life | Bertram's Blog

Camping on the Edge of Life

August 19, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Too often now I feel as if I am camping on the edge of life. To a certain extent, this feeling comes from my current living situation. I am staying with my 96-year-old father to make sure he retains his independence as long as possible, but since his house is fully furnished, that means most of my stuff is in storage. I have my clothes, of course, my computer, my own towels, a few kitchen items, a couple of furniture pieces (such as the table and chair I’m presently using for my desk) — just enough to connect me to the past but not enough to make me feel settled. I won’t be staying here once my father is gone and that knowledge also keeps me from feeling settled, makes me feel as if I am just camping in. (Rather than camping out.)

More than that, though, this feeling of camping on the edge of life comes from being single in a coupled world. It’s been three and a third years since the death of my life mate/soul mate, and I’m still not comfortable with his being gone. Despite that, quite inexplicably I’m forgetting that I once shared my life, once loved deeply, once felt as if I lived smack dab in the middle of life. As my grief continues to wane, as I move further from him, it seems as if this is lonely existence is what my life has always been — and it should be enough, but it isn’t. Not yet.

We live in a world where movies, books, songs, videos, shows, ads and commercials all extol the virtue of being in an intimate relationship. Love makes the world go round. You’re nobody till somebody loves you. All you need is love. Love makes you feel complete. Love makes you feel fulfilled. Love makes life worth living.

This constant barrage of coupled love and happily ever after is a sad message for many of us — either we lost our love too soon through death or divorce, or never found someone in the first place.

Intellectually, I know that whatever I am doing or feeling is life. Being together or being alone, feeling fulfilled or feeling unfulfilled — all of it is life. And yet, I can’t help feeling that something is missing.

It might sound as if I’m looking for someone to share my life with, but I’m not. I’m just aware of the realities of being uncoupled in a coupled world. I suppose there will come a time when I embrace the freedom of my alonehood, and plunge deep into the heart of life, but for now, all logic to the contrary, I feel as if I am camping on the edge of life.

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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.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: all you need is love, being single in a coupled world, elder care, grief and loss, happily ever after, love makes life worth living, love songs. 4 Comments »

Today I Will Be . . .

August 4, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I’ve gotten in the habit of posting a daily resolution on Facebook, which has been a good discipline for me. I spend a minute or so thinking about what challenges I will be facing that day, and then I post the appropriate resolution. For example, today I will need to have more generosity of spirit to get through a trying situation, so the resolution I just posted says: Today I will be . . . munificent. Yesterday I had to write a chapter for Rubicon Ranch, the online collaborative serial I’m writing with other Second Wind authors, so I posted the resolution: Today I will be . . . creative. Other days I have resolved to be bold or diligent or grateful or (just for fun) enigmatic.

In fact, I even use an all-purpose resolution, a bit of word art I created, for my Facebook profile:

I don’t know if these public daily resolutions make a difference because obviously I don’t know what my day would have been like without them, but I like posting the resolutions. It makes me appreciative of the day despite any challenges or hardships that I am facing, Makes it seem as if with a bit of a boost, I can surmount all problems or at least accept them. So although I already posted a resolution for today on Facebook, I am posting a special one here:

Today I will be . . . appreciative.

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Posted in being me, internet, life, writing. Tags: being appreciative, daily resolutions, Facebook, resolutions. 1 Comment »

Excerpt From “Grief: The Great Yearning” — Day 115

August 2, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I never actually set out to write a book about grief, never planned to make any of my writing public (except for blog posts, of course), but I was so lost, so lonely, so sick with grief and bewildered by all I was experiencing, that the only way I could try to make sense of it all was to put my feelings into words. Whether I was writing letters to Jeff (my deceased life mate/soul mate) or simply pouring out my feelings in a journal, it helped me feel close to him, as if, once again, I was talking things over with him. The only problem was, I only heard my side of the story. He never told me how he felt about his dying and our separation. Did he feel as broken as I did? Did he feel amputated? Or was he simply glad to be shucked of his body, and perhaps even of me?

