culture | Bertram's Blog

The New Segregation

December 11, 2015 — Pat Bertram

I am currently renting a room in a modular house in a modular neighborhood, if you can call this 55+ community a neighborhood. It seems more like a ghetto to me, a place where a single group is sequestered, though in this case, “ghetto” doesn’t have the usual slummy connotations, and the people choose to live here rather than are forced by mandate to occupy the area. Still, the place is segregated from the rest of the city, populated by a distinctive group of not wealthy, not young individuals. That these folk are a mixed lot, all colors, nationalities, and opinions, does not mitigate their age-related sameness.

old man Outside the gates of this so very depressing “park” where the manufactured houses seem dealt out like a game of solitaire, there is a high school. And every afternoon, while the aged walk the inside perimeter of their cage, the young folks mill around outside, waiting for their rides. Old. Young. And never the twain shall meet. Or something like that.

When did we become such an age-segregated society? It can’t be a good thing. Don’t the young and the old complement each other? One group bringing wisdom, the other youthful idealism? And yet, I don’t see a lot of idealism among the young or wisdom among the aged. (As the father says in the Kevin Bacon movie, She’s Having a Baby, “People don’t mature anymore. They stay jackasses all their lives.”)

I don’t know what I want from myself as I grow older, but I do know the thought of living in an old folks ghetto (or even in an upscale gated community for “active” seniors) gives me the creeps. Or maybe I’m just denying the inevitability of my own aging, though I don’t think so. I can’t think of anything more depressing than only dealing with old folks (though mostly I’m doing that now — the majority of my friends are considerably older than I am, and in almost all of my dance classes, I am the baby, though I am not so young for all that.)

Of course, since I won’t have the money to live in a gated community, even a downscale one, I doubt I’ll ever have the choice of ghettoizing or segregating myself, but the other amenities that will be available to me seem just as creepy. I don’t see myself joining senior-only groups, going on senior outings, partaking of early-bird specials for seniors, or living in any sort of senior-oriented neighborhood. I certainly don’t want to be one of those old folks who gain cachet from their advanced years, and who make sure everyone knows their age.

When I was young, my mother never told me I did something good “for my age.” If it wasn’t good, I got no credit. On the back end of my life, I want to live the same way. It (whatever “it” is) is good or not good in and of itself, not with consideration for age.

And yet, what do I know? Life changes us. Age changes us. As decrepitude creeps in, as I start making the accommodation for the end of life, maybe I’ll be glad to be surrounded by others of my ilk.

But not yet. With whatever “youth” I have left, I want to live life to the fullest, to experience the world as much as I am capable, to deal with people as individuals rather than as effects of their age.

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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.”)

Posted in culture, life, relationships. Tags: 55+, 55+ community, active senior, age ghetto, gated community, segregation by age. 11 Comments »

Live in Peace

December 10, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Two years ago, a man died. I didn’t know him, didn’t even know of him. His was just another anonymous death, one of the 155,000 people who die every day. But to his wife, he was not an anonymous statistic. His death was not one of the many. To her, his was the only death, a catastrophe of enormous proportions.

His death changed her world. His death changed her.

The effects of his leaving are still rippling in her life and the lives around her. I have yet to meet the woman except online, won’t meet her offline for another few weeks, but because of the shared experience of losing our life mates — our soul mates — we have become friends. Would she have chosen him over me and all the other friends she has made since he left? In a heartbeat. And yet here we are, two of the left-behinds, dealing with life as best as we can, making the most of a situation we did not choose, snatching at whatever happiness comes our way.

I don’t suppose it makes any difference to her that I’ve spent this day thinking of her and how much she still misses him. I don’t suppose it makes any difference that I feel how diminished the world is without him. In the two years he’s been gone, 262,000,000 people have been born, and yet the death of this one man — the death of any of us, actually — diminishes us all.

May he, and all our dead, rest in peace.

May we, and all the world, live in peace.

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Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: death diminishes us all, live in peace, rest in peace, rippling effects of death.. 8 Comments »

Ya Habibi!

