Nightly Recap

January 14, 2022 — Pat Bertram

During the past year or so, I’ve gotten into the habit of talking to Jeff at night when I am pulling back the bedcovers to get ready for bed. I don’t really tell him anything important; I just say a few words about my day or how I feel about things such as growing older or his being gone or anything else I feel like mentioning. I don’t think he’s listening — if he still exists somewhere, I sure as heck hopes he has something better to do than hang around and listen to me whine — but still, I talk to him, or rather I should say, I talk to his picture.

Occasionally I think it’s a bad habit and one I should break, because after all, it is a bit . . . not crazy, exactly, but off in some way . . . to talk to a picture. On the other hand, it’s not hurting anyone, least of all me, so why not continue? I’m not trying to hold on to him. After almost twelve years, it’s very obvious to me that he is gone. I’ve also built a good life for myself, so it’s not as if I am yearning for the past. I’m simply voicing the highlights (or lowlights) of my day. Although talking to a photo of a dead guy is basically the same as talking to myself, doing so gives me the feeling of imparting my feelings to someone other than to me.

This habit makes me wonder how important such a time of storytelling is, even if it is one-sided. In previous eras, clans and tribes, communities and families, would gather together around the fire in the evening and tell stories about their day. It was a way of saying, “I am here. I am living. I have meaning.” It was also a way of defining the clan, of gathering all their stories into one pot.

People living alone in houses or apartments seems to be a relatively new phenomenon. In previous eras — post-clan and pre-industrial age — families would gather in those members who were left alone, such as widows and maiden aunts and elderly patriarchs, but now, so many people, both young and old, are left to fend for themselves. Not that I want it any different for myself; it’s just an observation about changes through the ages, and how for most of human occupancy on this earth, we told our stories at night.

Whether it was a cultural evolution or written in our genes, it does seem as if this nightly recap is necessary. Oh, we can live without it — I did for over a decade before I developed this new (old) habit — but looking back over the many thousands of years of human interactions, this gathering of people and stories and thoughts seems important to our mental health or at least our sense of self and self-worth.

Of course, I could just be alibiing my habit, finding reasons that my behavior is reasonable, but still, I wonder.

***

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 culture, dealing with old age, grief, history/myth, life. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »

Pandemics, Fictional and Otherwise

January 12, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I just finished reading a novel about a pandemic written about twenty years before the onset of The Bob. It reminded me of the original prognostication about the death toll when the virus first showed up, and how over 80% of the world’s population was supposed to succumb. With so many people getting sick and with the death tolls still rising, I’m sure it feels that terrible to a lot of people (especially those who are sick themselves or have to deal with the death of a loved one), but that original estimate is upside down. 80% of the world’s population did not get infected. In fact, WHO says 90% did not get infected.

About 98% percent of the people who get infected recover, which means that a huge percentage of the world’s population didn’t die. (Less than two percent.)

Again, for those who got ill or know someone who did, these statistics seem a slap in the face because for them the percent was 100%, but the point I’m trying to make is that we are a far cry from an 80% fatality rate.

It’s almost impossible to imagine such a scenario (and it is understandable why leaders and health leaders freaked out about it), but I don’t have to imagine it because I just lived through such a pandemic in the book I mentioned. In fact, most books I have read with a pandemic theme were of that variety, where huge swaths of populations disappeared, and life would never be the same.

It will be interesting to see if there is any sociological residual to The Bob. There is what is called “the great resignation,” which seems to have come about because the momentum all the corporate drones and service workers and everyone else who did what they were supposed to do was broken, giving people time to think about what they really wanted. Or more probably, what they didn’t want. But for the most part, life seems to go on as before.

In novels about vast pandemics, life is unalterably changed. Oh, don’t get me wrong — I’m fine with the status quo (mine anyway) right now. I certainly wouldn’t want to put anyone through the horror of a broken civilization and bodies piled everywhere. (Or thrown in a pit, as I had my characters do in A Spark of Heavenly Fire.)

Still, it was interesting reading the book during this particular time. One thing I found interesting was the “blood passports.” There was no vaccine for this fictional plague, but people had to carry a small book that recorded their blood test results. Sound familiar? It was spooky in the book, and spooky in real life, where people need to show vaccine cards and test results before they can do group activities.

Luckily for me, I’m fine without concerts and major shopping expeditions and traveling. Quite frankly, you couldn’t pay me to get on an airplane right now, or ever again, actually.

