Reflection of My Life

August 13, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Maria Rodale, whoever that is, wrote: Gardens are microcosms of our approach to living.

[I had to look her up since the only Rodale name I knew was Rodale Press that published books on health and gardening and other such topics, and it turns out she is one of those Rodales.]

If she’s right about gardens being microcosm of our approach to living, I wonder what my garden says about me, and if it truly is a reflection of my life. I tend to think it is. Since I am always balanced now (or rather, I try to be), not swinging too far from center emotionally, politically, or any other “ally,” it stands to reason that I would all unknowingly approach my garden the same way. My lawn is carefully tended and groomed, mowed and (sometimes) weeded though not, perhaps, as often as they should be. Some of my garden spots are also carefully tended, yet others are pretty much left to do what they want. For example, I planted petunias in my raised garden, and first they were overtaken by self-planted moss rose (portulaca) and then both the moss roses and petunias were overtaken by marigolds. I’m too soft-hearted to rip out those marigolds, and anyway, who am I to say what gets to live and die? (Though admittedly, I do try to roust a lot of the weeds that grow in my space.) And so, poor things, they are left to duke it out on their own.

It’s not a bad way to garden in a place that’s inhospitable to many plants because the things that grow well here tend to do very well, which is why I have so many purple magnus echinacea and red ice plant — they spread. On the other hand, the New England aster I was so proud of at the beginning, don’t do well at all anymore. They don’t like the heat, they don’t like the soil, and they especially don’t like the pH of this soil. (Like most soil in Colorado, it’s highly alkaline, a gift the primordial ocean left behind when it receded from the state.) Every year I cut those poor asters back since that’s supposed to help keep the plants from going brown; every year I think of maybe potting them or doing something else to make them thrive, and every year I just let them be.

My garden is also a reflection of my need to learn as well as my rebellious streak, where I don’t necessarily want to do what the experts suggest, so mainly I learn by trial and error. As I have always done. (Which is probably why I have an enormous and eclectic store of knowledge in my head while also being naïve about many things others seem to know instinctively.)

Most people, at a casual glance, would not be able to connect any of that garden approach with my mostly laissez faire attitude toward life (lately, that attitude is being drowned out by my sadness at the way communism is creeping into the country, but I still mostly try to go along to get along). For anyone who’s paying attention, my yard does say one thing: an old woman lives here. When Jeff and I would see a nicely kept up yard in any of the areas we lived, we always knew it was taken care of by a retiree because no one else seems to have the time or inclination.

And that, too, says something about me — unabashedly accepting my age.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, gardening, home, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Pat Van Winkle

August 11, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Even though we’re in the middle of a heat wave, the past few days I’ve gone outside in relative cool of the early morning to do some much-needed work — trimming overgrown plants, weeding, deadheading, and whatever else I happen to notice when I’m out there. It’s exhausting work, not just the activity but because “relative cool” in no way means “cool.” There is still a lot of weeding to do, but luckily, much of it is not in my view, so I can pretend the weeds aren’t there until I again get the inclination to work that hard.

Yesterday, after I finished working and recuperated a bit, I had to run errands and pick up a couple of food items. I stopped at the nearby dollar store, walked inside, and stopped cold. I stared around at all the Halloween items, totally confused. “What month is this?” I asked a nearby clerk. She laughed, knowing exactly what I meant, and replied, “It’s August.”

Whew! For a minute there, I thought something had happened when I’ve been all caught up in working, like perhaps a month or two passing without my realizing it. I joked and told her that the early seasonal products were not fair for us older folk living alone because we have a hard enough time keeping track of the days.

Although considerably younger, she admitted she’d felt the same way when they got the shipment of Halloween items, and even worse, they’d already received their Thanksgiving shipment.

I hope the moment of befuddlement, not knowing what month it was, isn’t a prognostication of my future. I certainly don’t like the feeling of utter befuddlement. It’s bad enough that the world is passing me by —

I had to stop there and think. Is the world passing me by, and if it is, is it a bad thing? And if it is a bad thing, do I care?