December 7, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Ya Habibi means “my darling” or “my beloved” in Arabic, and it’s the name of one of the songs to which we danced this past weekend. The experience was grueling, involving a ten-hour dress rehearsal on Thursday followed by two performances on Friday, one on Saturday evening, and a matinee on Sunday. Mostly we sat (or stood) waiting for our two 3-minute segments. Since the program was almost three hours long, that was a lot of waiting in an uncomfortable costume. Gorgeous raiment, but uncomfortable.

yahabibi

The experience was also awesome. We caused quite a commotion with our costumes, moves, and the whole lot of shaking that went on. It’s really incredible playing to a receptive audience, but truly, despite a few minor missteps, we were fabulous, and deserved the applause, hoots, and whistles.

yahabibi5

A friend took a couple of photos of us dancing (I am the one in the silvery mauve; the rest of the performers got left out of the photo) and even met me at the stage door with flowers. I felt like a star. And, in fact, as we were leaving the theater, the woman who dealt with the lighting said, “Here come the stars.”

Ah, the joys of the limelight! I will be eternally grateful to my dance teacher for giving me this priceless opportunity.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: arabic dancing, belly dance, joys of dancing on stage, priceless, priceless opportunity, ya habibi. 7 Comments »

Good Luck in Any idiom

December 1, 2015 — Pat Bertram

The origin of “break a leg,” meaning to wish an actor good luck, has many possible derivations. Some researchers believe the term comes from vaudeville days where curtains were called “legs.” Since not all actors were able to get on stage, you wished each other well by telling each other to “break a leg,” or to get on stage. Breaking a leg is also an archaic term for bowing, so perhaps the term refers to curtain calls. And in Shakespearean days, the stage was often built on legs, and sometimes the folk crowding into the cheap seats would be so numerous, their raucous enjoyment broke the legs of the stage.

Whatever the meaning of “break a leg”, it doesn’t have any relevance here because it does not refer to dancers. In the case of dancers, you wish them “Merde,” short for “Merde à toi,” which apparently is an old French slang term for “good luck.”

Since I’m a UnitedStatesian What’s wrong with plain old “good luck”? It might not be traditional, but it’s an easily understood term if one speaks English, and I need all the luck I can get.

I have dress rehearsals the next couple of days, then four performances this weekend, and for some reason, I’ve been feeling a bit of trepidation. Not sure why exactly. I know the dances as well as anyone and better than most, though I seldom get through a dance without some small error, a costume malfunction if nothing else. (We are wrapped in veils ready for an unveiling at the end, and sometimes the veils unveil themselves prematurely. So not cool!)

My dance teacher seems to think I’ll do okay and attributes my trepidation to the unsettled nature of my life, which is entirely possible. And she reminded me of something else. However well or poorly we do, we are still dancing on stage. How cool is that, to be doing a belly dance (actually two belly dances!) before an audience even though most of us have no dance experience and none of us are young anymore. (I’m the youngest, come to think of it.)

So despite the harrowing days ahead, I will try to concentrate on the wonder of it all. Me. On stage. Dancing with my class. Swathed in veils and glitz and glitter and (hopefully) a brilliant smile.

Wish me luck in whatever idiom you choose.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: belly dance, break a leg, dancing on stage, dress rehearsal, good luck, merde, wish me luck. 17 Comments »

Lonely in a Crowd

November 29, 2015 — Pat Bertram

I spent most of the past three days alone, and I made an interesting discovery. It’s not being alone that makes me feel alone and lonely. It’s being with too many other people that makes me feel alone and lonely. Every grief upsurge I’ve had recently has come after spending too much time with people who don’t enrich my life. (I don’t mean you, of course!) So often when I am with others, I sit and listen. I can’t contribute anything to the conversation because they talk about things that have nothing to do with me or my life, nothing to do with anything but their own insular and insight-less agendas. So I sit. And listen. And slowly disappear.

Reading A friend invited me to have Thanksgiving dinner with her five-generation family, which was very nice, and I was invited to dinner and a movie Friday evening, but the rest of the time, I was alone. (Didn’t even have to see or hear my strange roommate because he’s gone for the week.) Yesterday I did nothing but read. Just lolled around with a book in one hand and fruit in the other, which made it a doubly fruitful day. Today was a repeat of yesterday, though I added a hike in the desert to round out my solitary festivities.

And I never once disappeared. Never had a single pang of loneliness.

As it turns out, this isn’t such a great discovery, this realization that other people make me feel lonely, because there’s not much I can do about it. Obviously, I can’t spend my life alone. (People need people. Isn’t that the general thrust of life, love, and happiness?) I suppose I could make an effort to talk more when I am in a crowd, maybe even try to steer the conversation to make it more about me, but if I had anything to contribute, I would already be commenting. The sad truth is, I have nothing to say. (Which is why I so seldom blog any more. No insights, no interesting observations, no emotional highs or lows to ponder makes for mighty boring reading.) Admittedly, most people have no problem talking when they have nothing to say, but I have never quite mastered the art of talking to no purpose. Pointless conversation seems . . . pointless.

