life | Bertram's Blog

Life All Awhirl

September 10, 2015 — Pat Bertram

I think my computer has the soul of an old cat. It’s been in storage for two months, alone and neglected, and when I rescued it today from its storage unit kennel, it decided to neglect me in return. I suppose that passes for fairness in the purr-fect cyber world, but it sure was irksome! Poor old thing, the battery was almost dead, so dead I didn’t think it had enough juice to resuscitate itself, but luckily, it did finally begin recharging. It took several hours for the beast to decide to share its CPUs — I have no idea what it was doing other than its svchost.exe thing. It didn’t seem to be chasing anything dangerous like bugs or viruses, so I let it play.

I’m getting my metaphors twisted here, but the thing really did seem to be punishing me for my neglect. We’ve made up, though, and its decided to let me have my say.

To be honest, I have nothing much to impart, so you won’t hurt my feelings if you leave. Mostly, the past couple of days have left my mind in a whirl, and I’m using this bloggerie to unwhirl my life, and bring me back to a semblance of equanimity.

The bus/train return trip was an interesting experience. I made friends with a self-named “new generation hippie” or “traveler.” She said she got tired of the scene, because although the kids were into various spiritual things, they were mostly into drugs, and she wasn’t. These travelers slept in fragile eco systems, without a care for the damage they did, just because. I might not have paid attention to the account of their shenanigans, except so much of the research I am doing about hiking and backpacking is based on protecting the land while making it available to as many people as possible. The various trails in California, as well as the Appalachian Trail are particularly at risk. (For example, lot of people are reporting used toilet paper “flowers” along the trails. Some parts of the trails are littered with trash and broken gear.) I can’t do anything about them. I’m just glad I walked softly on the trails provided and left no trace. (Though they left a trace on me! Mosquito bites and bruises. Eek.)

Since I’ve been back, I’ve spent a lot of time at my storage unit, trying to find what I need for the next month or so. (For the past eight weeks, I’ve lived with less than 53 litres of possessions — that’s how much fit in my backpack.) And now I find I need a whole carload of stuff. (Computer, dance clothes, printer, nutritional supplements.)

I checked on my car yesterday and today. Poor old beetle still isn’t finished being restored, but even though the body shop guy is only working on it when he has nothing more lucrative to do, I am grateful for the care he is taking. He keeps finding things that were supposed to have been fixed, but weren’t. I’d paid a supposedly reputable VW repair business to replace rusty brake lines and leaky fuel lines, and even though they took the money, they didn’t do the work. Even worse, when I went back because the problems didn’t seem to be fixed, they swore they double checked the work and everything was fine. I can sort of understand cheating with parts like a muffler (they did that, too, took my money for a new muffler, and neglected to put it in) but brakes? Fuel lines that are prone to catching fire? Cripes. They tried to murder me for a few dollars. Oddly, the reason I went to them in the first place, is for them to fix something a previous mechanic had screwed up. And now they’ve been put out of business by myriad lawsuits.

Luckily, I have a new mechanic and now a body shop guy. Between the two of them, my car should run as well as any ancient car can, and look a whole lot better than most old vehicles.

Meantime, I’m back at dance class. It’s been a long time since dancing made me smile — too many personalities and too much drama overloaded my system and took away the joy, but now I feel renewed. At least for a while. It helps that I have another trip planned. And it also helps that I’m literarily causing havoc for my dance mates.

I started writing my novel about the dance class when I was up north. I even know who committed the murder and why, just don’t know all the particulars, but I don’t need to know those details until I write myself into a corner and need a twist to get me out. I’m not sure I’ll be able to continue writing the book now that I am back in class. I have a hunch it will be hard to keep my mind in the story when every day I see the characters in real life doing the opposite of what I’d written. Sort of kills the imaginative aspect, I suppose, but maybe not. The characters are already evolving away from their real life counterparts, and since I couldn’t have a whole bunch of supporting characters muddying my figurative waters, I combined the women into composite characters, which makes it easier to be truthful. (As the wolf told Red Riding Hood, “the better to destroy you with, my dear.” Or some such.) Besides, if anyone annoys me, I can get my revenge on them in the story.