So that’s my residual to The Bob — doing what comes naturally without any guilt.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in books, culture, life. Tags: , , , , . 5 Comments »

Lost in Time

January 7, 2022 — Pat Bertram

Last evening, for just a minute, I mentally lost track of the days. I normally don’t keep track if I go for long periods with nothing planned, so I frequently don’t know what day it is, but I generally have a sense of where I am in the week, whether it is at the beginning, middle, or end. But yesterday, I hadn’t a clue.

It was a bit disorienting, sort of like being on the verge of waking up from a deep sleep and thinking you have to go to school then you remember it’s Saturday and anyway, you’ve been out of school for decades. I couldn’t immediately go check my phone to find out the day of the week, so I tried to think of something I did during the day to give me an idea of where I was.

I finally remembered I emailed my time sheet that morning, something I do only on Thursdays, so I was able to reorient myself. But yikes. What a strange feeling that was, being lost in time.

It makes me wonder how important time is for our well-being.

[I had to pause here to look up the spelling of well-being. I wanted to use two words without a hyphen, but spellcheck insisted it was one, unhyphenated word. It turns out that the hyphen is correct because when you combine an adjective and a verb, the hyphen is necessary for the words to become one. It used to be that the hyphenated version was correct in the USA and Canada, and the non-hyphenated version prevalent in other English-speaking countries, but the word has started to lose its hyphen in North America now.]

Whether knowing where I am in time is important for my well-being, obviously, being grammatically correct is.

Before there were days of the week to keep track of, maybe it didn’t matter. People were always where they were supposed to be, in their family or clan or tribe or whatever, so it didn’t really matter what day it was. Until increasing populations and civilization made days of the week and calendars imperative, I imagine there were no days but today and yesterday and perhaps tomorrow.

[Why isn’t it tomorrowday? I had to stop to find out this vital fact. “Morrow” is an archaic word meaning “the following day,” so tomorrowday would be redundant. Tomorrow used to be hyphenated — to-morrow — until the fifteenth century when it became one word, so losing hyphens isn’t simply a sign of modern laziness.]

I seem to have strayed far from my topic, which is . . . me. Well, me being lost in time. So far today, I know exactly where I am. Saturday, perhaps. Or maybe it’s Sunday. I’m joking; actually, it’s Friday. I think.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in being me, culture, life. Tags: , , , , . 8 Comments »

Feeling the Cold and the Creeps

January 3, 2022 — Pat Bertram

It warmed up a mite. A couple of mornings ago, it was minus eight degrees Fahrenheit, and this morning when I walked to work, it was twelve degrees. A veritable heat wave! Despite the high temperature being just above freezing this afternoon, the heat from the sun was so intense, the snow is almost melted. There will be another day or two with single digit lows, then it will get back into the temperatures I’d become accustomed to — lows in the twenties, highs in the fifties.

That also means I’ll be back to watering my grass occasionally. And the streets will be clear and dry so I can go to the library. They are holding a couple of interlibrary loan books for me, and I need to go pick them up, though I’m not sure I really care to read them. I ordered these books months ago — maybe even a year ago — but because of all the closures and slowdowns due to The Bob, I didn’t get the books until now. In fact, I’d completely forgotten about them.

Meantime, what was once an author (Louise Penny) I enjoyed reading became one who gives me the creeps. This author, like one I have abhorred for a very long time whose initials are JP, is teeming up with a politician to write a book. I have no idea why an author who is respected in her own right needs the name of such a controversial politician (initials HRC) to further her career or why she would want to further the needs of the politician. It makes me feel manipulated, as if hands on my back are steering me in a direction I don’t want to go. I realize I shouldn’t let her decision to team up with another person make me rethink the books she wrote before the teaming, but it does. I will never be able to unsee those two names together on a book without shuddering. (It’s not the same with James Patterson and the other Clinton because I lost respect for Patterson and his writing franchise decades ago.)

Life seems to be taunting me, getting the books to me now when I don’t care rather than long ago when I especially wanted to read them. But I will try to remember that these books were written pre-HRC when I still thought Penny was worth reading, and slog my way through them. If nothing else, maybe I’ll finally find out how her detective ended up in the tiny village of Three Pines. The first books I read had him living in the big city. The last books had him living in the village. Without the intermediary books, it’s an additional mystery, so I will watch for the move, enjoy the books as best as I can, and console myself with the thought that these will be the last books of hers I will ever read.