It’s been more than three years now since the following piece was written. I still don’t understand the purpose of pain, loss, suffering. Still don’t understand the nature of life or death. Still don’t know how energy can have cognizance, if in fact, consciousness survives death. The main difference is that the wound where he was amputated from me has healed. I don’t worry about him — at least not much — but I still miss him and I probably always will.

Excerpt from Grief: The Great Yearning

Day 115, Dear Jeff,

Did you use the phrase okie-doke one night at the end when you were saying all those jaunty things like “adios, compadre”? You must have. Every time I see or hear the expression, I start crying. Good thing it’s not in common usage any more.

I am hurtling away from you at incredible speeds. Maybe I’ll come full circle and meet with you again when my end arrives? I wish I believed that, but it makes no sense. How do sparks of energy have cognizance, character, memory? How would we know each other? At least I would no longer have to deal with your absence since I’d be absent too.

You came into my life so rapidly. One day you weren’t there, and the next you were. You went out the same way. One day you were there, the next you weren’t.

Yesterday someone told me that life on earth was an illusion and so you still existed. But if life is an illusion, why couldn’t it be a happy figment? A joyful one? What’s the point of pain? Of loss? Of suffering?

You’ve been gone one-hundred and fifteen days, and I still can’t make sense of it.

Adios, compadre. I hope you, at least, are at peace.

Click here to find out more about Grief: The Great Yearning

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Posted in culture, grief, life, relationships. Tags: bereft, grief and healing, grief and searching for meaning, grief as amputation, grief work, Grief: The Great Yearning. 6 Comments »

No More Saturday my Sadder Day

August 1, 2013 — Pat Bertram

During the past three and a third years, ever since the death of my life mate/soul mate, the date and the day he died have brought an upsurge of grief. Every 27th of the month and every Saturday I felt an increased sadness even when I wasn’t aware of the date and day. And when the 27th fell on a Saturday, I got a double dose of grief.

Last Saturday was the 27th, but there was no sadness. I simply noted the date and day, and went on with my life. Not that there was much to go on with — a walk in the desert, a movie (one of the movies he taped for us), some online activity.

Part of me wanted to feel sadness just out of habit — habits are comfortable even when they aren’t particularly productive. Part of me wanted to feel sadness because it was a link to him and to a life that is rapidly receding from me. Mostly it didn’t matter. I’d come to see that being sad or unsad didn’t make much of a difference — it was just a part of my life in the same way the sun rises and sets or the moon grows full and wanes.

It’s been several days since Saturday the 27th, and I still don’t know what to think about the lack of sadness. Three and a third years ago, I was in such pain, I couldn’t have believed this time would ever come. Some people who have lost their spouses still feel connected, but I don’t. I talk to him, of course, but never feel as if he’s listening, let alone responding. Whatever we once meant to each other, whatever we shared, I now know he’s on his own journey, just as I am.

The main problem continues to be emptiness. I don’t feel anything as dramatic as the bleakness I once felt, don’t feel much at all, to tell the truth. I do feel lonely, of course, but I’m getting used to that. I even think it might be my destiny—to be alone so I can . . . and that’s where the thought always ends. So I can do or become . . . what?

I don’t much believe in destiny, and yet it’s hard to completely disbelieve when two such inexplicable and awe-full events helped define my world: the day he came into my life and the day he left.

From somewhere deep inside, “want” is starting to seep up into my consciousness. It’s an indefinable want, perhaps a desire for life, whatever that might be. I’ve been steeped in death and aging for too long (still am — I’m currently looking out for my mostly independent 96-year-old father), and something in me is crying out for more.

Despite a growing restlessness, I need to be patient since my life is not yet entirely my own. But someday, when I am free, I hope I have the courage to run to meet my destiny, whatever that might be. I hope I have the courage for “more.”

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Posted in being me, culture, grief, life. Tags: grief at three years, sadder day, Saturday, upsurge of grief. 10 Comments »

Greedy For Life

July 31, 2013 — Pat Bertram

If the universe is full of infinite possibilities, does that mean we are infinitely possible too? I’d like to think so, but it doesn’t seem feasible. We seem to be bounded by our genetics, the way our brains are wired, our very thoughts. Can we go beyond such constraints to something else?