It’s hot here in the desert, close to 100° and so humid I am drenched even so late in the evening. Such a vast difference between here and the northern part of California! Oddly, the skies seem higher in the desert. The light is different here, so glaringly yellow, that I’m sure it causes some sort of optical illusion. And oh, does that sun burn! In all the hiking discussions I have read, all the experts have iterated not to wear cotton when hiking, but that can’t possible refer to the desert. Wearing synthetics would be like sitting on a vinyl seat in a car that has been baking in triple digit temperatures. Ouch. But I’ll check out Merino wool — supposed to feel like silk.

And anyway, I’ve put away my hiking persona for now, and donned my dancing diva.

Thanks for helping me unwhirl. I feel so much better now!

Here is a song someone sent me. Sounds like my life. https://youtu.be/6BvPMbJZfLw Hope you enjoy it.

***

(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 life, writing. Tags: dance class, desert vs northern climates, leave no trace, new generation hippies, old VW bug, writing about real people. 6 Comments »

Lure of the Trail

September 7, 2015 — Pat Bertram

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here in this idyllic place of vast trees and vaster water bodies for eight weeks. Harder to believe my summer adventure is coming to an end, but it is — I’ve already purchased my ticket back to the treeless, waterless desert.

Hardest of all to fathom what I experienced.

I have seen ponds, lakes, lagoons, bays, brooks, creeks, rivers, and especially the ocean. I have seen tiny Douglas fir seedlings and gargantuan coastal redwoods. I have tramped more than a hundred miles through various forest terrains, and almost as many miles along the ocean shores.

I’ve meandered through some of the creepiest places on earth — dark forests with gargoyle-like tree trunks, mouldering stumps of long-dead trees, and moss hanging from blackened branches like the wispy green ghosts reaching out from the centuries.

I’ve wandered through cathedral-like groves of redwoods, the sun shining through the canopy like stained glass.

I’ve traversed ghost highways and long-forgotten logging roads, and though these were not “est” trails — not the longest, shortest, showiest, hardest, or easiest and the trees weren’t the tallest, oldest, biggest — these were some of my favorite hikes. Just pleasant strolls in the woods.

And through it all — dog bite, spained calf muscle, bruises, aching feet, sore muscles, and mosquito bites galore — I never lost the lure of the trail.

This summer adventure might be over, but there are other days, other places, other trails.

And so the adventure continues.

***

(The heart is a shell fragment I found on the beach yesterday. Maybe the ocean was telling me it hearts me.)

Posted in Adventure, life. Tags: creepy forest, ghost roads, hiking, lure of the trail, old logging roads. 10 Comments »

I Hiked in the Woods

September 5, 2015 — Pat Bertram

My summer adventure is nearing an end. Just a few more days of ocean and trees before I return to the desert. Since yesterday’s forest hike has to last me for a while, I stayed out most of the day, following one trail after another until I reached the site of my very first hike up here. It was an odd sensation, coming out of the forest to that very spot, as if I’d spent all these weeks wandering in the trees without a break. It certainly felt like weeks, though it was only six hours uphill, downhill, along rivers and creeks, picking my way on gnarly trails, tripping over roots, feeding myriad mosquitoes. (Apparently the mosquito-repellant bracelet I wore was effective only in areas without mosquitoes.

I didn’t make it to the touristy Stout Grove as I intended — the bridge across the creek came down on the 1st of September — nor did I find the trail to a secret grove where some of the forest’s biggest and oldest trees hold court, but I did find one lovely grove of giants among giants. I would have taken a photo, but those trees were so large, all that showed up in the viewfinder was a part of the trunk.

And that grove was only one of the wonders of this final redwood journey. The trail went through a tree trunk (the photo looks like light passing between two trunks since I couldn’t step back far enough to get a photo of the single tree). The trail went under a floating forest (all sorts of trees and plants grow on fallen tree trunks, and this fallen tree never had reached the ground). It passed through a bizarrely awesome tunnel with a fallen redwood creating a 300-foot wall on one side of the trail and deciduous trees on the other side forming a canopy over head.

