Spring!

March 20, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Spring slipped in between a couple of storm systems today, fully equipped with sun, warm air, a few fluffy clouds in a bright blue sky, and even a flower! I was so shocked to see this bright purple bloom I couldn’t for a moment remember what it was or where it came from, then I realized it was a dwarf iris from a bulb that I’d planted a year and a half ago. (I don’t know why it appears blue here. Maybe it’s my computer.)

Although I was disappointed in the dismal appearance rate of the bulbs I planted that fall, many seem to be coming up this year, and in fact, seem to have propagated themselves. Now it remains to be seen if I will have any blooms beside this one cheerful iris, though with a new weather system moving in, it’s hard to figure out what will happen. If it remains above freezing and we just get rain, the bulbs will probably have a growth spurt, but if it snows, all bets are off.

I’m hoping the storm holds off an extra day because I have an appointment with my mechanic on Monday to have a new carburetor put in my bug, and that’s the very day the storm is expected. Luckily, I’d only have to drive a quarter of a mile, so it shouldn’t be a problem, but I am not used to driving in inclement weather. Given a choice, I prefer to drive on dry streets, but this is one time I will have to deal with whatever the weather decides to do. Because of my work schedule and the mechanic’s, Mondays are the only days for the work to get done, so unless the weather is truly appalling, I will have to keep the appointment. I suppose if bad weather hits, I could reschedule for the next Monday and hope this isn’t a repeating weather pattern, but I do need to get the car fixed. I don’t mind not being able to drive, but in case of an emergency, I’d have to beg someone for a ride, and though they may be willing, I’m sure it would be an imposition, and I don’t like imposing on people.

But all that’s a consideration for another day. Today the sun is shining, spring is here, and I have a flower in my yard.

Life is good.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in gardening, home, life. Tags: , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Happy House Anniversary to Me!

March 7, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Today is the second anniversary of my being a home owner. The anniversary of when I first saw the house won’t be for another couple of days and will require yet another celebration. Today, though, is about the house.

I bought the house sight unseen, though I had viewed photos online. Oddly, I didn’t particularly care one way or the other about the outside of the house, though people who saw the photos all told me how cute it was and how it looked like me. I was more interested in the new kitchen, the walk-in shower with hand bars, the plethora of windows. Despite that, I have been eminently pleased with the house itself — the spooky basement and the now defunct garage not so much, but both those disappointments have been turned into . . . whatever the opposite of disappointment is. It should be “appointment,” shouldn’t it? Since it’s not, I’ll have to go with “satisfaction.”

Though the basement still needs some work, mostly cosmetic, such as paint, it’s not the spooky place it was at the beginning. If I had known I would only go down those stairs a few times a year to replace the furnace filter, I might not have gone to the expense, but it still makes me feel good to know it’s just a basement, not a horror show.

And the new garage, of course, is wonderful, functional, and attractive. It certainly adds to the joy of home ownership.

I never wanted to own a house. It seemed too much of a responsibility. The first time I ever saw the possibilities in owning a place was when I visited my sister a few years ago. Her house is a delight, with art and artifacts and artful displays wherever I would look. But even so, I didn’t want to own, which was good since there was no way I could ever have afforded to buy a place. At least, not then. The years passed and, as luck would have it, a house showed up in my life.

It has all worked out so much better than I could ever have imagined. Not only do I love my house, I love owning it. It makes me feel good, as if I were wearing a warm cloak on a cold day.

Adding to the luck, the town that came with the house has been a good place for me, complete with a nearby library . . . and friends.

There were several very long years where I thought I would never be happy again. There were other times I knew something wonderful would be in my future — since the universe is balance, I figured only something really special could offset the pain of losing Jeff and the horror of grief.

In twenty days, it will be eleven years that he’s been gone, and not only did I find happiness again, I found the “something wonderful.”

Last year, on the first anniversary, a friend wrote, “Happy house anniversary, Pat. And happy Pat anniversary, house. You make a great couple! Perfect together.” And we are perfect together. Other people sometimes suffer a bout of buyer’s remorse, but not me. I knew this was my house from the first time I saw photos of the place on the real estate site.

So today, I celebrate me and the house. Together.

