Giving Thanks for Words

November 22, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Every day I find something to be grateful for, even if it’s only that the sun is shining,  that I once had a great love, that I have open spaces to explore (both in my head and in the world). Even when all else seemed bleak these past thirty-one months since the death of my life mate/soul mate, even when I had no hope, there was always something to be grateful for (most often that he was no longer suffering), so I don’t need to set aside a special day of thanksgiving.

Still, during this season of giving thanks, there is something I am especially grateful for, something worth celebrating . . . words.

Words convey thoughts, ideas, hopes from one person to another. They connect us from continent to continent, enabling us to bond with like-minded people all around the world. I have exchanged words — and friendship — with people from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the Nederlands, India. And for this I am grateful.

Words allow us to read and to write, to find entertainment and enlightenment in worlds created out of nothing but letters strung together. Words allow a story, concocted in one mind, to come to full realization in another. For most of my life, these worlds of words have been my life, or at least a major part of it. Now that I too am a world-creator, I am grateful for the words with which I build my stories.

Words give comfort, especially when distance (either geographic or emotional) does not allow a touch of commiseration. I am especially grateful for all the words of encouragement you (the readers of this blog) have given me during my time of grief, words that touched me. I hope some of my words touched you.

Words mean hope. With words, there is always the hope that we will be able to come to an understanding of each other, and perhaps find peace. (Of course, people would have to shut up long enough to listen to each other’s words; one-way words cause conflict and confusion.)

Words mean community and continuity. Words, both spoken and written, presuppose that there is someone to listen, and that is community. Telling our his-stories and her-stories to each other creates both community and continuity. They tell us who we were, who we are, and who we hope to become.

If there were no one to hear our words, if we existed solely in ourselves, we’d still need words to communicate our feelings and ideas to ourselves. This ability to put our thoughts into words gives us the power to know ourselves and to understand greater truths.

So this week, whether you celebrate the U.S. Thanksgiving or not, stop for a moment to give thanks for words. They are we.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the conspiracy 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+

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Today Is a Good Day and I Am Feeling Fine

November 21, 2012 — Pat Bertram

On the advice of a friend, I have been doing a daily affirmation, telling myself I am happy, but it doesn’t work for me because I’m not sure I want to be happy. Un-unhappy, yes. Unsad, yes. Contented, of course. At peace, for sure. But happy? It’s not a state I’ve ever aspired to. I’ve always believed other things are much more important, things such as love, truth, purpose, freedom, kindness, integrity. Happiness means many different things to many people, but to me, happiness has an element of giddiness, of being glad to be alive, of effervescence, maybe. I prefer being centered, not tipping toward happiness or sadness, but unafraid of my tomorrows, satisfied with my yesterdays, at peace with my todays.

To that end, I have changed my daily affirmation to “This is a good day and I am feeling fine.” This affirmation was gift from my yoga instructor, a short meditation to help us get through the holidays. She suggested we sit quietly, breathe in thinking “This is a good day,” and exhale thinking “I am feeling fine.” And it works for me. Of course, it helps that my days now are good, no real traumas, no sock-to-the stomach bouts of grief, just a slow gentle roll into sadness now and again, and a slow gentle roll back to center. The few tears, when they come, seem more nostalgic than debilitating.

The past couple of days have been especially good — lovely weather, clear skies, warm sun, breezes no stronger than a breath. And I am feeling fine. No overwhelming aches and pains, no worry or stress to weigh down my shoulders. I’m standing tall, breathing deep, opening myself up the world and the future.

I’m still not sure where I am going, what I am looking for, what I expect to find. For now, it’s enough that I am continuing to open myself to possibilities, continuing to believe that today is a good day and I am feeling fine.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the conspiracy 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+

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Showing My Particular Vision of the World

November 18, 2012 — Pat Bertram

All the books about writing I ever read stressed the importance of genre. The books recommended choosing a readily recognizable genre and sticking to it. Apparently, readers like to know what kind of book they are reading and don’t take well to authors who hop from one genre to another (and if readers do accept it, agents and editors sure don’t). The books also suggested developing a series character in that specific genre, one who is so compelling people will be waiting for the next book. And readers who come late to the series go back to read earlier books, so sales take on a life of their own, each book helping to sell the others.