Actually, no. I don’t care, as long as I don’t get confused. For me, confusion is too disorienting, and leaves me . . . confused.

At least there’s no confusion in my mind now. It’s still August. We’re still in a heatwave, though it’s expected to cool down in a couple of days, and I’m still me, not any sort of out-of-time “Van Winkle.”

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

So What?

August 10, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I came across an article where someone had asked the millennials why they hate the boomers and then shared the responses. Quite frankly, the responses seemed to me to be reasons to hate the millennials. Not really, but not “not really,” either. Most of the answers seemed to revolve around how older people use their phones. For example, they hate that “boomers” call instead of text, stop by instead of text, email instead of text. To them, all those things seem rude, but the only reason they would be dealing with these “rude” boomers is if they were related, in which case it seems to me as if they are too self-absorbed and not at all interested in reacting with those older folk in a way the older folk might appreciate.

I understand that mores have changed, and the phone generations think that not texting first is rude, but if someone calls, and you know who they are, it’s just as easy to ignore a call as a text and then call back when you have time. So what’s the gripe?

They also don’t like how “boomers” text, such as writing out whole words rather than using the made-up text language. What possible difference can that make to anyone? One millennial didn’t like that his father signed every text with “love, dad,” but so what? Apparently, they see these things as older folks not caring enough about them to learn the younger people’s way of doing things, but that works both ways: they don’t care enough about the older people to be grateful they at least are communicating and showing that they still care.

And they don’t like that “boomers” don’t want to deal with new apps. And if the oldsters do have to deal, they ask for help, which apparently the bratty millennials don’t want to give, even though trying to learn a new app would seem to be a way of connecting with the younger generations.

There were some other bizarre things they hated, such as older people not being frantic about “climate change” and the way they shrug it off with “the climate always changes,” when, in fact, in this case, the older people are correct. By now, most people have figured out the whole green movement was a scam, that climate is simply changing as it always does, so anyone who is still berating “boomers” about the climate are themselves now part of an older generation that isn’t keeping up with the times.

Other things they hate are that older folks share things that are not true, which is such a joke. Younger generations do that even more, secure in their arrogance that they know what is true when, because of their indoctrination, they haven’t a clue what is true. They only know what they know. (As does everyone, actually.)

They also don’t like that older people prefer cash or a check rather than “tapping” a card, but what business is it of theirs?

And, like everyone, they don’t like advice or back-handed compliments, or questions about their sartorial and body-decorating choices.

But basically, what they don’t like are the way their parents and grandparents use their phones and computers. I imagine, if I had kids or grandkids, they’d hate that I blogged rather than communicated with whatever app it is that they use nowadays.

It’s this sort of thing I started hearing from the older millennial commentators I used to check on occasionally but don’t anymore because who needs that attitude?

I guess this just proves I’m old, but so what? At some point, everyone grows old, at least, those who are lucky enough to live that long.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, blogging, culture, dealing with old age, internet, life. Tags: , , , . 11 Comments »

Off Balance

August 9, 2026 — Pat Bertram

This town is supposedly built on a giant ball of clay that moves, which puts doors out of plumb, even shifts foundations at times, and then it rolls again and everything moves in the opposite direction. I don’t know the truth of the “ball,” though there is no doubt that the soil here is heavy clay that doesn’t hold moisture. It’s also true that doors close differently at times, though, as someone pointed out, that could be due to moisture or lack thereof. Still, when I have to pull my north/south facing doors in tight to get them to latch, I also have to pull my garage pedestrian door in the same direction. And when I have to push the doors hard to get them to latch, the same thing happens to the garage door.

Also, a couple of years ago, I had to fix part of my foundation. There was a huge crack four feet from the corner on the western side of the southwest corner, as well as a huge crack four feet from the corner on the southern side, and that whole corner section moved several inches toward the southwest. Clay ball? Maybe. Moisture or lack of moisture? Could be. I don’t truly don’t know. All I know is that it happened. (I was able to get the foundation fixed. Whew!)