***

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 home, house, life. Tags: , , , , , . 6 Comments »

Feels Like Home

March 4, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Someone asked me today if it were a cultural shock for me living here in this rural corner of the state after growing up in Denver. I told her that it felt the same, that it felt like home. If I had moved here directly from Denver, it might be a different matter, but I left Denver when too many people from out of the state moved in and immediately tried to change the slow-moving town to a great city. When I was growing up, Denver was a cowtown without a skyline, and fabulous views of the mountains from wherever I stood. Each neighborhood was a town in itself, with churches, schools, stores, a library, all within walking distance. The political bent was . . . well, there was no bend; beliefs seemed to hover right about in the middle. People tended to vote their beliefs rather than follow the party, and overall, it seemed to be centrist. There was some crime and some poorer neighborhoods, but there were no gangs or gang-related activities.

Then came the California invasions. Now Denver is indistinguishable from other major cities, with gangs galore, horrendous social problems, outrageous real estate prices, an agenda the rest of the state has a hard time dealing with, and no autonomous neighborhoods.

I am grateful to be out of that mess, grateful to have found a place that feels like home, that feels like the neighborhood “town” I came from.

The conversation, however, made me wonder why people leave an area they are dissatisfied with and immediately try to change their new location to mimic the old one. Although this is the current problem with a lot of immigrants — people want to change the laws in this country to make it more like the place they came from — it’s also a problem when large numbers of people move from one state to another.

I blame Californians for the change, but New Yorkers cause just as many problems in some areas. In fact, someone from New York recently moved here and is trying to steer this town toward being more of an artist’s colony like Taos rather than accepting it for what it is — a quiet, rather impoverished though congenial town with a lot to offer as it stands today.

I know people prefer what they are familiar with, but migrators — either internal or international — generally leave to go to a new place in search of a better life, so why try to make the new way like the old?

This isn’t simply a problem from state to state, but also from one area to another within a state. I spent some years in the high desert of California, across the mountains from the Los Angeles sprawl. At one time, it was a quiet place, but the state tried to break up the big-city gangs by getting families to relocate to the desert. Now, the place is rife with gang-related troubles, including drugs and crime.

It’s as if they (whoever “they” are) want to turn the whole world into a cesspool. Migrators seem to go along with this agenda because they believe in the rightness of their cause and the wrongness of people who want to live their lives by their own religious beliefs rather than the political beliefs of others. It’s not a surprise there are problems; there always are when the rights of the few are given precedence over the rights of the many.

But I’m migrating away from the topic of this blog. Mostly I’m trying to understand the mentality of those who leave one horrible area and immediately try to change their new environment into an equal horror rather than trying to fit in with the local culture. Though I suppose the truth is they don’t think of the change as horror. Nor do they see anything wrong with what they are doing. Many such immigrants I’ve met have a touch of arrogance about them, as if they thought they were bringing light to a dark area, and never realize they could be a dark bringer instead.

Luckily, this place is small enough and rural enough and independently-minded enough that it will be years before it’s changed all out of recognition. Luckily too, if it’s changed faster than I think it will be, I have my own place — my own personal gated place — and within this enclosure, I can still be at home no matter what goes on outside the fence.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

Posted in culture, home, life. Tags: , , , , , . 6 Comments »

Adventuring

February 13, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Although I might not be having adventures of the traveling kind, I am certainly having an adventure of the weather kind — we’re experiencing an arctic cold front that has brought the temperature forty degrees below normal for the area. I can’t say it’s a fun adventure, but it is an adventure, this trying to stay warm in the chill temperatures. Luckily, I don’t have many reasons to go out and brave the cold, though today I did have one of those reasons.

I was invited to lunch at a friend’s house, and that was an adventure of a different kind — a culinary adventure spanning the gamut of Asian countries. First we had an appetizer of vegetable rolls — various vegetables wrapped in edible rice paper and dipped in a wasabi sauce.

Next we had a deliciously spicy clam-in-the-shell stir fry. After that was grilled eel on a bed of rice topped with a special eel sauce. An interesting taste experience, that’s for sure! I can’t say eel will ever be one of my favorite foods, but I did enjoy it this once, mainly, I think, because it was so different from anything I’ve ever eaten. It wasn’t slimy, as you might expect, but it wasn’t flaky like fish, either, though it did have a mild fish flavor.

To drink, I had Thai cream soda, which is nothing like American cream soda. I don’t know what flavor it is, actually, perhaps similar to an Asian fruit, like rambutan or lychee. Which, incidentally, were served for dessert.