Seems simple enough, but I ignored the advice. Each of my books is a stand-alone novel without a series character, and each straddles a shadowy line between genres. Since I didn’t create a series that helps promote me and my oeuvre, I have to start over each time a new book of mine is published, promoting each book individually, finding a new readership.

I’ve experienced all the setbacks that bedevil authors — too little support, too many rejections, too much time dedicated to writing-related activities, such as editing and promotion, and not enough time dedicated to writing. But the most disheartening of all is the difficulty of generating momentum with non-genre, non-series books.

And yet . . .

We can only write what we are compelled to write. We each have a vision, and we must be true to that vision, true to ourselves, true to our stories.

Diane Arbus, noted American photographer, said, “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.” And so it is true with writers. We see things, either in the world or in the world of our imagination, that nobody would see if we didn’t photograph them with our words.

Each of my books shows a particular vision of the world as I know it. A Spark of Heavenly Fire shows the horror of an all-too-possible pandemic, the even more horrific steps the government is ready to take, and the various ways, both heroic and craven, people might react to such an eventuality. More Deaths Than One shows the unthinkable results of mind control experiments, experiments that have actually been perpetrated without our knowledge. Daughter Am I is a more light-hearted romp, a treasure-hunting tale of finding oneself in a most unlikely way. And Light Bringer, my latest novel, hints at a world where the Sumerian myth of a tenth planet — a planet of doom — is fact.

The disheartening aspects of writing without the scaffolding of a genre are more than offset by the joy of having created four unique visions of the world, dozens of characters who would not have life without me, vivid word pictures that exist only in my books. Like my lake of flowers from Light Bringer:

Becka kept running, needing no footpath to lead her to their destination. She could feel the music tugging at her, guiding her, singing her forward.

At first a faint red trumpeting, the music swelled into a full orchestra: orange church bells, yellow bugles, green violins, blue flutes, indigo cellos, violet woodwinds.

Beneath it all, she could hear the grasses murmuring, “Hurry, hurry.”

And then there it was, spread out before her in a shallow thirty-foot bowl. A lake of flowers— chrysanthemums and tulips, daisies and daffodils, lilies and columbines and fuchsia—all blooming brightly, all singing their song of welcome.

What things would people be deprived of seeing if you didn’t photograph them with your words?

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the conspiracy 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+

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35,000 Days and Counting

November 8, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Just by chance I discovered that in a couple of weeks my father will be 35,000 days old. Such an astonishing number of days should not go unacknowledged, so I’ve been trying to figure out various ways of illustrating that vast number of days.

I thought of giving him a jar of 35,000 bits of confetti in recognition of his days, but confetti comes in ounce packages, and I am not about to count out 35,000 pieces of anything. Can you imagine counting out 34,895 and then losing your place? Admittedly, I could count what was in one package and extrapolate from that how many packages I’d need, but still, there are a lot of pieces in those bags, and anyway, confetti has no significance to his life.

Perhaps give him 35,000 pennies? But 35,000 pennies would be 700 rolls, cost $350.00, and would weigh 210 pounds.

Perhaps licorice jelly beans? Considering that there are approximately 400 Jelly Belly jelly beans in a pound, I would need almost 88 pounds and at 8 dollars per pound, they would cost $704. Freight, however, would be free.

Perhaps personalized M&Ms? But 35,000 of them would cost more than $1,725, excluding freight. And anyway, they would just go to waste. He hates M&Ms.

He does like Snickers bars, so I considered sending him 35,000 calories of the candy, but that would be 125 bars. Since he’s almost 96 years old, it would take him the rest of his life to eat that many candy bars, and they would get stale long before then.

Perhaps 35 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles? But his fingers don’t work that well to manipulate those pieces, his eyesight is bad, and he never liked doing jigsaw puzzles. (Now, if my mother were still alive, I could get them for him and let her work them.)

In the end, I decided to print and cut out 35,000 copies of his initials, each one representing a day on this earth. Will take me about 12 hours to cut all of those bits of paper, but what the heck. It’s a wonderfully symbolic gesture.

I’ll also decorate the house, or at least his breakfast nook, to surprise him. (I haven’t mentioned the 35,000 days date to him, and if any of my siblings ruin the surprise, I will never forgive them.)

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the conspiracy 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+

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If Everyone Wants Peace, Why are there Wars?