Working within natural laws, we can change ourselves to a certain extent. We can get a new job. We can move to a different location. We can divorce or remarry. We can become thinner, fitter, stronger, more serene. We can even look and feel younger, but we cannot actually be younger. Nor can we be anything but what we are — whatever that is. I suppose it’s a good thing our basic nature doesn’t change. It would make life intolerable if every morning when we woke up we discovered we were something different — a butterfly or a dragon, a flower or a star.

Still, in a universe full of possibilities, there has to be more possibilities than we see or even fathom. But how does one find (or create) these possibilities? I realize that wanting to be something other than ourselves is wasting who we are, but still, there has to be a way of becoming more of what we are, of reaching a greater potential.

I have such a desire to be “other,” though I don’t have any clear concept of what that means. Wiser, of course, and more in tune with the universe. Transcendent, maybe. Able to sense that which I cannot now see.

At the very least, I’d like to be able to just go along for the ride, see where life takes me without worry or fear. But even such a small transcendence seems improbable — I’m a worrier (thinker!) by nature and genetics, and fear is not just a mental state but physical reaction, a body response to danger, and we are such physical creatures. And anyway, aren’t worry and fear part of the experience of life, just as grief is?

Maybe there is more life on the horizon for me than I can now see, and all this cogitation is but a way of occupying myself until that life arrives. Or maybe the cogitation will help get me there by opening up my mind and soul to more, like a flower opening to the sun.

I’ve never been a greedy person — never really wanted much, especially not things — but now I see there is growing.

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Posted in being me, culture, life. Tags: changing, going along for the ride, greedy for life, in tune with the universe, infinite possibilities, searching for transcendence. 7 Comments »

Where Would We Be Without Words?

July 30, 2013 — Pat Bertram

We create with words. Even non-writers create worlds, meanings, stories with their spoken words. When we are not speaking or writing our own words, we are steeped in the words of others — books, songs, movies, telelvision, overheard conversations. Words — and the stories/anecdotes we create with those words — are what makes us different from other creatures here on Earth.

Not only do we create with words, we also create the words themselves. Language is evolving every bit as much as if it were a living creature, becoming more diverse, more specialized, more colorful, more adaptable.

Despite what it might seem, this isn’t going to be a laudatory post about the wonder of words. I’ve written that here: Giving Thanks for Words. Instead, I want to explore the possibility that words are creating us as much as we are creating them — for better or for worse.

I think in words — in fact, using words helped me get through my terrible grief after the death of my life mate/soul mate. By putting my feelings into words, I could make sense of what I felt, and because of it, I connected with others who felt the same way. That seems to be the main purpose of language and words — connecting with others. A means of survival. By being able to express ourselves in words, from not having to rely on grunts and gestures, we’ve built a human world that spreads across the entire planet.

Which came first, the potential for world building or the potential for word building? Did the capability for language evolve at the same time as language itself? In other words, did language create us as we were creating it? I don’t suppose it matters. Today, right now, we have both the capability and the language, and we use them copiously.

But here’s what I’ve been wondering. Is language a tool of human evolution, or is it a tool of devolution? Are words a way of dumbing us down while smartening us up? Words seem to keep us focused on the humanness of our world, keep us connected to each other both when we are together and when we are far apart. But are those very words keeping us from a greater connection? Some people believe Earth is a living, breathing creature. Some people think solar systems and galaxies are also alive. Some even believe the universe — all that exists, ever existed, will ever exist — is a living, sentient being. If this is true, are words filling our heads and airways with so much noise that we can no longer feel the breath of Mother Earth, can no longer hear the music of the spheres?

Where would we be without words?

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Posted in culture, life, relationships, writing. Tags: language, language and evolution, survival and language, use of words, word building, world building. 7 Comments »

Writing With Life

July 28, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I don’t have any use for heaven. The idea of eternity is a bit much for my poor human brain to fathom, especially eternity with a bunch of folks with whom I have no affinity. Think about it. Do you really want to spend forever and ever and ever with that jerk who cut you off today while you were driving and then gave you the finger as if you had done something wrong? And what about the abusive husband you divorced years ago and still cannot tolerate. Do you really want to spend eternity with such a jerk? Or what about . . . well, no need to go into more detail. You get the picture.