Anyway, this is not the week to worry about such things. My belly dance class will be performing a couple of numbers in a dance program at the local college this coming weekend. I’ll be with people most of the time — dance classes in the morning, rehearsals in the afternoon or performances in the evening, so I’ll set this conundrum aside for another time and simply enjoy being part of this special event.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: belly dance class, dance performance, grief upsurge, lonely in a crowd, people make me feel lonely, people need people. 4 Comments »

Clean Out Your Refrigerator!

November 8, 2015 — Pat Bertram

When I was in sixth grade, I got a job helping the old woman across the street. She’d just broken her arm, and needed someone to clean. Every time I went there, my stomach heaved. The jobs she gave me were all of a particularly disgusting nature. For example, she had me clean the hair catchers in her bathrooms, and I remember pulling up gobs and gobs of hair, gagging all the while. Just thinking about it now turns my stomach.

But that wasn’t the worst of my ordeal at this woman’s house. The worst was the refrigerator. Rotten fruits and vegetables. Fuzzy green unidentified leftovers. Ancient bottles and jars that were long expired or would have been if they had expiration dates. (I think expiration dates on all packaged food came much later.) I got sick every single time I went over there and I wanted to quit, but one of my parents insisted I fulfill my obligation. The other parent, in a rare moment of sticking up for me, argued that I shouldn’t have to do something that made me ill. Odd that I can’t remember which parent wanted me to go and which took my side, but it no longer matters. It was so very long ago.

But what does matter is your refrigerator. Clean it out!!!

I have lived in several different places during the past six months, and one almost universal situation I found is a refrigerator clogged with expired condiments and food long past the stage of edibility. I itched to clean out the refrigerators, but I refrained. Maybe the owners were sentimental about that bottle of Hershey’s syrup that was so old it was as thick as treacle and tasted about the same. Or perhaps they liked the vision of wealth a full refrigerator imparts.

Well, now in this house of horrors, I complained to the owner of having not an inch of space in the refrigerator for any food I might purchase, and she gave me permission to clean the thing out. I didn’t intend to follow through. I’m paying rent so cleaning her part of the house is not my responsibilty. Besides, the refrigerator was so filthy, it looked like a biowarfare experiment gone bad, and I didn’t have the stomach for the task. But for some reason (can’t remember why, and that was only a few hours ago. If the biowarfare experiment was about killing brain cells, it succeeded) I decided to clear out a few expired bottles of . . . I know not what. Three hours later, I had a huge stack of trash bags full of expired and rotten food. (By expired, I mean well past expiration date. Ketchup from 2009, eggs from September 2015, string cheese packets that were as hard as masonite. It took a chisel and lots of hot water to clean the spilled food that had congealed beneath all that detritus. (That is not an exaggeration. I did have to use a chisel.)

I started to deal with the freezer, but lost heart when it took me more than a half an hour to remove a roast that had so much frost, it was spackled to the door shelf. Again that chisel and hot water came in handy.

In the interest of health — yours and mine — I am declaring this International Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day.

I am begging you, please, go clean out your refrigerator. I know you have things in there you have become so accustomed to seeing that you no longer notice them. Or you have bottles of exotic ingredients you have been promising yourself to use for the past ten years. We all have those condiments and rare elements we bought for a recipe, used the requisite one teaspoon, and never got around to making that dish again. If you’re still not convinced of the necessity of cleaning out your refrigerator, ask yourself if you really want some poor woman (maybe your mother or daughter or daughter-in-law, possibly a neighbor, perhaps even a son or husband) throwing up when/if they have clean up if you become sick or incapacitated in any way.

Please like and share this post so it goes to as many people as possible.

Thank you.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: bottles of unused condiments, clean your refrigerator, expired food, filthy refrigerator, International Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. 6 Comments »

Timely Musings

November 1, 2015 — Pat Bertram

When I woke this morning, the ambient light seemed much brighter than I would have expected for the early hour. I experienced a moment of disorientation, then it occurred to me that last night might have been the end of daylight savings time. I say “might have been” because ever since I have begun using my self-updating phone for all time-checking needs — wristwatch and bedside alarm clock — I have put all reminders of clock-changing out of my mind.