That’s plenty of adventuring for me for now. Tonight, we’re supposed to get snow and even colder temperatures. Tomorrow’s high will be zero. Or maybe 1 degree above zero if we’re lucky. I will have to go out to clear the snow from the ramp and the sidewalk in front of the house, but that will be it for me. The rest of the day I will snuggle under a comforter to read and drink hot tea and be grateful for the warmth inside my cozy little house.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

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

Do the Loneliness and Tears Ever Stop?

February 9, 2021 — Pat Bertram

A friend who became a widow about a year ago asked me if the loneliness and tears ever stopped. I always hate to have to tell the truth that so many of us discovered — that it takes three to five years to find some sort of renewed interest in life, but even then, tears still come, though not as often or for as long as they once did, and the loneliness can continue to be a problem.

It took me ten years and a major life change — moving to a new town and buying a house — before I settled into a feeling of normalcy. I do still tear up at times, but that’s all it is — a momentary tearing up without enough moisture to escape my eyes, and I do still get lonely, though again, it’s more of a blip than a barrage of feelings because after all these years (it will be eleven years in seven weeks) I am used to being alone.

I still marvel that we can get to the point of feeling any sort of normalcy because the truth is, no matter what happens in our lives, they are still gone.

I remember having lunch with a woman who asked me how I was. This had to have been about four years after Jeff died, because I was mostly doing okay, which is what I told her. I would never even have mentioned him except that she asked, which is why her subsequent lecture on how I must really get over it and move on seemed so unfair. It’s not as if I brought up the subject or even bemoaned my fate. My response was just a simple, “I’m doing okay.” She eventually changed the subject back to herself, and this is where things really got bizarre. Her husband was gone for the weekend on a fishing trip, and she spent the rest of our time together talking about how much she missed him and how lonely she was.

I could only gape at her. Her husband had been gone but a day, would be home in another day or two, and their lives would continue as before. Jeff had been gone years, and would never return. It simply did not occur to her to correlate the two situations. Somehow it was okay for her to miss her husband, but not okay for me to miss Jeff. It was as if in her mind, death had erased him, not just in the present, but in the past, so that whatever we had shared was gone, eradicated from the record of my life, and for me even to think of him was an affront.

You’d think as the years pass, our loneliness and missing them would escalate because every new day is another day piled on the heap of days we’ve already spent missing them, but the miracle of grief is that although those feelings are still there, they become subsumed into the depths of our being, and so they don’t demand as much attention.

And so our lives continue.

But for most of us, getting to that point takes years.

If you are still in the midst of the hard years, I am truly sorry, but there is hope. Most of us who manage to claw our way out of the chaos of grief do find renewal of some sort. For me, first it was dance classes, and now it’s my house and home. For so long, Jeff was my home, but now I have an actual place I can call home. It’s not the same, of course, but considering the circumstances of my life, it’s pretty amazing that I got here.

This renewal isn’t unique to me. Many of us find ourselves, ten years after the death of a spouse, life mate, soul mate, in a completely different place, sometimes geographically, sometimes mentally or emotionally, sometimes spiritually, sometimes all three.

It doesn’t in any way make it okay that they are gone, doesn’t eradicate them from our lives, but it does make it easier for us to embrace life once more, to move away from the edge of the abyss where we teetered for so long.

Meantime, in your loneliness, know that at least one person understands, at least to some extent, what you are going through.

***

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 grief, home, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 22 Comments »

Small Joys

January 11, 2021 — Pat Bertram

A couple of days ago, I pulled out all the boxes and such to pack away my Christmas decorations. I’d gradually been putting things away, but suddenly today, I could not stand the disarray any longer and set to with a vengeance. Now my living room is clean and put back the way it was.

And it makes me feel good.

This need for no clutter is a new one for me. I never minded a mess, mostly because I lived in my head. I’d get involved in doing things and simply not notice my surroundings. But I have become something of a neatnik. The first thing every morning, I have to make my bed. The last thing before bed, I have to make sure the kitchen is clean and the counters empty. Except for the past couple of days with the Christmas clutter, the living room was always neat and company ready. It’s unnecessary from the company aspect, of course, because with The Bob, people seldom stop by, but still, it’s necessary for me.

The only room with a bit of clutter is my office. Papers tend to pile up on my desk, and because I am always doing something in that room, I tend not to let it bother me.

