Weird Trick to Get You to Read This Blog

August 8, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Did the weird trick work? Did you come here because of “weird trick”? I see those very words a hundred times a day in ads in the sidebars of various sites, and I was curious if it would work to get people to click on this blog link.

“Weird trick to help you lose weight.”

“Weird trick to slash your electricity bill.”

“Weird trick to help men feel 18 again.”

“Weird trick to help save your life.”

“Weird trick to make you look twenty-years younger.”

What is it that people respond to? The “weird” or the “trick” or does it have to be a combination of both? I did fall for the weird trick once, even sat through an entire video on why a certain weight-loss program worked, but when they didn’t tell me what the weird trick was unless I plunked down a bunch of cash, I never again felt the urge to find out any more weird tricks. Have you? Did you learn any weird tricks?

The other common advertising hook is “they hate him/her.”

“Plastic Surgeons hate this mother for developing anti-aging cream.” (It’s always a mother developing the skin cream, as if that automatically makes it safe and gentle, though I’ve known some heinous mothers in my time.)

“Electric companies hate this man for developing a way to save on your utitilty bills.”

This one never hooked me. I mean really, do doctors and utility companies even pay attention to the mother or the developer who found a way to save a few pennies? Do they care? I doubt it. Did this come-on ever hook you? If so, did you learn anything?

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Becoming Who I Need to Be

August 5, 2012 — Pat Bertram

For a long time, I lamented that I hadn’t been changing, and I thought I should have been.

After the death of my life mate/soul mate, I was totally blindsided by grief. I’d lost my mother a couple of years previously, and a brother the year before that, so I thought I understood what grief was. Besides, I knew my mate was dying. We’d spent the last three years of his life disentangling our lives and severing the connection so we could go our separate ways — he to death, me to life alone. I truly thought I’d moved on, yet after he died, I experienced such agony and angst that it shattered me, my identity, my understanding of life . . . everything. An experience like that should change a person, yet month after month I remained . . . just me.

Now, two years and four months after his death, the changes are occurring on an almost daily basis. I’m still just me, but the person I am today is not the same as the one who screamed the pain of her loss to the uncaring winds. Nor am I the one so connected to another human being she still felt broken more than a year after his death. I left those women out in the desert somewhere. I’ve walked about 2,000 miles since he died, and a bit of that me evaporated with every step.

I am stronger than that person was, maybe even wiser, certainly more confident and open to whatever comes, willing to accept life on its own terms.

I no longer fear growing old alone as she did. I might not live to a great age, and if I do, I might not be alone, but even if I am, that woman will not be the me of today. She will older, used to dealing with the infirmities that come with age, perhaps even experienced in the ways of dying. She will have lived her life to the fullest of her ability, and might even be able to wake each morning feeling the joy of living one more day, no matter how painful. Or not. But the point is, I am not in that place today, and the person I am today will never be in that place. So there is no reason to be afraid.

For so long, I’ve been worried about what will happen to me now that I am alone. I worried that I’d become the crazy cat lady (sans cats) or the pathetic, lonely old woman that everyone whispers about (when they remember her at all). If I end up alone and lonely, so be it. I’ll be okay. I am quite comfortable with being alone. (I always was, to be honest. Grief skewed things, made me desperately fearful of loneliness.)

But I am not alone now. I have friends to go to lunch with, online friends to plan trips with, siblings to talk to now and again, an aged father to look after. I thought it would bother me no longer being part of a couple, but the other day at lunch when some women my age were talking about maybe meeting guys and falling in love again, I asked, “Why?” All of a sudden it seemed strange to want such a thing. Three of us had mates with compromised health, and now that they are gone, we are free to simply be. It’s not out of any loyalty to my deceased mate that I find myself unwilling to pursue a hypothetical relationship right now, but out of loyalty to me.

And that brings me to the biggest change of all. It bothered me that no matter what happened, I was always just me. Now I see that as a good thing. No matter what happens in my life, no matter what challenges I face, I will always be there, becoming who I need to be, even if it takes longer than I think it should.

Posted in being me, life, relationships. Tags: , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Reaching a Bridge in My Life

August 3, 2012 — Pat Bertram

An online friend occasionally does free one-card tarot readings on Facebook. In April, I asked her, “Does the card promise me joy?” She drew the Sun Reversed card, and she explained, “Had this card been upright I would have said a definite yes, but the card is telling me there have been some disappointments from the past that still are with you. It says there can be happiness and joy, but for now it’s you that seems to be clouding it for yourself.” (You can read the rest of the response here: Being Open to the Possibility of Joy.)