Some people believe that our jerkness dies with our bodies, that we immediately become wonderfully stellar creatures, but then what’s the point of striving to become more than we are here on earth if in heaven we automatically become that “more”?

Even more confusing, one person’s heaven is another person’s hell. For example, to some people, heaven would be filled with dogs, but to others, that would be pure horror. So, if there is a heaven, or even an after life where we are more than oblivious waves of energy, do we get to create it to our own liking? If we are active participants of creation instead of simply recipients, then heaven could be infinitely plastic, molded into whatever we wish.

Recently, I posted a saying by William Watson Purkey:

Dance like there’s nobody watching.
Love like you’ll never be hurt
Sing like there’s nobody listening
Live like it’s heaven on earth.

I keep thinking about that last line: live like it’s heaven on earth. If heaven is malleable, is earth also malleable? If we are participants in creation, can we create more than just art or crafts? Can we mold ourselves and our surroundings into something more than they are? Something . . . other?

Perhaps we are already forming our world with our thoughts. If everyone thought of a different world all at the same time, would our world change to that new vision? It’s difficult to get three random people to agree on anything, so getting eight billion people on the same wavelength would be impossible. Still, can one person remove herself enough from the collective consciousness so that whatever she writes with her life becomes manifest?

Maybe life isn’t what we think. Maybe it’s a tool, like a pen or a box of crayons, and we can write whatever we wish with it. What will you write? What will I?

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Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: creating the world with our thoughts, idea of eternity, live like it's heaven on earth, what is heaven like?, William Watson Purkey, writing with life. 2 Comments »

The Zipper Philosophy of Life and Harmony

July 23, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Ever since the death of my life mate/soul mate, I’ve been trying to rebuild my life, but in a better way, perhaps to find a deeper connection to the universe or simply to be more open to what is. I haven’t known how to do this — no matter what I do, I always seem to be just me, a sad and lonely woman struggling to fit all the pieces together.

Today out walking in the desert, I had a bit of a revelation. I understood that we are all a mass of conflicts and contradictions, with mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional needs and wants all striving for ascendancy. Nothing is in harmony. But . . . if we could find a way to strike a balance with all these elements they would fit together like a zipper, and then the whole universe would fall open to us.

For example, I have a friend who is struggling with health issues. The diet she can eat for her gall bladder troubles is the worst diet for her irritable bowel syndrome, and the diet she can eat for her irritable bowel syndrome is the worst she can eat for her gall bladder issues. The few foods she can eat, she doesn’t like, and the foods she likes she can’t eat.

If she could find a balance in her diet, the perfect way of eating to take each of her issues into consideration, maybe everything in her life would also fall into place. (In addition to her health problems, she’s struggling with grief and family issues.) I doubt things will work out easily in her situation — her doctors tell her she needs gall bladder surgery, which is one solution to one of her problems.

I don’t have her problems. My conflicts are nebulous, having more to do with who I am and who I want to be, what I want and don’t want rather than health issues, but they still bring disharmony to my life.

Getting rid of all conflicts is one way to find harmony (just as surgery is a way to solve part of my friend’s health problems) but the trouble with removing conflicts from your life rather than resolving the conflicts is that it subjects you to disharmony if a conflict finds its way back in.

I don’t know if this zipper idea is true or not. I don’t know if it’s possible. I wouldn’t even know how to go about striking a balance with all life’s disharmonious elements, but it seems to me as if it’s a goal worth striving for, if only to find out what will happen when the zipper is finally opened.

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Posted in being me, culture, life. Tags: conflicts in life, getting rid of conflicts, life and harmony, striking a balance, zipper philosphy. Leave a Comment »

Another Stage of Waning Grief

July 22, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday I wrote about how I am now feeling three and a third years after the death of my life mate/soul mate. I admitted I wasn’t feeling much. My life seems empty. There’s no oomph. No spark.

I wish I wanted something, was in love with something, felt something besides ever-fading sorrow. But I don’t know how to go from where I am to where I need to be.