I saw the green of the Smith River far beneath me, and when I came out of the forest onto the riverbank, I took a photo of the forest from which I had emerged, and I find it impossible to imagine myself hiking in there, a speck compared to those gargantuan specimens. Apparently, although my mind registered what I saw, it cannot acknowledge that I was physically present.

And it is hard to acknowledge. In my mind, I am the eternal bookworm, sitting comfortably and safely, reading about other people’s adventures. In one place, the trail was nearly vertical for two or three yards, and though I know I scrambled up that bank, I don’t exactly know how I did it. Such a strange activity for a bookish woman.

All these experiences seem as hard to believe as my years of profound grief. I sometimes wonder if that woman was really me, that woman who loved a man so deeply that his death all but shattered her. Now I wonder if this intrepid woman is really me. Since neither of these traits — deeply emotional, ardently adventurous — fit with my view of my prosaic self, I suppose it’s time to reevalute my view of myself. Or not. Perhaps I really am just lounging on some cosmic couch, comfortably and safely imagining this life.

But such a vivid imagination is not something I credit myself with, either, which then means I am imagining myself imagining myself . . .

Still, however it happened, whether I believe it or find it impossible to fathom, I hiked in the woods, and I have the photos to prove it.

***

Posted in Adventure, being me, life, photography. Tags: forest in the air, grove of giants, hiking in the woods, imagining myself, Redwood Forest. 7 Comments »

I Got to the Point!

September 4, 2015 — Pat Bertram

So often, I have searched for the point of life, trying to find meaning in its pitfalls, and pinnacles. In fact, as has been pointed out to me on various occasions, I have a penchant for littering my conversations with, “the point is…”

Yesterday, however, I did discover a point of sorts — Chetco Point.

My hostess had business in Oregon, so I drove up the coast with her, and she dropped me off in town. I had no plans, just thought I would see what I could see. After about a half hour of wandering, I saw a sign for Chetco Point. I followed the road, figuring anything that leads me to the point is a good route to follow. Turns out, Chetco Point State Park is a reclamation project, probably sponsored by the bordering waste treatment plant. There was a lovely little picnic area with a view of the ocean and a large sea stack (a remnant of an ancient coast line, too hard to wash away with the softer and sandier part of that old shore).

I took a pathway off to the left of the picnic area and discovered a trail leading up to the very point of the sea stack. A sign warned of danger, but after a brief hesitation, I ignored it. I saw nothing dangerous. I’d been on decidedly more treacherous slopes, though I admit I stayed few feet away from the crumbling edge of the very windy point. Adventure is one thing. Foolhardiness another.

I followed all the trails, took photos of every point of view, enjoyed the headiness — and aloneness — of this spectacular rock capped with lush vegetation until the arrival of a couple of young men and their selfie stick broke the spell.

There doesn’t seem to be a point to any of this wandering and wondering I’ve been doing of late, and yet it all matters because it’s experience. Which, in the end, I suppose, is the point of life and everything else — experiencing it.

***

Posted in Adventure, life. Tags: ancient coast line, Chetco Point, experiencing life, sea stack, the point of life. 4 Comments »

Naked Ladies and Other Beauties

August 28, 2015 — Pat Bertram

I’ve spent most of my life in deserts, first in Colorado, and more recently in a high corner of the Mojave Desert. (Colorado might not seem like a desert since it has tillable soil and no cactuses. What makes it a desert is the lack of surface water. Only Colorado’s white gold — the deep mountain snow — makes the state an oasis. Without water, very little but scrub grows naturally.)

It seems odd then, after a lifetime’s experience of how difficult it is to grow anything, to find myself in an area where things grow almost by accident.

In my walks about town, I see naked ladies everywhere. These pink lily-like flowers of the amaryllis are so named because the flowers grow on naked stems, long after the leaves are gone. But knowing the name doesn’t make these foliage-free flowers any more lovely, especially since I’ve never seen them before.