For just a few minutes, this morning, I felt as if the world had changed while I’d slept. If I were out by myself somewhere, with no way to check unchanged clocks, and with no hint of the change, I’d have no idea what if anything had transpired during the night, and wouldn’t have known what gave me that feeling of unease. I’ve woken with that same sense of disorientation at other times, though, for no reason I could fathom. Perhaps we gain and lose time on a regular basis, but since our clocks are synced to the change, we never know.

When I was young, I took an informal poll. Whenever the days seemed to pass quickly, I’d ask people how the time seemed to them, and invariably, the day seemed to pass quickly for them too. Same with days that moved interminably slowly. Since not everyone experiences the same flow of life at the same time — concentrating on a task, which makes the time seem to go fast, or focusing on an upcoming event, which makes time seem to go slowly — I figured there was a possibility that time did in fact have a natural flux. Seconds might vary ever so slightly, making the minutes a tad longer or shorter, and by the time those variations added up in the hours, we would feel the difference. As long as our clocks followed the ticking of the seconds, no matter how long or short, we’d never know time moved at its own whim.

Adding to this strange but timely musing are the findings of quantum researchers, that measuring creates the actuality. Maybe our time measurement instruments (including heart beats and pulses) actually create time. (Maybe that’s why a watched clock never seems to move? Or should it be the other way, that a watched clock makes time move faster?)

The even odder thing to consider is that despite the dubious gift of an extra hour today, there are still but 24 hours in a day. That didn’t change. Only our instruments changed.

One year, I so hated the idea of daylight savings time that I refused to reset my clock. I automatically adjusted the time in my mind, so it wasn’t a problem, though it was for other people. I remember my panic-stricken brother running out of my apartment when he saw the time, thinking he was late to pick up his fiancé from work, and the almost sheepish phone call a few minutes later when he asked if I knew my kitchen clock was off. I’d forgotten by then of course, so used was I to making the mental adjustment. I never did that again — leave the clocks unchanged.

And now I no longer have a choice. My clock makes the change itself.

As, perhaps, clocks have always done.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: changing clocks, daylight savings time, end of daylight savings time, time moving fast, time moving slow, time variances. 2 Comments »

When the Ugly Duckling is Just a Duck

October 23, 2015 — Pat Bertram

A couple of women in dance class today were talking about aging and how it was an adjustment when they no longer turned heads. Not a problem, they said. Just an adjustment.

These women are still lovely, and I can imagine they were real head-turners when they were young, but not everyone has that same experience. For some of us, the adjustment was not learning we no longer turned heads, but accepting the knowledge that we would never would turn heads.

The lure of the ugly duckling story looms large in girlhood. I suppose even the pretty girls long to be a swan, unable to see until — perhaps it was too late — that they’d been swans all along. (In the case of the two women in class today, they might in fact have been swans of the Swan Lake sort since both had studied ballet for many years.)

I’m long past the moment when I realized this ugly duckling would never be a swan, long past the days I wondered what it would feel like to be a head turner. There is something to be said (though I’m not sure what, hence this short post) for being an ugly duckling that grows up to be merely a duck. There is beauty in that, too.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: growing older, past the age of turning heads, swan, Swan Lake, turning heads, ugly duckling. 3 Comments »

When a Rhinestone Becomes a Diamond

October 5, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Let’s say you owned a faded rhinestone necklace, a piece of junk jewelry that you wore everywhere, to get groceries, do other errands, even clean the house or garden. Sometimes you left it out in the sun or rain, and it didn’t matter, because after all, it was just a cheap necklace. Then one day you took it to be cleaned, and when you got it back, it had miraculously become a diamond necklace. What would you do? How would you feel? Would you still wear it everywhere, even to go grocery shopping? Would you still feel comfortable leaving it out in the sun or rain? Would you feel differently about the jewelry? Would you feel differently about yourself?

This is what I am dealing with now that my car has been restored. I really just wanted a cheap paint job, but no one would paint it with the rust. And as it happened, the guy I took it to was a perfectionist, and so now my faded rhinestone car has turned into a diamond, and I don’t know how to react.

I never was one of those folks who loved her car. Never talked to it or gave it human characteristics. Never called it he or she. It was a tool. A sometimes frustrating tool, and sometimes a pleasing tool, but basically, just a thing. And now that thing has become something else.

