keep creating wealth.
People complain about loopholes that the wealthy businesses use to bring their taxes down, so the answer is not to take even more of their money but to lobby to close the loopholes, assuming those are loopholes and not just a way for the money to keep working. But for the most part, the taxes the wealthy pay are dependent on many things, so one year a fellow can pay 11 billion and the next year nothing. And even if the companies end up not paying taxes, the owners who take a salary and all the people they have working for them pay taxes, and generally a lot of taxes, because many of them become very high earners, so the aggregate taxes paid ends up being significant.
Whether or not the working wealthy “deserve” the money they make, is almost beside the point. Nowadays, I’d prefer to leave wealth in the hands of those who created it and who are continuing to create it. If you took it from them in the form of punitive taxes, then it would disappear into the same grifters’ hands where so much of the working people’s taxes are ending up. Why people are so accepting of that money being stolen, I have no idea, but throwing more money into a grifters pool does no one any good.
Either way, it doesn’t matter since the money is not going to end up in our pockets, neither mine nor yours.
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
I keep getting notices here on this blog about articles I posted on that same day during the previous ten years. I was going to opt out of the notifications, but somehow I never have. (Though I’m sure if those notices included my grief years, I would have opted out immediately.) It’s interesting to see where I was and what I was thinking previously on this date, and interesting, too, to see how much I’ve forgotten. Apparently, once I’ve posted something, it was out of my mind, which, come to think of it, was the point. I never purposely went back and read what I wrote, which considering how long I’ve been doing this blog, could take months, but now I peek at what shows up in my notifications.
Six years ago on June 10, I lamented my lack of a garden. What I mostly had back then was dirt, dead weeds, some newly planted lilac bushes, and a few flowering plants that were here before me. Like the trumpet vine. In previous places I lived, I tried to grow trumpet vines, hoping for a bit of color, but they never managed to thrive. But here, they do. In fact, I have a hard time keeping them in check — I find starter plants all over the place. I dig them up and plant them where they would better serve me, and though slow to grow, most are still alive.
The old vines are blooming cheerily right now, which adds even more color to the garden I never thought I’d have. I remember back then telling a neighbor that in ten years I should have a beautiful yard, and I was partly right. I do have a beautiful yard, but it only took six years to get to this point.
It’s funny, too, that in that six-year-old post I mentioned how bad the winds were, and oh, we’ve been having terrible winds! I wonder what it is about this day and winds? Well, it is southeastern Colorado, which means we almost always have winds.
In 2022, on this day, I wrote about waking up every morning amazed that I am living in such a house on a beautiful mini estate. How very strange it is that I stood outside my house just today, thinking that very same thing — how amazed I am (and so very grateful) to be living here. Perhaps, like the winds, that isn’t a coincidence since I often feel gratitude for this turn my life took, but today it truly did strike me anew how very blessed I am.
Last year, on this day, I wrote about feeling detached from the garden that five years previously I’d wished for. I just didn’t care. (I didn’t need that blog to remind me. I remember how I felt) Oh, I did the necessary work last year, but beyond that, I didn’t take many photos, seldom blogged, and just felt as if it weren’t worth the effort because the intense sun just burned everything.
Whatever struggles I had last year — both with my attitude and the garden itself — didn’t destroy anything permanently. The garden is going well this year, I’m actually enjoying doing the work, and yes, I am still appreciating my cheery trumpet vines.
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
I took a day off to recuperate from working too long in my yard two days running, but I went to town with a friend and ended up buying more plants, mostly plants for my “farm” garden rather than my flower garden, though I did buy one dianthus to fill in a blank space in one garden.
So, of course I spent yesterday planting all those new starts, not just the dianthus, but one pumpkin, one tomato, one watermelon, one cantaloupe. Sounds silly written out like that, but I don’t eat much of any of those things so one plant each should do it. Besides, the main reason to get those particular plants is that they take up a lot of room, and I have a back section of my yard that screams for green. I want to see if those vines with their pretty flowers will fill the area as I hope. And who knows, I might get an edible treat or two out of the deal.
There are several plants, mostly the cottage pinks, that are overgrown, and I’ve just let them go. I have a really hard time gathering the ruthlessness necessary to do such hatchet jobs, so I wait until I have a lot of aggression I want to bleed out. Well, yesterday I was feeling snippy in the meaning of short-tempered and irritable, so I got out my pruning shears and, closing my ears to their silent screams, snipped away as much of those poor plants as I could. I was going to wait until they went to seed, but apparently yesterday was the day I needed to get rid of some aggression.
I’m not sure why I was so disgruntled — well, I certainly spend too much time paying attention to what’s going on in the world as if it were a thriller I was reading in real time, and that makes me worry too much about things I have no control over, and for sure I’ve been stiff and sore after working so much.
Apparently, my revenge on my poor body for giving me grief is to give it even more grief because yesterday, once again, I overdid it. With any luck (and a bit of discipline) I might manage to take it easy today, only watering my newly planted gardens and closing my eyes to the work still to be done.
One benefit of having been so ruthless yesterday is that I was able to clear out around the daisies. And oh, aren’t they glorious! I might even snip off a flower or two to liven my kitchen.
Sometimes being snippy is a good thing.
***
Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
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