November 5, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday, along with thousands of other people, I blogged for peace. If you saw my peace post, you will know that my message focused on being at peace with the world rather than world peace. I don’t believe in “world peace” as a cause, though of course, I do wish for a world at peace.

I can feel your hackles rise and can hear your outraged “What sort of insensitive clod are you? How can you not believe in ‘world peace’ as a cause?” For the record, let me state that I, personally, have never started a war. I don’t think I’ve ever even bloodied another person accidentally or otherwise, and even if I were prone to violence, I still would not be creating world havoc. The truth is, wars don’t just happen. Wars are something politicians and other reprehensible characters create, and never on my behalf and always for their own ends. To say I believe in “world peace” would be like saying I believe in politicians telling the truth. It’s a nice sentiment, but isn’t going to happen until those creating the problem decide to stop creating it.

Traditionally, the United States is a peaceful country. Or at least its citizenry is. We have never wanted war. Politicians, military advisors, tycoons, and other greedy characters are the hawks among us, and they not only have created wars, they have inveigled us into accepting their dictates, sometimes on pain of death. During WWI, so many young men ignored the draft that the only way the warmongers could force them to fight in a war that 90% of USA citizens did not want was to make draft avoidance punishable by death.

A few years later, when world hostilities were fomented anew, the citizens of the USA again did not want to go to war. It took Roosevelt’s manipulations to get people irate enough to want to go. Some of you might have heard but do not believe that Roosevelt knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor and allowed it to occur anyway, but it is the truth. The USA and Britain had broken the purple codes (so-called because that was the color of the folder the codes were kept in) in time to warn those at Pearl Harbor, but Roosevelt and his hawkish advisors chose not to give the warning in order to coerce the USA into the war. (They did manage to move their newest and best warships and submarines out of the line of fire, though.)

Killing is not a basic instinct. Many of today’s — and yesterday’s — video games were developed by the military because studies had shown that repeated images of violence and death inured people to killing. During World War Two, as many as 85% of soldiers fired over enemies’ heads or did not fire at all. After World War Two, there was a concerted effort by the military to overcome this natural reluctance to kill, and apparently they succeeded because during close combat in Vietnam, only about 5% of soldiers failed to aim to kill. (These same desensitizing “games” were later released as toys for children. Is it any wonder that teens today seem desensitized to violence?)

Author Lee Child says that we don’t write what we know, we write what we fear, and that certainly is true in my case. I fear the machinations of the powerful, deadly, and calculating men and women who control our lives behind the scenes. This theme is most prevalent in More Deaths Than One (in fact, I came across the information about desensitization while researching the military, soldiers, and killing for that particular novel) though it shows up in milder forms in all of my novels.

So see? We are naturally a peaceful people who do not want war. It is others who force it on us whether we wish it or not.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the conspiracy 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+

Posted in culture, history/myth, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 10 Comments »

Dona Nobis Pacem

November 4, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Thousands of bloggers from all over the globe are Blogging for Peace today.

One subject. One voice. One day.

Words are powerful . . . this matters.

Posted in blogging, culture, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 9 Comments »

The Surprising Power of Grief

November 1, 2012 — Pat Bertram

The power of grief still manages to surprise me. I thought I was moving beyond its reach, but apparently, no matter how well I do, it still has the power to bring me low.

I haven’t had a major upsurge of grief for quite a while now. (I can’t remember the last time, to be honest.) Partly, I’ve been aware of my triggers, such as Saturday (the day he died), and being hungry, angry, lonely, tired (H.A.L.T.) and I am especially careful at those times. I’ve put away his photo so I don’t catch sight of it unawares, and I try to look forward, not backward. Still, despite all that, yesterday grief came sweeping into my life, and I had to let it run its course.

Why yesterday? Perhaps because I’m keeping busy as the week heads into Saturday and I maintain that busyness as the new week leaves Saturday behind, so that now I am most vulnerable in the middle of the week when my guard is down.

Perhaps because it was Halloween, and traditionally, Halloween is the night when the dead are closest to us here on Earth.

Perhaps because on Tuesday, for the first time, I felt as if I were awakening to life again. Every step forward seems to be celebrated with an upsurge of grief at what is being left behind, and this was an immense step that could only be celebrated with an immense upsurge of grief.

Or perhaps there was no reason at all.