Nor have I ever seen azaleas, and now a lovely red bloom greets me every morning.

Most surprising, considering my total inability to cultivate rhododendrums, I’ve seen the bounteous bushes growing in the woods.

But everything seems to grow in this fertile place, holly and ivy and a lushness of greenery growing upon other greenery.

And oh, did I forget to mention wild blackberries? Most are not ripe yet, but even so, I manage to find few luscious berries on almost every trek.

What an incredible world we live in. So much diversity! I can only stand in awe, and give thanks.

***

Posted in life, photography. Tags: amaryllis, azaleas, giving thanks, holly, naked ladies, rhododendrum, wild blackberries. 4 Comments »

Never Changing. Never the Same.

August 26, 2015 — Pat Bertram

I went for a three-hour beach walk yesterday. It was perfect timing, with low tide at the mid point of my hike so I mostly had hard wet sand to walk on. It was also a perfect ocean day, cloudy and foggy, and so cool I needed to wear a windbreaker and a scarf around my neck.

For all those hours, the scene never changed — the sea on one side of me, the grass-covered dunes on the other, the sand in front of me, all narrowing to a single point in the distance. It almost seemed as if I were on a treadmill, going nowhere. And yet the scene was ever changing — birds came into view and left, waves of various intensities broke on shore, an assortment of shells and gravel littered the sand.

This never-changing / never-the-same view made me think of us and how we always seem to be the same and yet we are always changing, at least our view point is changing. I don’t know how much we can change fundamentally. At rock bottom, beneath our emotions and our mental chatter, we are awareness, and awareness simply is. But our viewpoint changes with every new challenge, with every widening of our horizons.

I feel as if I should add to this piece, fill out the thought, add a pithy comment or a bit of wit, but apparently, this is the totality of my insight.

Never changing. Never the same.

***

Posted in Adventure, life. Tags: always changing, always the same, changing viewpoint, insights, walking on the beach. 5 Comments »

Oregon Coastal Adventure

August 24, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday I hiked what was supposed to be a four-mile section of the Oregon Coast Trail, but turned out to be only two miles. Apparently, the distance for that particular hike was calculated as round trip rather than one way, but since the description left out that salient point, when I emerged from the woods into the parking lot after only an hour, I was confused. I wasn’t lost, of course, but I felt lost since I didn’t know where I was exactly, and I didn’t seem to have a phone signal to contact my ride in case I had to notify them of a change in plans. So I continued on down the trail, hoping that the next turnout would give me a better idea of where I was.

The sections I hiked were not really difficult except in spots where steps up or down were more than I could handle. (Like stepping up onto or down from a slanting, very narrow backless chair.) Sometimes I could pull myself up with the help of a trailside tree, other times I had to clamber up on my knees.

After I left the little parking lot, the trail became steeper and narrower. The footpath as a whole was narrow — often only about a foot wide — but sometimes this additional trail section was only six inches wide. And there were more parts that were hard for me to climb up or down. Still, I managed to get to where I could see the next parking area though I couldn’t figure out how to get there from where I was. One unmarked trail led to a creek. Another unmarked trail led to a marshy area.

I did figure out where I was since I was high enough to see that the terrain matched my map. I also figured out that the mileage on the trail description was off. So I headed back up to the first parking area, assured that was my rendezvous point.

Going back up was easy. Or rather easier. (Downhill is much harder for me than uphill. Balance is off; footing is different; and if my left shoe is tied snug enough to keep my foot from sliding forward and squishing my big toe, it pinches a nerve on the the top of my foot.)

I ended up hiking four miles after all. Ended up where I was supposed to meet my friends. Ended up learning something, I am sure, though I don’t know what. Maybe: take things as they come. Perhaps: do whatever necessary to accomplish the next step no matter how awkward or inelegant. Possibly: don’t get so caught up in the doing you forget the being.

Mostly I learned that there is a pub in Oregon with the absolutely best hamburgers ever, made with beef grown and pastured four miles away.