The reading took place shortly after the two-year anniversary of the death of my life mate/soul mate, when I was still feeling very sorrowful, still subject to upsurges of grief. I was tired of feeling bad all the time, hence my question, but paradoxically, I had not yet reached a stage where I could welcome happiness. Grief continued to hold me in its embrace, but even more than that, I still felt the unfairness of it all — his life being cut short, my having to continue without him.

And then a few weeks ago, everything changed. It happened suddenly, almost from one minute to the next. Part of it came from an odd random thought that flitted through my mind, “He beat the system, he’s out of it now,” though why I thought he beat the system, I don’t know, when he suffered for years. But he’s finished with pain now, and I’m finished with my worry that he had been denied additional years.

I’ve also been spending time consciously being me. We’re always us, but we’re not always aware of it. I’m trying to feel how I fit with the world around me, so I go out in the desert and stand there, not thinking. A couple of times I’ve had the awesome feeling that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Don’t know where all this is going to lead in the end, but it felt good at the time, and it’s helped me with the search for meaning that was such a weight after he died. If I am being me, I don’t have to search for meaning. Being is my meaning. Of course, one of these days, when my father is gone, I will have to search for a place to live and something to do, but for now, this is all I expect of me.

Last night, in an emailed conversation with my tarot-reading friend, I asked, “Does the tarot have any words of wisdom for me?”

Her response:

“I chose the Alchemical Renewed deck and as I was shuffling, the Lady of Vessels jumped out and her message to you is to be aware of your own feelings, appreciate your own talents and allow those inner thoughts, feelings and wisdom to rise and come to the forefront of your mind. What she is telling you is that this is a time for inner reflection and the ability to recognise and allow your intuition to guide you because that inner knowledge always knows what you should do and what is the best course of action for you to take. She also tells you it’s time to be self confident and let all that is good about you shine out.

“The Lady of Vessels breaks down to a 2, that’s the number of duality, compromise, balance and choice. What she tells you here is that it’s time to restore that balance, to settle down that duality that exists, and to bring together any opposing forces that exist so that they may work together for a more stable future. This is a time where you have reached a bridge in your life, and it is what you learn at this point that will carry you over that bridge and onto a new path.”

Isn’t that beautiful? The future spooks me if I think about it since I will be growing old alone, but the person who is growing old alone won’t be the me of today, it will be the me I become, the me on the other side of the bridge.

The Lady of Vessels seems to agree that I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I am already doing. Even though I would have continued following the same path, feeling and being me, it’s nice to know it’s in the cards.

Posted in being me, culture, internet, life. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

Protecting Myself from the Sun, Rattlers, and Weird Old Dentists

August 1, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I took my father to the dentist the other day. When we were out in the waiting, getting ready to leave, my father told that weird old guy that I often walked in the desert for a couple of hours at a time.

The dentist said, “Come here.” Um, yeah . . . like I’m going to do what a weird old guy says. For all I know, he could have instruments of torture he wanted to try out, or ancient dental equipment he wanted to use up.

I backed away, and he shook his head at me and said, “Have you ever seen skin cancer?”

I admitted I hadn’t.

“I want to show you what it looks like,” he said. “Come here.”

I stood my ground, so he called one of his assistants to the front, grabbed her by the arm and said, “Look.”

The woman had two small sores close to the elbow on her left arm. She told me it was skin cancer, that people who drove were prone to getting cancer on the left arm because of its exposure to the sun through the driver’s side window, which probably is true, but she also had the leathery skin of a person who’d once spent too much time sunbathing and who thought a sun visor sufficed for a hat.

He dismissed his assistant, then said, “That’s what the sun can do to you.”

“Do I really look stupid?” I asked.

He just frowned at me, and said, “I didn’t say you were.”

I told him I could take care of myself and left. The guy was not a doctor, he was a dentist, and not even my dentist. He could see I wasn’t tanned, or at least that my face wasn’t, since the rest of me was covered up, so why the concern? I mean, I’d only just met the guy.

I am not one of the fashionably unclad. I don’t wear short shorts, cropped tops, and flip-flops, and I especially don’t wear such things outside. If you saw me in the summer sun in my long pants, long-sleeved and high-necked shirts, my sturdy shoes and socks, my broad brimmed hat, my hand coverings, my face shiny from day cream with sunscreen, walking stick, a bottle of water in one pocket, my cell phone in another pocket, you’d probably think I was weird, but the truth is, I dress properly for the desert. Because of life’s ironies, I realize I will probably get skin cancer before my deeply tanned sister does, but I do the best I can to protect myself. (There is nothing one can do to protect against those ironies that life seems to delight in.)