And anyway, with winter here, it seems only fitting to be reading mysteries that take place in the far north (farther north than here, anyway). One thing that fascinates me about books that take place in Canada is the peek at a country and culture that is so similar to USA, and at the same time, vastly different. Although we’re becoming a country divided by myriad languages, this is more by default than by design. Canada seems to have always been a country defined by its two languages and two cultures. Or maybe three when you include the First Nations. Unless I’m wrong about that? I have to admit, the only things I really know about Canada are from the authors I’ve read, not just Louise Penny, but Robertson Davies, Lucy Montgomery, and Margaret Atwood. And, of course, from people I’ve met online.

But I’m getting far from where I started this essay, which is the cold. Brrr! I hope you’re keeping warm this winter, wherever you are.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in books, culture, fiction, life. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Being Right . . . and Wrong

January 1, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I was right about being awakened at midnight last night by fireworks. At first, still groggy from being half asleep, I worried something was happening to my house. Being responsible for a house is still so new to me (even though it has almost been three years since I moved here) that I panic at every strange noise. Admittedly, there aren’t as many strange noises as there used to be since I have come to recognize most of them. Still, banging noises do give me pause. But then I fully woke, realized people were celebrating the new year, blew a few wishes for all of you into the wind, and eventually went back to sleep. But not before I noticed there was a bit of snow coming down.

It’s still snowing, and has been all day, so I was wrong about my guess that we’d get a negligible amount of moisture. It turns out I was right to make the effort to plant my wildflower seeds yesterday. Those that didn’t get blown away will be firmly bedded for the rest of the winter, especially since it won’t get above freezing for a couple of days, and then only for two or three hours before the temperature plummets again.

I was also right that despite having a feeling of finality for the end of the year, I don’t have a similar sense of beginning for this new year. I do have a new calendar, though, with empty squares to fill with plans for fun and adventure, so that’s a beginning of sorts.

I also started with a new deck of tarot cards, one I haven’t used before. I never liked these particular cards, which is why I haven’t used them. They seem too bizarre to me and unmagical despite their name “The Magickal Tarot.” [Apparently, I’m wrong about not having used this deck before. While adding tags to this post, I happened to discover a previous discussion of the deck on my blog here: The Magickal Tarot]

This change of decks isn’t a new year sort of thing but a new month thing — every month I change the deck of cards I use, trying to find one that speaks to me. The Magickal Tarot is not such a deck. In fact, it dislikes me as much as I dislike it. The cards it fed me today are the seven of pentacles (Lord of Failure) reversed and the five of swords (Lord of Defeat).

Yikes! Talk about a bad omen for the new year! The first card of my two-card reading denotes the situation, the second card is the challenge I will face. My question was “What do I need to know this year?” and apparently, the cards think I need to know that my hopes will come to naught, and my challenge will be to deal with sorrow and loss and treachery. Oh, my!

The interesting thing to me about this reading was the reversed card. I make sure to keep the cards always in an upright position; I’ve even learned to deal the cards so they always face the same way. And yet, somehow, this one card, for the first time in the 18 months I have been doing a daily one- or two-card reading, was upside down. You’d think that a reversed card of failure would be the opposite of the upright card, but that is not true. If the card were upright, it would mean only delay and success unfulfilled, but reversed, it’s even worse.

I’m not worried about the prognostication. Most of my readings don’t seem to have anything to do with me, so I’m sure this reading is the same.

I hope I’m right about that!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in culture, life, tarot. Tags: , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Wishes on the Wind

December 31, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I didn’t know there was such a problem with wildfires in the towns of Boulder County in Colorado until I started getting messages from people online asking if I’m okay. Luckily, I am two-hundred miles from the fire zone. The only problem I foresee is that my house insurance will skyrocket again as it did last year in response to wildfires in other parts of Colorado, which seems unfair. Our rates here in my corner of Colorado are among the highest in Colorado and across the nation, and yet when anything happens in areas where people don’t have high premiums, my rate goes up too. In fact, the increase is in proportion to what I am already paying, so that means I end up paying more than my share. I guess I should be grateful — and I am — that I’m not one of those whose house has been destroyed, but if my insurance goes up much higher, I won’t be able to afford the dubious protection.