It does make me wonder, though, where this tendency toward non-clutter, neatness, and cleanliness comes from. Maybe being a house-proud home-owner (and proud of it!). Maybe having plenty of room — I’ve never had so many rooms, plus enough storage to keep temporarily unneeded items out of sight. Or maybe it’s habit from so many years of living in other people’s houses. Or maybe it’s the nearing of that “elderly” birthday. It’s easier to keep track of my errant thoughts when everything around me is in place.

Whatever the reason, I do find it amusing that I’ve turned into someone I never thought to be. This tendency toward neatness is convenient, that’s for sure! I don’t need to panic if/when the doorbell rings. When I was young, I’d have to peak out to see who was there, and then depending on the visitor, scurry around and scoop up my stray belongings. I think I was neat enough when Jeff and I were together, but since we were in business for ourselves, the storage tended to creep beyond the designated room.

But what once was is no longer important. Today, I put away the Christmas stuff and cleaned the living room.

Such a small thing, but a true joy!

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

Posted in home, house, life. Tags: , , , , , . 9 Comments »

Driving Nowhere

December 26, 2020 — Pat Bertram

When I moved here, the alley behind my house was muddy with deep ruts, which was a big factor (next to cost) in trying to fix the old garage. If the old garage could have been fixed, then I would have graveled the driveway leading out to the paved street and not had to worry about the mud.

Well, fixing the garage didn’t work out, so it got torn down.

By the time the new garage was built, the alley was graveled, which made for a pleasant egress from my new garage.

Unfortunately, the gas company had to dig up the alley to put in new gas lines, and so once again, the alley is muddy with deep ruts. (We got a LOT of snow last week, and now it’s melting fast.)

That mud and those ruts are intimidating since I drive a small car, but more than that, I don’t like the idea of muddying up my new garage.

So today, which was supposed to be a driving day (to keep the bug exercised and the battery charged up), I opened the garage door, got in the car, started it, and . . . drove nowhere. I just sat there with the car running, and dreamt of magical road trips and wondrous sites and sights.

Oddly, I don’t really mind not traveling, even though it was an on and off again way of life for many years. Nothing appeals to me so much as spending the night in my own bed in my own bedroom in my own house.

Work around here has come to a standstill — first because of the snow, next because of the holidays, and finally because of the mud — but once I have pathways meandering through my yard, with various plants — trees, flowers, bushes — in strategic areas, there’s a chance that strolling through my own yard will fulfill some of that desire for new sights. Plants are ever changing, and there always seems to be something new to look at.

Meantime, when I can’t actually get in the car and drive out into the country for a short jaunt, sitting in the car and driving nowhere but into my own dreams seems to be an adequate substitute.

***

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 home, life. Tags: , , , , . 3 Comments »

Feeding My Adventurous Spirit

December 18, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I always walk home from work, even now when it’s dark and the roads are slick from snow. To my surprise, it doesn’t worry me. In fact, I enjoy the small adventure of making my way home in the wilds of this town.

The “wilds” part is just me being facetious. The trek is but two city blocks with street lights. Still, I am alone out there, which adds to the enjoyment. I stop, look up at the sky, look around, listen, feel the chill air, take deep breaths. Sometimes I imagine myself in the wilderness as if I had taken that winter backpacking trip I had once (briefly) considered taking. Mostly I just enjoy the moment.

Not so oddly, this adventure of mine does worry other people.

It’s nice to have people concerned about me, but it’s also a bit amusing. As I’ve been explaining to various folks who think I’m doing something inordinately dangerous by making this brief trek, I have often gone adventuring on my own.

I hiked in the mountains alone. I hiked along beaches alone. I hiked in forests alone. I camped alone. I backpacked alone. I took a cross-country trip alone, going from coast to coast and back again. I took an upcountry road trip alone, going almost from Mexico to close to Canada. Many times I took a half-country trip, from California to Colorado, making the trip so often, in fact, that those roads are very familiar to me.

Even though people flat out told me I couldn’t do each of these things alone (not “shouldn’t” as in a suggestion, but “couldn’t” as is in an order), I went about my merry way. If I had waited for someone to accompany me on any of my various adventures, big or small, I wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere. Looking back, my adventures seemed blessed. The problems I had were minor and easily fixed — a dead battery, a cracked fuel line, a broken speedometer — but even if there had been larger issues, I would have dealt with them.

Now that I have a home, I tend not to travel far, so currently my biggest adventure is that two-block hike in the snow at night.