Admittedly, the walking stick isn’t a garment, but it is necessary for hiking in the desert — it helps me keep my balance on steep rocky slopes, and it could provide some protection if I were to meet a rattler up close. I also make a point of never leaving the house without a bottle of water and my cell phone. Although many people around here treat the desert as if it were a cross between a park and a city dump, I never forget that I am an interloper in a wild place.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

Portraying Grief Correctly

July 31, 2012 — Pat Bertram

So often writers get grief over the loss of a spouse wrong, perhaps because unless you have been there, you cannot know the global effect grief has. There are so many mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, even geographical changes thrown at you that it’s almost impossible to understand what is happening.

Grief that has matured, meaning grief that is no longer new and raw, is easier to portray, but even that is often done wrong, since the characters seem to have no yearnings. And grief is so much about yearnings.

One movie that portrayed long time grief well was The Last Dance with Maureen O’Hara and Eric Stolz. O’Hara teared up when she thought of her husband, she treasured the records she had bought of the songs they had danced to (calling them her “memories”), but most of all, she yearned for one last dance from him. And that yearning made her grief real. We who have lost our mates eventually come to terms with going on alone, but we all have yearnings for one last kiss, one last hug, one last smile, one last word. Such simple things, but being deprived of them underscores our loss.

Another example of grief done right occurred in the old television show Golden Girls, of all places. In that particular episode, Blanche dreams that her husband, dead for nine years, comes home. This is a recurring dream, but instead of bringing her sadness as always, this time the dream brings her peace because in the dream, she got to hug him one last time.

Even though I am doing well two years and four months after the death of my life mate/soul mate, I still yearn for one last smile from him, one last hug, one last visit with him at his store where we met. It seems impossible these yearnings will go unfulfilled for the rest of my life. Like Maureen O’Hara’s character, though, I have my “memories” but in my case they are not shared songs but movies he taped. I’ve been going through his movies, weeding out the ones I will never watch again, and each movie I am keeping makes me remember a conversation we had about the movie, a particular time we watched them, a feeling I once had when he watched the movie with me.

Many of the movies he taped toward the end of his life, like The Last Dance, are about people going on alone after the death of a mate. It almost seems as if he is/was trying to help me find my way through the horror to a new peace. Some of these movies, again like The Last Dance, he edited to take out the parts he didn’t like. So not only do I have movies he taped, I have versions no one else in the entire world has. For example, he edited out all the flashbacks in The Last Dance, so I never see Maureen O’Hara’s young husband. I only know him through her love, her tears, her feelings about the possessions she is getting rid of in preparation for her own death, and in the stories she tells Eric Stolz and his family. This makes for a stronger story, keeping it all in the present, and it makes the relationship between O’Hara and Stolz more compelling.

But more than that, it makes it my story, a story about a woman yearning for one last moment with the man she loved.

Posted in grief, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 9 Comments »

A Gift From the Universe

July 30, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I’m continuing my experiment in sanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, so as usual today, I went for a walk in the desert, following the same rocky paths I’d trodden the past few days. It was exceedingly hot, much hotter than yesterday or the day before, and I was drenched in sweat by the time I got to my standing spot — the spot where I stood the past couple of days and let myself just be.

The air was still. I heard the far-off whine of an airplane, the faint alarm of a distant piece of heavy equipment backing up, the buzz of a fly as it whizzed past my head. Today I saw no jackrabbit, no humans. There was just me, those few slight sounds, the desert knolls surrounding the area, the creosote bushes dotting the sandy expanse, the hot still air, the clear blue sky.

I quieted my thoughts, then after a minute or so, I spoke my new mantra.

This “mantra” appeared when I tagged my article Being Where I am Supposed to Be. I used the tags “being happy,” “being me,” “being where I am supposed to be,” and I had to smile at the sappy little ditty those tags formed. So today, out there in the desert, in the still of the heat, I said, “I am happy. I am being me. I am where I am supposed to be.” As soon as I finished speaking the word “be,” a cool current of air flowed by.

I stood there, blissfully comfortable, until the air stilled again, then I continued my walk.

I do not believe in signs or intentional gifts from the universe. The truth is, a small breeze shows in up the desert at about that same time every day, and the timing was entirely coincidental. (People think I’m silly for walking in the desert heat, but that mid-morning breeze makes the desert cooler than the city.)