Other than learning about the fires, it was a good day. There have been high winds, of course, bringing in frigid temperatures and maybe even some snow for tonight. They are forecasting one to three inches, though I will be surprised if we get any moisture. Still, I took a chance on their being right about the possibility of snow and planted my wildflower seeds. I stamped them into the ground as best as I could to make sure that they don’t all get blown away. I do have more seeds, so can replant if nothing comes up next spring. Comes up in my yard, I mean. With the wind, there’s a possibility that my seeds are being planted all over the neighborhood.

I’m taking it as a good omen, though, that I planted the seeds on the last day of this year — the seeds of a new beginning as well as a way of perhaps bringing the best of this year into next year.

I’m hoping that the cold and snow will cut down the noise of tonight’s revelers with their firecrackers. If not, then I hope I’ll be able to sleep through the midnight commotion, but if I’m awake, I will think of you and send out wishes on the wind that next year will be your best ever.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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Happy New Year’s Eve Eve!

December 30, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Happy New Year’s Eve Eve! That sounds redundant, but it’s the truth — tonight is the eve of New Year’s Eve. One night, one day, one evening, and then this year will be finished. I don’t know how to feel about that, to be honest. All things considered, it was a good year, but it seems unreal that this year is done for and another year is beginning so soon.

I have no real plans for the new year, just the same plans I’ve had all along — take care of my house and hope that more of my landscaping gets finished by and by, take care of myself and hope that my health holds up, take care of all the little things that arise and hope I have the stamina to deal with them. That’s a lot of taking care and hoping, enough to fill a year — and a lifetime — that’s for sure.

As for the remainder of this year, I expect to fulfill the last two days of my 100-day blog challenge. But that’s a given — not a special plan for these days — as is the continuation of my daily blogging for no other reason than if I took a day or two off now and again, I’d get in the habit of not blogging, and since it’s the only writing I do, I’m not ready to give it up yet. But blogging is all that’s on my schedule for the next two days.

Because this area is going to be subject to fierce winds followed by a huge temperature drop off from a windy high of 60 (degrees Fahrenheit) tomorrow afternoon to a bitter low of 9 tomorrow night (and a high of 19 on Saturday with a low of 0 Saturday night), today I went to the library and stocked up on books, then did one last bit of lawn watering. So for the rest of the year my time is my own with no responsibilities except to stay warm.

I don’t have any plans for tomorrow night, either. There’s no reason to stay up until midnight to toast the new year, though I imagine I will be awakened by all the fireworks set off by witless neighbors. (Witless because they ignore the law prohibiting fireworks in Colorado as well as discounting the fire danger inherent in high winds and low humidity.)

I hope your year end and your year beginning will be as pleasant as mine. Meantime, have a Happy New Year’s Eve Eve!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in blogging, culture, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

A Reflection of My Thoughts

December 28, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Today’s two-card tarot reading was The World followed by the Ten of Cups.

The meaning of The World in this deck (The Ancient Egyptian Tarot) is completion. The final achievement of all one’s objectives. The attainment of harmony. A sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. The end of an era.

The meaning of the ten of cups is also completion and satisfaction (complete satisfaction, actually) along with contentment. It’s about living for today, with no regrets over the past and no concerns for the future.

The first card in my two-card readings tells me the situation. The second card gives further information about the situation, so it seems to me that the cards are saying that this is the end of an era, but that I am okay with it.

However these cards are read, it’s a great fortune, but what I found most interesting is the cards seem to tie in with the feeling I’ve been having of things coming to an end, though not necessarily in a bad way. This end could be the end of the year. It could be the end of this particular “era” for me. Or it could simply be a feeling that means nothing. But whatever the feeling is, it seems to be reflected in the cards, though I don’t know whether the cards are saying that I am right about my feelings and this is the end of something or they are picking up on my thoughts and reflecting them back to me.

This reflection of my thoughts happens quite frequently, though I don’t see anything particularly mystical in it. It could be that I interpret the cards through the screen of whatever I am thinking or feeling.

After all this time — a year of one-card readings and six months of two-card readings — I still don’t have a feel for the truth of the cards. It could be that my logical mind rebels. A person who is learning the tarot is supposed to study the cards and see what she intuits, but all I can see when I look at a card is a picture that is someone else’s (the artist’s) interpretation of what the card might mean.

It’s possible that a logical yet intuitive (or do I mean intuitive yet logical) person can never really get more out of the cards than the superficial meanings I am finding. So far, I am not learning anything about myself that I don’t already know, and if I am learning anything about the future, I don’t particularly want to know what it might be. After all, I will know for sure whatever the future might bring when I arrive. (Though the fallacy here is that there is no future because when you arrive in the future, you are in the present.)