There is also a piece of concrete in the foundation that I had put in place to cover the coal chute since the coal burning furnace is long gone (and I wouldn’t know where to get coal anyway). That concrete slab moves back and forth — sometimes there is a fist-sized gap; sometimes no gap at all. The reason I had to have that chute blocked off is that the concrete that had blocked it off many years ago moved away from the house and sunk into the ground, making it useless.

So, the unstable clay ball could be the cause of all that. Or not. Who knows.

What brings this up today is that recently, at least a half dozen friends and acquaintances in this area have fallen. Me, included. I tripped on the edging around my lawn and fell slowly onto the cushioning grass that left me unharmed but with a single bruise I didn’t even know I had until days later, and more importantly, I had no trouble getting up, ungainly though my rise might have been. Not everyone was as lucky — some of the injuries were rather severe with a couple of people ending up in the hospital and needing care afterward.

It just seems bizarre that so many of us older women who have not even been in contact with each other lately have all fallen around the same time, especially since a couple of us are not prone to falls. I joked that maybe the earth moved and unbalanced us all, and once we’re acclimated, we’ll all be fine. Or it could be that the clay ball moved and did the same thing. (What makes the local ball the lesser explanation is that one of the falls did not take place around here, but at least five did, so that non-local fall could simply be an outlier.)

I do know it’s not one of those situations where once you become aware of something, you see it everywhere, because we all find out when one of our ilk falls, and generally it’s a one off.

But this time? There were too many falls. It must have been that old clay ball, either the local one or the entire globe putting us all off balance.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Well, no — I’m not sticking to that story, much as I liked it. I have a hunch we’re all dealing with the summer blahs as well as a heat wave that could be messing with our equilibrium.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, house, life. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

Useful Folk

August 3, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I saw a video clip the other day that made me think, which I’m sure was not the fellow’s intention since he seems to hate old people and think they should all be done away with. Still, this fellow, with more hardware poked into his face than I have in my toolbox, said that some old guy came up to him, gave him twenty dollars, and suggested he remove the hardware. Rude? Probably? Uncalled for? Well, perhaps. But the question is, why would someone make himself into such a spectacle if he didn’t want to be noticed? Anyway, he ranted on and on about how useless “the boomers” are, without any real knowledge of what the boomer generation is. He said they just sat around and did nothing, which some older folks do, especially those older than the boomers. For the most part, the boomers I know are still working, taking care of grandchildren, volunteering, writing, gardening . . . any number of activities.

It seemed to me that he was not the sort of person to get involved with older folks who are strangers, such as those he’d meet if he were volunteering at a retirement home, so the only way he would know if “the boomers” did nothing but sit around all day was if he knew someone personally, someone perhaps who wouldn’t give him money when he asked. Which made his rant more personal than a sweeping generality, especially since he said he needed gas and the twenty dollars the old boomer gave him was necessary. Which completely negates his rant, because obviously, that old boomer had a particular use and wasn’t worthless to the ranter after all.

Apparently, a lot of the younger generations share his viewpoint about “the boomers” being useless and that they should all be put out of their misery (the misery the young people are feeling, that is, not the misery the old folks probably aren’t feeling). Some people see this attitude as the first step toward generational warfare, which is entirely possible. (Supposedly one of the reasons they hate older folks is they are supporting those “useless” people with their social security taxes, but that there are too few of them to support all of the old people and have money left for themselves. It would seem, then, as if the end — based solely on numbers — would favor the oldsters.) Even some of the self-proclaimed “elder millennial” commentators I used to listen to (emphasis on “used to”) turn out to have that same anti-boomer prejudice, which is funny because they hate being classified as part of the black monolith that’s supposed to be voting democratic, but they see “boomers” as just another faceless monolith.