I’m not stupid — I am cognizant of my age, the weather, and the conditions of the road. I wear waterproof, non-skid hiking boots in the snow and I use my Pacer Poles to help me navigate the icy areas. I also have pepper spray, though since it’s in my bag, it wouldn’t do me much good if I needed it. Besides, I need both hands for the poles. I also have a phone, and all along those two blocks, I get good cellular coverage in case I need to call for help. Lately, because of the snow and the two hiking poles, it’s been bright enough I don’t need a flashlight, but when the streets are clear, I carry a hiking stick in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

Yesterday, when I told friends about my nightly trek and they expressed concern, I just shook my head and mentioned all the things I’d done alone. “But that was years ago,” they said. I agreed, and it was only later I realized they probably meant when I was much younger. What I meant by “years ago” was a mere two years in the past. Most of my adventuring didn’t start until I was sliding down the bannister into old age. (I’m still sliding. Spending so much time with a woman decades older than myself makes me feel young since I can still do most things as well as ever. A bit slower, perhaps, but I am still out and about, for which I am grateful. And she thinks I am just a kid, which helps the illusion.)

So you can see, as adventures go, this one is rather mild, though it does help feed my adventurous spirit.

***

My novel of a quarantine predated this real life experience by a decade. You can read the first chapter online here:  http://patbertram.com/A_Spark_of_Heavenly_Fire.html

Buy it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0024FB5H6/

Download the first 30% free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1842

Posted in Adventure, home, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

There Are Those

December 16, 2020 — Pat Bertram

The words “There are those” from a song of that name keep playing in my head. I had to look it up to find out where those words came from because I only remembered the refrain:

There are those
There are those
I suppose
There are those

Those and suppose — a witty rhyme, right?

The song is from the musical The Happiest Millionaire — a cute song in a cute movie — but I only hear the first three words in my head, mostly because they came to mind when I think of neighbors.

Yesterday I mentioned the awful neighbor we had when Jeff and I lived on the western slope of Colorado, who plowed snow off the lane in front of our houses, and dumped it in our driveway.

And then there are those (see? The song!) like my current neighbors. I went out yesterday to shovel my walkways, and when I’d shoveled my way down the ramp to the public walkway, I discovered that a wide path had already been cleared away.

I felt grateful and blessed, of course, to have such neighbors, but I was also amused since I had just moments before posted my blog mentioning those previous neighbors.

Apparently, there are those who dump snow in one’s driveway, and there are those who clear off one’s walkway.

Yep, like the song, there are those . . .

***

My novel of a quarantine predated this real life experience by a decade. You can read the first chapter online here:  http://patbertram.com/A_Spark_of_Heavenly_Fire.html

Buy it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0024FB5H6/

Download the first 30% free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1842

Posted in home, life. Tags: , , , . 6 Comments »

No Regrets

December 13, 2020 — Pat Bertram

We were under a winter advisory watch from late yesterday afternoon until this morning because of all the snow we were supposed to get — three to six inches, they said. And boy, did we get snow — the full six inches that were forecast.

You’d think this is the sort of day that would make me regret moving back to Colorado, but rather to my surprise, it made me especially glad to be back here. I’ve never lived anywhere else where the aftermath of a winter storm (even though technically it was an autumn snowfall rather than a winter storm) is so invigorating, almost electric, with absolutely still air, blindingly blue skies, hot sun. Of course, there is the chill factor, but that was easy enough to alleviate with proper clothing, and pleasant enough for all that.

Even shoveling all that snow wasn’t a problem — it was hard work, but that work also gave me an excuse to be outside to experience the day. I suppose by the end of winter — if we get many snows like this, that is — it might be a different story, but for today, even the shoveling was a joy.

A Colorado friend who is now living in a mostly snow-free area wanted me to make a snow angel, but I had to turn her down. I can just see that — lying there with snow wings on either side of me, freezing to death because I couldn’t get up. My becoming an angel for real is not the sort of angel she wanted to see, I’m almost certain. Besides, the snow is so powdery, I doubt the image of an angel would remain even if I could still play around like that. I couldn’t even form a snowball to make a tiny snowperson.

As I was writing this, I got a call from a local friend, asking if he and his wife could stop by. I said yes, and asked when. He said, “Open your door.” So I did, and there they were, just pulling up in front of my house. What a lovely surprise, and another reason to not regret being here.

Apparently, they had made a dish to take to church for a meal afterward, as they always did, but no one else showed up. So they thought of me.

We had a good meal and a great visit.

And a good day got even better.

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

Posted in home, life. Tags: , , , , . 8 Comments »
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