Still, intentional or not, coincidental or not, that coolness was a wonderful gift, and it made me realize that once again, I was exactly where I was supposed to be. It also proved my point, that as long as one is not indulging in self-destructive or insane behavior, sanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Posted in being me, life. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Insanity, Alchemy, and Me

July 29, 2012 — Pat Bertram

It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, but the saying only holds true when referring to insane or destructive behaviors. In our normal lives, we constantly do the same thing over and over, expecting different results . . . and we get them. We rise at the same time each morning, eat the same breakfast, drive the same way to work, go to the same job, but we don’t expect each day to be exactly the same as the day before. It can’t be the same — there are too many variables.

In a closed system, perhaps, the saying would hold true, but since there are no closed systems, we normally get different results. Writers and other creative people experience this every day. We sit in the same place, pen in hand or fingers on the keyboard, and open our selves up to the creative process. Sometimes the words flow and sometimes they don’t. Athletes deal with differences in performance, sometimes they are in the zone and everything is perfect, and sometimes, though they do exactly the same thing as always, their performance is off.

This expectation of different results was the basis for alchemy. We picture the alchemists doing the same procedure repeatedly to perfect their experiment, but the truth is, they did the same thing over and over again in exactly the same way in the hope of getting different results. Sometimes everything came together as they hoped, and they got the desired results, transforming lead into gold or themselves into a higher form of life or atoms into energy. (Or so the legends say.)

Why would the alchemists expect different results by doing exactly the same thing? Because they knew they did not live in a closed system. The earth hurtles around the sun at 67,000 mph. The sun hurtles around the galaxy at 140 miles per second. The entire universe is also moving and expanding, so from one second to the next we are in a completely different place with a possibility of different factors. Add in more localized variables, such as humidity, temperature, sun spot activity and solar winds, and it would seem insane to do the same thing over and over again and expect the same results.

After my moment of happiness yesterday, when I could feel that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing (simply “being”), I decided to do the same thing again today. Not surprisingly, the results were different. I stood in the same place, repeated the same mantra (“I am happy”), felt the breeze and the heat, smelled the sun-warmed creosote bushes, inhaled the clean air. It was nice, and I felt peaceful, but there was no moment of clarity as there was yesterday. I truly did not expect the same results. I know about variables. The day was hotter, the sky a paler blue, no jackrabbit loped by but humans in their motorized vehicles were driving around disturbing the air currents and creating sound vibrations. I might not have slept as well as I had the previous night, or perhaps I’d dissipated my mystic energies in exercising before going for my walk, which I didn’t do yesterday. Still, it felt good standing in the desert, doing nothing but being, so I intend to do that very same thing over and over, expecting different results each time. And therein lies sanity.

Posted in being me, culture, life. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Being Where I am Supposed to Be

July 28, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I was happy today. I didn’t feel giddily gleeful, just a quiet peace that came from knowing I was where I was supposed to be.

I’d been walking in the desert, ruminating over my petty concerns. I have no major problems at the moment — I have a place to stay and food to eat, and I feel no great lingering sorrow over the death of my life mate/soul mate — but there are small matters that niggle at me. I seem to have crossed some invisible line where I no longer attract people through my words, but am actually starting to repel them — people have been blocking me on Facebook, and often it’s because of a simple non-combative comment I made in one of my discussion groups. I also wonder how to entice people to read my books, and I still ponder the whole issue of my writing. Although I am coming to an accommodation with continuing to write despite lackluster sales, I still am not comfortable with the idea of being a writer among millions of other writers — never have liked being a face in the crowd.

So there I was, walking, thinking, talking a bit to my deceased mate, when it suddenly dawned on me that at that very moment, I was not a face in the crowd. There was no crowd — just me. I stopped and looked around. A jackrabbit loped by, but other than that, no creature made itself known. I felt the breeze cooling my sweat, heard the air whistling faintly as it passed my ears. I stilled my thoughts and simply stood there in the middle of the desert, deep blue skies above, sun-warmed soil beneath the soles of my shoes, desert knolls surrounding me and blocking any view of the nearby city.

A friend who has endured far worse grief than I have, told me that she is finding peace by telling herself that she is happy. Alone out there in the desert, I decided I was finally ready to take the next step in going on with my life, so I thought, “I am happy.” And I realized that was the truth of it. Right then, I was happy. I had no sense of longing for something or someone, no sense of waiting. My entire life — all the joys and pains, the learning and creating, the loves and losses — had led to that very moment, and I felt as if I had arrived where I was supposed to be. There was no reason for me to be there, nothing to for me to do, no task to accomplish. All I had to do was simply . . . be.