All of that is preamble to what the hardware guy made me think: Who, actually, deserves to live? Who among us is so worthy of life that everyone else should be eliminated to make room for them? What makes a person worthy of living? What makes one person more useful than another? Is anyone useful, really?

Is a baby contributing to society? Is a kid going to school? What about a person who doesn’t work but manages to get enough handouts to live a life of leisure while pleading poverty? What about the rich folks who are funding the subversive movements in this country? What about the fraudsters? What about the teachers who propagandize rather than teach kids to think? What about the university bigwigs who take money from enemies of the United States to further propagandize the students? What about the scientists who develop drugs and other substances to keep people on a medical treadmill? What about the “experts” who make up the news — or slant it — rather than simply reporting it? What about the editors who decide what we are too stupid to understand? What about the commentators who spew innuendo with straight faces?

If we were to do away with all the worthless folk, the only ones left would be you and me, and I sometimes wonder about you.

[Sorry, I couldn’t resist. That’s something my dad would say to me when I was young: “All the world’s crazy but you and me, and I sometimes wonder about you.” He sure did think that was funny!]

Despite that last facetious remark, there is a tinge of truth to it. In my case, I might not still be working at a paying job, but I am working in my garden, which gives a lot of people pleasure —my neighbors, people walking by, people driving past on purpose to see what I am doing. When I do see people, I always have a smile or a kind word or a hug to give away. I might not be contributing much to the economy, but I leave behind barely perceptible footprints: I live on a miniscule income, drive as little as possible, don’t waste food or much of anything. I just try to live a quiet life of peace, which adds to the entire mantle of peace that perhaps protects us.

Who’s to say that’s not as important as . . . well, as anything that’s important, if there is anything that’s important.

So, to turn the tables on the ranter, perhaps by giving me something to think about, he actually turned out to be one of the useful folk.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, culture, dealing with old age, gardening, life, relationships. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Best Purchase Ever

July 23, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What is the best purchase you have ever made?
View all responses

All too often, these blog prompts leave me wordless. Literally wordless. In that I can’t think of a single thing to write. A recent prompt was if I could be an animal for a week, what kind of animal would I be. Yeah, wordless. I have enough trouble imagining myself as a human animal let alone any other sort of creature.

Another prompt was about what book inspired me to travel. How would I know? I’ve read tens of thousands of books. There’s no way I could pick out a single book. And anyway, as far as I remember, no book ever inspired me to travel — reading books was how I traveled. It was being left alone in the world with no place I needed or wanted to be that gave me the impetus to go on the road.

But this blog prompt? A no brainer!

The best purchase I ever made by far has been this house. I honestly never thought I’d be able to own a house, never really wanted the responsibility, but it’s been great, especially since it happened so late in my life. It’s nice to know I am where I will be until the end unless something drastic happens. It’s nice to know where I am going to be sleeping every night. It’s nice to have control of the temperature (the rooms I rented were either too hot or too cold, with no vote on where I wanted the temperature set). It’s nice to be able to do what I want with the yard.

It’s just . . . nice.

I was lucky to find a place I could afford to buy. (That window of opportunity has closed, so I truly lucked out!) It took a long-range move to get me here where I can live life under my own terms. Well, my terms and the weather’s terms. The weather does control a lot of what I do — when it’s too hot or too windy or too snowy, I pretty much have to stay inside where I can control my environment. It’s this modicum of control that confirms (as if I needed confirmation!) that this house is the best purchase I ever made, especially during these seeringly hot days. (Spell check wants to change “seeringly” to “sneeringly,” and while that might also be apropos, it’s not the word I chose.)

I wake up every day feeling grateful. And I give a last nod of gratitude every night.

Apparently, my best purchase was not just this house, but a life of gratitude, and that, too, is nice.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in blogging, books, dealing with old age, home, house, writing. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Outdated Technology

July 19, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?
View all responses

I’ve been thinking about this blog prompt for a couple of days now, and I can’t really think of anything. The one thing would be the simple internal combustion engine as well as a simple dashboard with no electronic beeps or flashing lights or voices telling me what to do, but I don’t have to miss all that. It’s what I have.