***

Posted in Adventure, life. Tags: best hamburger, downhill hiking, downhill vs uphill hiking, getting lost, hiking, Oregon Coast Trail. 9 Comments »

Feeding My Soul

August 22, 2015 — Pat Bertram

A couple of days ago, I stood on shore, so close to the edge of the land that all I could see were powerful incoming waves and beyond them, in the great distance, more placid waters extending to the far reaches of my horizon. The endless sight of water and the immense sound of surf held me spellbound. There was no fishy odor to bring me back to myself, just the smell of clean ocean air. The usual jumble of words and thoughts in my head were stilled. I was stilled. All that existed at that moment were the ocean and my awareness of this non-human force.

We are so used to seeing things in human terms that we forget how almost inconsequential we are to the world’s existence. The ocean was here eons before the first biped left an ephemeral footstep on the sand, and long after our cities have been deconstructed by nature and the elements reclaimed by the earth, the tides will still exert their power.

Eventually my restless spirit exerted its own power, and I continued my walk on land’s end, but the magic of that moment when I was an ocean stayed with me.

Yesterday I walked through a dune forest, accompanied by the distant sound of the surf, like blood rushing through my ears. Tsunami warning signs reminded me of the power of the nearby ocean, but that calm summer day held no danger. I was the only human creature in the woods, though dragonflies, birds, and a deer shared their space with me. I stopped to eat a few wild blackberries and caught a glimpse of a snowy egret in a hidden pond beyond the brambles.

It wasn’t until I returned to civilization that I realized what I am doing and why adventure pulls at me. I am feeding my soul.

When my life mate/soul mate died, his goneness left a vast emptiness in me, so vast that it could encompass the whole world. So that is what I am doing — encompassing the world.

Someday, perhaps, I will be filled. Someday I might lose the ability to absorb my surroundings. Someday I might lose the ability or stamina to walk much, might even lose the desire for adventure, but whatever worldness and other-beingness I have poured into my self will always be with me, whether I consciously remember or not.

***

Posted in Adventure, being me, life. Tags: dune forest, feeding my soul, hiking, snowy egret, wild blackberries, world without humans. 5 Comments »

Seeing the World on Foot

August 19, 2015 — Pat Bertram

A friend asked me if I’ve gotten adventuring out of my system, and the answer is no. The truth is, I’m getting addicted. I love seeing the world on foot. I love being part of a relatively untamed environment. And I feel as if, in some strange way, I belong out there. Before I got out of the car the other day to begin a seven-mile, no-turning-back hike, I had to steel myself against trepidation, but as soon as I stepped on the trail, I felt as if I’d come home.

That feeling of coming home was as momentary as the trepidation, though the joy of the walk remained until the excruciating last hour. But the hardship is part of the adventure, too. Coming to the end of one’s skill, coming to the end — or almost the end — of one’s strength and continuing anyway is as much a mental adventure as it is physical. During that grueling downhill slide on loose dirt and rock, I just wanted to be done with it all, but before, during the long golden part of the hike, I wished the trail went on forever. Wished I could just keep walking.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to do long backpacking trips, or any sort of backpacking trip — the hard parts of hiking are hard enough without the extra weight of a pack and the easy parts would no longer be easy — but I have the whole rest of my life to train for such a trip.

Dance classes have helped with my strength and stamina, so I’m planning to be back in class for most of September and October. And then? Who knows. More dancing perhaps. Or maybe Louisiana. I have an online friend I’ve planned to meet for many years, and going to a swampy area is better suited to cooler temperatures.

Meantime, I can hardly wait for the next adventure, to see what I can see, to see what I can be.

***

Posted in Adventure, being me, life. Tags: backpacking, being what I can be, hiking, seeing what I can see, the world on foot. 1 Comment »

Ghost Highway Adventure

August 18, 2015 — Pat Bertram

It seems odd to me that after all these years of talking about my desire for adventure, I no longer have reason to talk — I’m doing. My excursions might not seem all that adventurous to the truly adventurous, but for now they satisfy my inner cry for something more, and to be honest, they are all I can handle, or maybe I should say they are all my feet can handle. (Right now my feet are so sore I can barely stand, so I am taking it easy.)