Despite my continued reservations, I am sticking with my tarot studies. After all, I have a long way to go. The first year was for a one-card reading, the second for a two-card reading, the third year will be for a three-card reading, and so on until the end of my interest.

Hmm. There’s that word again: “end.” It makes me wonder if when this year has ended and a new one begun if I will have a sense of new beginnings. I guess I’ll find out when the new year arrives.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in culture, life, tarot. Tags: , , , , , . 3 Comments »

The Coming End

December 27, 2021 — Pat Bertram

This week seems to be a time out of time, when people are concentrating on the year to come, planning New Year’s Eve events, making resolutions (or at least thinking of making them), and even shopping at year-end sales in preparation for next year’s needs. Like everyone else, that’s generally how I’ve thought of this time — as a few extra days tacked on to the end of the real year in preparation for the next real year.

Despite all that focus on the future, there are a few days left of this year, time enough to hurry up and finally do some of the things you resolved to do when this year was new, and time enough to celebrate the remaining days because every day should be a day to celebrate, if only that we are still alive.

Oddly, for the first time in my life, I am very aware of this year coming to an end. I can actually feel a sense of finality, though I’m not sure whether it’s for the year itself or for some as yet unknown experience. I don’t in any way think that I am prescient; this feeling of an end could be what I originally intimated — that the year (and only the year) is coming to an end. The feeling could also be due to my spending so much time alone and hence able to feel some sort of change in the atmosphere. (A change in weather is coming, that’s for sure — there won’t be any of these balmy winter days for a while.)

But what do I know. Not much, really. I do know that all things end, whether it is a day, a month, a season, a year. And yet years don’t really end, now that I think about it; they just roll over into a new calendar year with no clear demarcation between the end and the beginning, the old and the new (except for a new calendar, of course.) We’re still the same, though I wonder what it would be like if those resolutions could be actual changes, not just feeble plans to make changes that so quickly dissipate in the sameness of the new year.

To be honest, I’m not sure many of us could handle real changes, to wake up on January first, suddenly fit and healthy, disciplined and kind, rich and satisfied, or whatever it is that we wish we were that we aren’t. I suppose it’s healthier in the long run to realize we are who we are, with an ability (or rather an inability) to make any significant changes to ourselves or our lives from one year to the next, though changes do happen.

Maybe that’s the “end” I feel so acutely right now — the end of hoping to be the person I wish I were and a greater acceptance of the person I am.

Or it could be, as I said, that the feeling of “end” is nothing more significant than a simple awareness that this is the end of the year, a thing in itself, not a prelude to something else.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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A Pleasant Day

December 26, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I had a very nice day yesterday, which just goes to show that a person doesn’t have to be with others to celebrate Christmas. Of course, it helped that I texted with my sister for a while as we opened our gifts from each other. (She got me gardening tools and a sun hat — so very thoughtful and fun.) The interesting thing is that we have her usual Pacific northwest December weather, and she has our usual Colorado weather. In other words, she was experiencing a rare Christmas snowstorm, and we experienced a rather mild and dry Christmas.

Mostly I watered my grass, read a novel, and played on the computer.

[I think I’ve mentioned a find and seek game that I’m sort of addicted to, the playing of which should make me feel silly except that I play the game during the times most people are lounging in front of a television and besides, there’s only so much reading a person can do.]

I also made a point of fixing a special meal for myself, though the “fixing” was mostly sticking the food in the oven and waiting for it to fix itself. Still, it was delicious, and a real treat. (Literally a treat since the dinner kit was a gift.) I even used my good china. Which makes me wonder: since the dishes were made in Japan, shouldn’t they be called my good japan? (You know I’m being silly, right?)

Today was more of the same, at least to a certain extent. It’s been very windy (it still is, actually) so I didn’t go outside at all, but I made sure to do my knee “therapy” and spent a couple of minutes on my elliptical. (It sounds rather pathetic, but more than that aggravates my knees right now.) Then I read and played on the computer. Come to think of it, I even fixed a nice meal, though I didn’t bother with a pretty layout or the stove. I just heated the meat and vegetables in the microwave and ate from the cooking dish.

I hope your days (yesterday and today) were as pleasant as mine, whether you celebrated or not.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »
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