About ten years ago, I had the opportunity to buy a new car, but even the older models had way more gadgets than I wanted. A car with an instrument panel as complicated as an airplane? So many electronic components most older people don’t bother to even figure out how to use? It was just too much, but still I dithered.

My mechanic, of course, wanted me to sell my old car because he wanted it, but he was honest enough to tell me the truth. He also told me that if I bought a new car, in ten years I’d have a piece of junk, but if I kept my VW Bug, in ten years I’d have a gem. I still dithered, but another car guy about had a fit when he found out I was considering getting a new vehicle, and he used the exact words the mechanic did.

By that time, I’d test driven enough cars and paid enough attention to my friends’ cars to realize I didn’t want all that computer stuff. I also didn’t know what lifestyle I would end up with. If I were going to be nomad, I needed a vehicle with a back area I could go car camping in. If I had to move to a big city, I’d need a small car. All that indecision! In the end, I had my bug restored. (Now that I’m remembering, the insurance and license plates tags on a new car would have been out of my budget range, so that pretty much decided the issue.)

I’m glad I kept the car. It’s simple, it works, and it’s a conversation piece. The only problem is I can never get a new car. I’ve told that story so many times — that I bought the car new and never bought another one — that it seems ingrained in my psyche.

So I don’t need to miss having a car with older technology, since that’s my vehicle.

It still seems astonishing to me that a car I bought when I was young, one moreover that I thought was a lemon, is still running. Well, for that matter, it amazes me that I am still running. I mean that my body is still working. I don’t run, can’t run, actually. But luckily, my car does run, even if it is outdated technology.

Oh, wait!! I just thought of another outdated technology that I liked — VCRs. But like my car, I don’t have to miss the technology because I have one or two never-used VCRs so I can play the movie collection Jeff left behind, though to be honest, I haven’t played any of those tapes in years.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

78 Degrees

July 3, 2026 — Pat Bertram

There’s not much to laugh about when it comes to socialistic energy restrictions, or even simply grids so old that such restrictions are necessary, but I do find the current 78˚ restriction in some places amusing. For most of my life, despite living in the intense heat of Colorado summers, I didn’t have air conditioning at all, so 90+ temperatures in the house weren’t that uncommon. I’ve also lived a couple of places with air conditioning, but the person in control of the thermostat blasted air into the room so icy that I had to close the vents.

Now that I have air-conditioning and control of the thermostat, I have it set at 80. Sometimes, if I’m hot, I’ll lower it to 79, especially since my “office” is the least cool room in the house, but usually the room fan works as well as lowering the temperature.

Even if this weren’t a temperature I could get used to, I’d probably do it anyway. During my years (decades!) of no air-conditioning, I learned that the warmer the inside temperature, the less impact walking out into the heat has on one’s system. Going from hot to a blasting air-conditioner or from refrigerated air to extreme heat can be dangerous. For most people, the physiological stress is brief, but for others, it can strain the heart and worsen cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. And even if it weren’t dangerous, it’s easier to adapt to the outside temperature when the difference isn’t so great.

Too be honest, though, if a communist mayor were to tell me to raise my thermostat to 78˚, I’d lower my usual temperature to that setting just as a rebellion.

Or maybe not. Paying out money I don’t have to make a point seems silly. And anyway, I prefer to be able to set the temperature to my preference even if it does fit into someone else’s agenda. Having the choice is something to celebrate, especially during this holiday weekend when we’re celebrating 250 years of freedom.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in culture, dealing with old age, home, life, writing. Tags: , , . 6 Comments »

Not Burning Down My House

June 29, 2026 — Pat Bertram

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

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, home, house, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

Happy First Day of Summer

June 21, 2026 — Pat Bertram

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.

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, life. Tags: , , , , , . 5 Comments »
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