My life mate/soul mate died two and a half years ago, and despite all those months of grieving, despite all the thousands of words I have written to make sense of what I experienced, I still do not completely understand the forces at work when it comes to grief. All I can do when grief hits is what anyone does in a storm — ride it out the best I can and wait for the calm.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the conspiracy 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+

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

Have a chilly, scary, rationally-explained Halloween!

October 30, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Please welcome JJ Dare, friend and fellow Second Wind author. JJ writes thrillers (False Positive and False World), and is one of the collaborators on the Rubicon Ranch serial. Her Rubicon Ranch characters amuse me because they are so unrepentently manipulative and unabashedly malevolent. (How can they not be with such a father as Morris Sinclair?)

Personally, I don’t like to be scared — it’s too . . .  scary — so I invited JJ  to talk what scares us and why we like to be scared:

Along with countless others, I love a good scare and this time of the year is perfect for terror and thrills. Halloween is right around the corner. Ghosts, goblins and zombies reign over the land. Witches, warlocks and evil fairies lurk around sharp corners. That bump-in-the-night sound makes your heart beat faster. The skittering across the floor in a dark room gets the blood pumping. What is that shadow outside flitting across the top of the window?

Why do we love to be scared? It’s a rhetorical question because the answer for one person is probably different for another. For myself, I like the rush of the initial terror followed by a reasonable explanation for the scare. That bump-in-the-night was a cat jumping on a chair that lightly hit the wall. The skittering noise was the dog’s nails clicking on the tile floow when she trotted down the hallway. The shadow was a low-flying owl, circling the window as the two animals took turns taunting him from their inside safety.

It’s a full moon every night for Weredog

Blame the inside animals. That’s what I did the other night. While I like the scares while I’m awake, I’m not so crazy about being abruptly ripped from a deep sleep by noises at night. I don’t like lying in bed for minutes that seem like hours, waiting for that thing under my bed to slowly crawl out and grab me. I don’t dare step onto the floor else I’ll be pulled into the under-the-bed void of my childhood.

As sanity and focus slowly descend, we can laugh at ourselves for our fright. A carryover from childhood, I occasionally have a dream of the purple monster rising in my bedroom window. The fright it gave me at six years old is remarkably the same at my current older age. As it slowly rises up, the malevolence it emanated decades ago is just as strong today. In my nightmares, I know it’s no good but I’m as powerless to stop it now as I was in my single-digit years.

The stories I create in my mind from the scary things happening at night become the roux for some of my written works. While I don’t always keep the story line tight with the dream, I can trace a few of my stories and books to their chilly beginnings from the bumps-in-the-night I experience.

I like to be scared. I love scary movies, thrillers, zombies, flying monkeys, and the like. Shadowy things at night give me delicious chills. The supernatural is delightful – as long as I can explain it away, rationally, in the light of day.

Have a chilly, scary, rationally-explained Halloween!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

J J Dare is the author of two published books, several short stories and triple digit works-in-progress.

Current enthusiasm is sharpening intangible knives and co-authoring at Rubicon Ranch

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J J Dare is the author of two published books, several short stories and triple digit works-in-progress.

Current enthusiasm is sharpening intangible knives and co-authoring at Rubicon Ranch

Facebook addiction

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Dancing Skeletons, Skulls, and Funeral Services

October 29, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I participated in a fundraiser over the weekend. (I’m not sure how much I actually participated, to tell the truth — I just signed up for a table to display my books.) The event was to raise money for hospice and bereavement classes, which are causes I believe in. I’m all for helping people get through their final days as easily as possible and especially to offer comfort and support to those left behind. It’s not just that grief slams into the bereft, making it almost impossible to breathe, but they have to deal with all the horrendous “death” chores such as planning a funeral and filling out the required official and financial paperwork involved in “removing” someone from the world.

A couple of the participants in the fundraiser were businesses offering funeral and mortuary services, which fit with the purpose of the event since they were trying to make it easier for those left behind by getting people to “preplan” their funeral arrangements. (I’m restraining myself to keep from ranting about the silly jargon of the death business, such as the redundant “preplan” and the totally ridiculous “cremains.” One rant per post is enough.)

The only trouble with having representatives of the funeral business at the fundraiser is that this was not a serious event. It was a fun Halloween event geared toward children as well as adults. One of the mortuary booths played down their services, mostly providing pamphlets and pens for adults while offering various treats to the children, but the other funeral services participant went all out, decorating their booth with dancing skeletons, skulls, and cartoonish graves.