I was awed when I saw the finished car, and am awed again every time I see it. It truly is a work of art, looking as if it just crept out of a time machine from the 1970s, but it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with me. More like an icon that I have been given permission to drive. But I don’t. Drive it, I mean. At least not yet. It’s sitting in the garage of the house where I am presently residing. I open the garage door periodically and look at it. Fiddle with a few things. (The guy who did the upholstery was not a perfectionist, and the seatbelt is all twisted. To untwist it, the window has to be taken out, which is not easy because the new stripping is so tight, the seller had to go to the auto body shop and install it. Then the new headliner has to be rolled back to get to the bolts. So I’m dealing with the twisted seatbelt as best as I can.)

After I look at the car, I shut the door, leaving the bug to its own devices, and I go walking. I don’t know what to think of the vehicle. Don’t know what to think of me. How will it change me? Will it change me? I don’t know.

I like how the vehicle gleams, and I know the first time I drive it in the fierce desert winds, leave it out in the intense sun, or let it get rained on, that gleam will dull a bit. (The paint isn’t baked like a car fresh from the factory, and though it should hold up for many years, it will lose its diamond-like luster, especially if it’s sandblasted by the winds or water-stained from the rain.) Also, as people keep telling me, it’s at risk for theft or being keyed by someone who is jealous of the perfection. The only way to keep that from happening is to keep it in the garage, and the use of the garage is only temporary. When my friends get back, I’ll move on, and the poor car, like me, will be at the mercy of whatever comes its way.

I’m planning on driving today, even leaving the bug in a parking lot for a couple of hours while I go to dance class, but I am keeping an eye on the increasing clouds. If it looks like rain (and rain is forecast) I might change my mind about driving.

Still, no matter how the bug gleams, it is just a car, a tool.

But somehow, I no longer believe that.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: 1970s icon, old VW bug, rhinestone, VW restoration, VW work of art. 11 Comments »

The Great Reveal!!

October 3, 2015 — Pat Bertram

I had nightmares last night. In my dreams, I drove helplessly around, got lost, couldn’t see where I was going, which makes sense since my six month hiatus from driving was about to end.

Yep. The VW restoration is complete!

Oddly, I didn’t think I’d feel anything for the finished car — I mean, it is just a car — but when I went to pick it up today, I felt awed and overwhelmed at my first glimpse of the restored bug sitting in front of the auto body shop. I knew Pedro did good work, but it’s one thing seeing other old cars looking new, and something else seeing your own. He truly went over and above what he said he would, partly because he is an artist, and partly he felt bad about how long it took.

The artist who restored my Volkswagen

The thing shines! He polished the windows, headlights, hubcaps. Replaced all rubber parts and weatherstipping. This in addition to hundreds of hours of bodywork. No bondo for him! Sheet metal and welds all the way. And he did all the things he said he would such as replace the brake and fuel lines that I’d paid someone else to fix. (He tells me God loves me because I could have been killed in that car. Not only did the cheat not replace the brake lines he was supposed to replace, he cut the rear brake line and plugged the hole for the rear brakes on the brake cylinder. Eek.)

And his upholstery guy did a good job on the interior — new padding and slipcovers on the seats, new headliner, new carpeting throughout.

It’s still an old car, of course, with old car crotchets, but not as many as you would think. The last time I drove the car, it was a rattletrap, a junker. It didn’t really matter what happened to it since it seemed to be on its last legs . . . er, wheels. And now, it’s a near classic, a vintage car of some value. That will take getting used to!

I was worried the car wouldn’t start after not being driven for so long, but it started right up. I was worried about forgetting how to drive, but that wasn’t a problem, either. I drove for a couple of hours today to work out any kinks, but the mechanic who did the repair work seven months ago did a wonderful job. There were no mechanical problems, and the car sounds like new. (Like a new old-style-beetle, that is. Not like a new modern day vehicle.)

I’ve often wondered at my folly for going along with such a protracted and rather costly restoration. (I didn’t envision a restoration — I just wanted to get rid of enough rust so it could be painted.) After all, as people keep reminding me, it’s still an old car, and as such doesn’t have the safety features of the new cars. On the other hand, it also doesn’t have a gazillion electronic parts except for the electronic ignition I had put in. It’s mechanical all the way.

Now I’m glad I went ahead with the restoration. It’s past time for a bit of folly, and besides, it’s nice seeing the old bug looking so good.