Yesterday I headed out on a 7.2 mile hike, starting on what was called The Damnation Creek Trail. After about three-fourths of a mile I took a turn onto the Coastal Trail. This section of the Coastal Trail lay inland on what was the original Redwood Highway. The highway had been built in the 1920s and abandoned in 1935 because of the difficulty in maintaining it — it kept crumbing and was beset with rockslides. (Ironically, on the drive to the trail head, my friend talked about recent discussions to move the current road further inland because it too is crumbling.) In spots, the pavement with the white center line showed through, and even a few of the original mile markers remained.

I’d felt a moment of trepidation before I got out of the car — since there was no phone signal at the trail head, I would not be able to turn back if things got rough because there would be no way to call my friend for a ride back to town. But as soon as I got onto the trail, my trepidation vanished to be replaced by a smile. My smile widened when I turned onto the old road. Pure magic. Not a hike so much as a perfect walk in the woods. I could swing along, enjoying the day, the scenery, the forest without having to worry about where I was placing my feet. I saw a couple of people toward the beginning of the trail, but for three hours I saw no one. Just me and the magical place.

In spots, the road all but disappeared, leaving a narrow trail crossed with fallen trees or buried under rock, but those places were quickly navigated. Somewhere along the way, the old highway disappeared altogether. I think it was right after the viewpoint where I stopped to take a photo of the bay far below. (In the photo, the ocean is barely visible beneath the fog. In fact, from that point forward, my journey was accompanied by the lonesome call of the foghorn.)

The narrow trail along the bluffs began with a steady half-mile climb that had me panting. Halfway up, I found a fallen tree that had been sawed to pieces to remove it from the trail, and the thick logs had been cut into seats. I figured that was a good place for a snack. Unfortunately, so did the mosquitoes. Before I could sit down they began snacking on me (despite the citronella bracelet I wore that was supposed to repel the bloodthirsty critters), so I continued on my way. I felt good. No aches or pains. No tiredness. Then, toward the end of my journey, came the toll for the magic trek along the ghost highway. (Magic always comes with a price. Everyone who has ever read a fairy tale knows that.)

I began a long downhill stretch. Steep and gnarly, the path was still easy enough to navigate. Not fun, exactly, but not gruelling, either. Then I turned a corner. The trail became even steeper, but worse than that, it was all loose dirt with looser rocks. Oh my. I wished I had a second trekking pole, but the time for magic had passed, and my wish wasn’t granted. So I set off downhill. Slowly. Very slowly. The rocks under my feet kept sliding, taking me with them. I lost my balance several times but managed to stay on my feet. When I saw a switchback up ahead, I figured the terrible trail was about to end. It didn’t.

On every hike, there comes a moment when I realize I am way out of my depth (or way over my head — choose your cliche) and all I can do is endure. So I kept going. One exhausting step at a time. After about a half hour of this, I saw a young man climbing toward me. He said I was almost to to the end, and asked if I’d come from the highway (where the trail had started). When I said yes, he responded, “Props to you.” Whatever that means.

I continued downhill on that treacherous path, heartened by the thought that the ordeal would soon end, but it didn’t end. I did. I was just standing there, unable to move another step, when a man climbed up the trail. As he passed me, he said, “You’re almost down. The trail flattens out after the next curve. The parking lot is on the left.”

But it didn’t flatten out. Still, I knew the end would come, so I kept descending. And yes, that terrible path did end. Eventually. But the parking lot was still a half mile away on a gentle incline that was almost too steep for my shaking legs to climb.

Writing this, I find myself smiling. Not about the final descent (it lost 1000 feet of elevation in a half mile) or my aching feet but about walking the ghost highway. There were times I could hear the sounds of automobiles passing. I’m sure the sounds came from the nearby modern highway. Well, almost sure.

Pure magic.

***