And it’s not just me who feels this way. From the comments and emails I received, it seems as if many others who also lost their mates in 2010 feel the same as I do. Some people who lost their mates that year are in new relationships, have done something equally significant to jump-start their life, or have children to raise by themselves, but unless fate intervenes, the rest of us have to figure out how to accomplish a new beginning by ourselves. And we haven’t a clue how to do it.

I basically live the same way now as I did when I was coupled, but what took on significance when it was for “us” seems lame when it’s just for me. It’s not that I don’t think I’m worthy — of course I do because I am. It’s more that when the two of us were together, everything we did somehow seemed to help build our shared life. Every idea seemed to expand “us.” Every finished project seemed to fulfill “us.” Even something as simple as jointly preparing a meal was for “us.” Each of those things was also an act of love, a commitment to each other, even if it didn’t seem so at the time, which made them doubly or triply significant.

Now a meal is just a meal. A project finished is nothing more than a task completed. A bright idea is simply blog fodder.

If I were new, starting out in life for the first time, none of this would be a problem since everything is new and exciting when one is young, but I’ve done most of what I wanted to, or at least tried to do it. To be honest, the things I wanted to do were essentially cerebral — reading, researching, thinking, writing. I haven’t traveled the world but never wanted to. Haven’t lived lavishly but see no need for it. Haven’t partied till I dropped but never had the energy for it. I have done volunteer work but now there’s no cause I’m passionate about. (I’m still doing volunteer work, but it’s mostly online, so it doesn’t do much to give me something to live for.)

It’s possible this oomphlessness is simply another stage of waning grief — it generally takes four to five years to fall in love with life again (assuming one was ever in love with life) and most of us 2010ers are still many months away from that magic number. If this is the case, the emptiness will disappear by itself once I’ve come to term with it, or it will metamorphose into another equally confusing phase.

But it’s also possible this is what my life is, in which case I’ll have to find a way to make the insignificant happenings significant again, because frankly, spending the rest of my days feeling like this is unthinkable.

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Posted in culture, grief, life, writing. Tags: death of spouse in 2010, falling in love with life, grief and feelings of emptiness, grief at three years. 5 Comments »

Three Years, Three Months, Three Weeks, and Three Days of Grief

July 21, 2013 — Pat Bertram

It’s been three years, three months, three weeks, and three days since the death of my life mate/soul mate. With all those threes, this should be a mystical day, but it’s a day like any other. I’m not especially grieving, though I’m not ungrieving, either. It’s just me and my normal underlying sadness, my missing him, my wondering about the future.

I’m to the point where I need something more, something beyond the bleakness of my daily life, but that “something more” comes in small doses and is not enough to sustain me. I take quick trips, go out to lunch occasionally, write a little, go walking in the desert. Although my 96-year-old father is doing well and is still quite independent, I am on a short leash (or at least it feels that way) since he likes having someone around in case of emergency.

But, that is just an excuse. The truth is, I don’t know what to do and wouldn’t know what to do even if I weren’t here looking after my father. I’d travel, of course, but it seems to me that taking an extended trip by myself would be terribly lonely and perhaps even feel pointless. I drove by the ocean the other day and couldn’t think of a single reason to stop. I’ve been to the ocean, so it wasn’t anything new. Just a lot of water. (In my defense, it was very late and I was very tired.)

I try to be upbeat, try to believe in endless possibilities (because of course, that is the nature of the universe), but I don’t yet see those possibilities in my daily life. I try to think differently, to feel differently, to open myself up to change, but I’m always just me. Alone. Waiting.

Maybe things will be different when I’m totally alone, when I am free of responsibilities, but I no longer know if that will make a difference. I feel self-indulgent at times even mentioning any of this, considering what terrible lives some people are forced to live, but I can’t live any life but my own. And my own feels empty.

If it sounds as if I’m feeling sorry for myself, there’s perfectly good explanation for that. Today I do feel sorry for myself. I have managed to get through three years, three months, three weeks, and three days since his death, and I will continue managing, but I wish I wanted something, was in love with something, felt something besides ever-fading sorrow.

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