Perhaps the hushed and grave intonations of old-time funeral directors no longer have a place in our anything-goes society, but still, death deserves respect — for the sake of those left behind if for no other reason. Skeletons and skulls are one thing when they are used far from reality such as in Halloween festivities, but to mix such cartoonish symbols of death with the real thing just struck me as going way beyond taste and tact to downright tacky and insensitive.

They of all people should have known that for some people death is not fun, not a business, but an all too real horror.

(These photos show some of the decorations I’ve been referring to.  The top photo came from the wide border of the tablecloth. The others were a couple of the tabletop decorations. Lest you think I am being too critical, I am the not the only one who found the decorations inappropriate.)

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the conspiracy 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+

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Near Death Experiences and the Mystery of Life

October 28, 2012 — Pat Bertram

A friend sent me information about a new book, a neurosurgeon’s supposed proof that heaven is real. I admit I haven’t read the book, but I’ve read articles by the man, seen interviews of him talking about his experiences, read the reviews, and I can’t believe his experiences tell us the truth of what happens when we die. Regardless of what happened (or did not happen) with his cortex, he was not dead, so everything he says he experienced has to do with the mystery of consciousness — of life — not the mystery of death.

I felt such goneness after my life mate/soul mate died, such an irrevocable ending of his presence in my life and on earth, that although I believed in near death experiences during my questing youth, I can no longer believe people who had near death experiences were actually dead. Dead is dead. The neurosurgeon could have experienced something wondrous, something extraordinary and life changing, but he wasn’t dead no matter what his physicians said. It’s entirely possible (in fact, I’d say probable) the machinery that tracks our body processes and the current understanding of those processes, including that of the human biosystem, are imperfect. These NDE stories place too great a reliance on the doctors and the machines that proclaim death. Nothing on this earth — especially no machine and no doctor — is infallible.

During the past thirty-one months of my grief updates, I’ve often mentioned the feeling of utter goneness that I experienced, but I did not begin feeling my soul mate’s “goneness” until two or three hours after his death. Although I have no idea what happens to us after death, I do believe in the possibility of a continuum of life because I remember feeling him leave this earth.

At the moment of his death (when his heart stopped, that is), I did not feel anything except a moment of relief that his suffering was over. I watched the nurses clean his body and shroud it in a blanket, then I waited numbly for the funeral director. After she took away his body (in a black SUV, not a hearse), I left. The highway was dry, but about halfway home, my car suddenly went careening, around and around, back and forth, totally out of control. (I assumed I hit a patch of black ice, but that was such a peculiar night, I can’t say for sure.) I thought I was going to die, but oddly, I never left the road. The car finally came to a halt facing the wrong way on the highway. I was fine. So was the car. As I sat there gripping the wheel, I wondered if he had stopped by on his way out of this world to save me, to leave me a final reminder to be careful, or maybe give a shake of his ghostly head at this evidence of my carelessness. (He always worried that I wasn’t careful enough.) I remember feeling him leaving this earth — like a breath passing over head — but to be honest, I don’t know if I really felt his leaving at the time or if the impression was something my mind created later to explain the bewildering event. It was after this particular near death experience (as out of control as the car was, it truly is amazing that I survived intact), that the feeling of his goneness slammed into me, and I never again have had any sense of his presence in my life.

What was he doing for those hours before he left this earth? Finishing his dying, possibly. Closing down systems of the body and brain that have yet to be discovered. From grief, I have learned the power of our lizard brain, learned that there is way more to the brain — and human biology, psychology, and consciousness — than is in our textbooks. Do people experience things out of their normal lives when they are undergoing severe physical traumas such as almost dying? Many do. Some don’t.

As for the doctor who supposedly offers proof of heaven, the very length of his coma argues against his having died — if he’d been dead, his body would have begun to decay. Even if he was being kept alive by machines, he was still alive. His body was not dead. His brain is part of the body. Therefore his brain was not dead. And neither was he.

I am not denying a life continuum, a spectrum of life where this earth is the part visible to our physical senses, but a “near death experience” is a far cry from a “death experience.” Such stories offer insight into a greater glory, but it isn’t necessary the glory of heaven they offer but instead the glory of us here on earth.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the conspiracy 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+

Posted in culture, life. Tags: , , , . 10 Comments »
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