One cannot stand in the middle of the desert forever, so eventually, I continued my walk, still feeling the effects of that moment. There are few perfect moments in life, but that was one of them. (I’m smiling as I write this. Can you tell?)

Posted in being me, culture, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Who Wants to be a Character in a Book?

July 26, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Grief: The Great Yearning is a compilation of blog posts, letters, and essays I wrote while struggling to survive the first year of grief after the death of my life mate/soul mate. We’d been together almost thirty-four years. I thought I was prepared for his dying, but his death shattered me beyond anything I could ever have imagined. The only way I could survive the agony was to write about it. Although Grief: The Great Yearning is non-fiction (obviously), it has all the elements of great fiction — emotion that weeps off the page, a conflicted character who yearns desperately for something, a love that lives on even after death.

Such is the pendulum swing of life that now, one year and four months after the publication of Grief: The Great Yearning, I would no longer make a good character in a book. I have no real wants or desires; no wishes, dreams, or hopes; no great love (no hate, either). I have nothing to avenge, no strong beliefs, no regrets, no guilt, no fears, no anger.

From the beginning, I’ve been bewildered by my lack of change. Shouldn’t such a soul quake cause ripples of change forever after? I didn’t feel any different, but apparently changes were taking place. All the conflicts of my life seem to be in hiatus, as if the slate of me was wiped clean to make ready for the changes that will be coming to my life. Some of the changes will come because of decisions I make, others changes will simply happen as the rest of my life unfolds.

Character change in itself is not enough either to pilot a story or to plot a book. Change in a character is generally the result of other actions, and shows us how the events of the story affect the character. So, basically, a book needs to begin with a compelling character, and I am missing all the elements that makes a character compelling. On the other hand, since I am not a character in a book, I will enjoy this hiatus from conflict and strong emotion. I mean really, who wants to be a character in a book? Life is hard enough without having to deal with all the torments we put our characters through.

Posted in grief, life, relationships, writing. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

Searching for New Loves

July 25, 2012 — Pat Bertram

In the wake of my grief, now that the worst of my pain for my life mate/soul mate has burned itself out, I am left with . . . emptiness.

Most of the things I once cared about are gone. Not just him and our shared life, but completely unrelated matters I once cared about are gone too. I loved reading — it was always the only thing I ever wanted to do — but first the major publishers started the process of killing off my love for reading by producing such mediocre books, and then the indie movement gave my love the fatal blow by outdoing the major publishers in mediocrity. I know there are good book out there, but I no longer have any interest in wading through the muck to find the gems. (To be honest, after reading more than 20,000 books, both non-fiction and fiction of all genres, there isn’t much that is new to me, so I can’t blame the loss of this love totally on the publishing business.)

I’m also losing my love of the language. When people no longer see the beauty of words, when typos and textspeak are the norm, it seems foolish to care. I feel as if I am trying to breathe new life into a creature that is already moribund. Admittedly, language is always changing, and the youth have always been its custodians. Maybe it’s not language that is obsolete but me. I am outdated, outnumbered, and out-of-step.

I will still write, of course, and I will still search for the best word to use to put across my ideas, but I no longer see any reason to rail against the inevitable. There is no reason to pass on what I’ve learned about writing, storytelling and editing because there is no downside for new writers. If they don’t want to hone their craft, they can publish their untutored books on Amazon and the various ebook sites, and make a fortune selling to untutored readers.

My love affair with computers and the internet is also waning. There are only so many cute animal photos one can look at, only so many political commentaries one can read, only so many advertisements one can ignore, only so many inspirational comments one can gag on. Like words, the internet is a tool, so I still log on every day, though not with the glee I once did.

I need something to care about. Too bad I can’t just snap my fingers and voila! There it is, the thing to love. I’ve almost always lived as if each day would be my last, so I followed my enthusiasms. I created the things I wanted to create, learned the things I wanted to learn, opened the businesses I wanted to run. There is no love languishing in the back of my heart, waiting for me to find the time for it.

I can’t go back and redo, relearn, recreate. There is only forward. In many respects, I am a brand new creature let loose on this earth, open to new possibilities and new loves. Maybe someday I will find them. Or maybe they will find me.

Posted in internet, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »
« Older posts
Newer posts »