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Lady of Leisure

February 10, 2015 — Pat Bertram

I knew that once there was a break in my blog-a-day routine, I’d have a hard time getting back here, and so it is. (Or was.)

Life has hijacked me, and even after the computer problem seemed to be fixed, doing any sort of blog put too much pressure on me. It was easier just to let it slide, but I stole a couple of hours tonight to bring you current with my ridiculous life.

Not only have I been on the phone late into the night on two different occasions with a computer technician, I’ve been spending most of my days emptying cabinets and cupboards in preparation for the cleaning crew who was here yesterday. (The window cleaning crew was here, also, which added to the commotion, but at least I didn’t have to do anything to prepare for their arrival.)

The ways of grief are strange. I was doing fine cleaning out my father’s stuff until I came upon a glass I had put in the cupboard. I hadn’t been able to decide what to do with the item when I was packing my own glassware, so I put it in my dad’s cabinet sort of as a joke for whichever of my family would be clearing out my father’s “effects.” I don’t know why, but it never occurred to me I would be the one for the task. And seeing that glass sent me spiraling into grief.

I emailed my siblings: This is the second time I had to clear out the possessions of someone who died. When Jeff died, there was no one else, so I had no choice but to do it myself, but this time, there are a whole slew of you. Not one of you volunteered to help. Yes, I know, you all have lives, but still it would have been nice for someone to at least acknowledge that the task needed to be done. It simply was not fair.

It’s all done except for the tears. The only thing left in the house is the furniture, but that will stay here until the house is sold.

I hope none of you ever have to deal with this emotionally taxing chore that I’ve now had to deal with twice.

Maybe that wasn’t a nice message to have sent, but I was too exhausted both emotionally and physically to care about niceties.

I’ve also had to deal with chirping alarms — both smoke and burglar; bills that aren’t forwarded where they are supposed to go, nasty customer reps who won’t answer simple questions such as if we could enclose a photo of the bill with payment rather than the bill itself, and a hundred other small tasks.

And, of course, there is the matter of my recently unreliable 43-year-old VW. Because I didn’t want to risk the car breaking down during the weekend, on Sunday I hiked seven miles round trip to the nearest grocery store to get oven cleaner since the cleaners don’t carry it with them. Add in a few comestibles, and I ended up carrying a five-pound pack on the trip back. Five pounds is not much, but it totally wiped me out. Puts sort of a damper on the idea of my taking an epic walk. Truth be told, that hike to the grocery store seemed pretty epic to me!

On the bright side:

1) My computer seems to be fixed. Even after they cleaned my caches, uninstalled and reinstalled the antivirus program, there were problems, but shutting down the computer every night instead of just leaving it in sleep mode has made a big difference. The way the computer guy explained it, the computer runs on memory, and sometimes bits of the memory get tied up and become unusable, so restarting the computer resets the memory and makes more of it usable. That could be computer speak for “I haven’t a clue what is wrong with your computer, but if it works when you shut it down every night, then do it.”

2) Except for the furniture, my father’s stuff has been disposed of. All cupboards, closets, drawers, cabinets are empty. The house is so clean it looks new, (except for the carpets, but that’s next week’s task). The windows, screens, sills, shutters are all clean. And best of all is knowing I will never again have to deal with the effects of a newly dead loved one.

4) It will give me great pleasure to discontinue Charter Communications when the house is sold. They are almost as unpleasant as Microsoft folks. (Though no one, so far as I know is as unpleasant as MS people. During my computer troubles, the computer guy suggested I contact Microsoft for help on a particular registry issue. One MS person couldn’t speak clearly enough for me to understand, and when I asked her to repeat what she said, she hung up on me; another said they would help but demanded money; and third spent more time on a hard sell for some sort of protection plan than they did listening to my description of the trouble. Thank heavens for System Restore! It made the MS people redundant.)

3) I found a VW guy who specializes in air-cooled engine bugs! Yay! I have an appointment with him in two weeks. He already knows what the problem could be — the coil combined with cheap parts from the auto parts store rather than the real thing. (Bosch being the real thing, apparently.) He’ll give my car the shake test (as I understand it, they literally shake the car), and check to see if it’s worth keeping.

Several people (well, two) have told me that so much going wrong is indicative of a major shift in energy, and that breakdowns could be a sign of breakthroughs. I suppose it’s possible, and I would like to think they are right. All I know is I am exhausted.

I still have a lot of work to do — I didn’t finish packing my stuff, just threw the stuff from my cabinets and drawers in boxes to make it easy for the workers to deep clean, and I now I can’t find anything, so now I have to unpack and repack. And I still have several unfinished projects to do before I become that fabled creature — a lady of leisure.

If all goes well, I’ll be back here again tomorrow. I hope you are doing well.

***

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 grief, life, relationships. Tags: air-cooled vw engine, cleaning out the effects of the dead, computer issues, lady of leisure, seven-mile hike. 8 Comments »

The Kindness of Strangers

February 3, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Grief — or it could be self-pity — always seems to catch me unaware. I’ve been having good days recently, feeling that the universe is smiling on me, so today’s brief bout of tears was especially unexpected.

I’ve been doing a few small chores for my father’s estate — getting an electrician to fix the chirping smoke alarm on the 15-foot-high ceiling, clearing out a few more of my father’s things, scheduling an estimate for the carpet and tile cleaning. I was fine during all that, fine even when I closed out my father’s account, but on the drive back to the house from the bank, I could barely see the road for the tears.

Although my father’s death didn’t devastate me like the death of Jeff, my life mate/soul mate, it has had its traumatic moments. It’s difficult — and bewildering — to dismantle a person’s life, even a person who owned as few personal things as my father did. The person is gone, but their “effects” linger long afterward. Someone has to dispose of them, and since I am in the house, that chore has devolved upon me. (I suppose I could have left it for someone else to do, but during the past few years, I was the one most immediately involved in his life, so that in addition to propinquity makes me the logical person for the job.)

Closing out his bank account shouldn’t have been any more difficult than the rest of the tasks, but it was, perhaps because it means one less connection to my life here and ultimately to my past. Or maybe because the people at the bank were so nice to me. Since I was an equal signatory with my father on the account, they thought the money should go to me instead of my father’s estate. When I explained that legally the money didn’t belong to me, they made sure I had copies of the paperwork and urged me to keep them for my protection.

So few people have paid attention to me during these months my father has been gone, including those who told me they would owe me forever for taking care of him, it’s like I died with him. I’m not the only one who lost a father, of course, but most of my siblings’ lives will not be changed appreciably by his death — they still have their husbands and wives, still have their homes, still have . . . whatever it is that they have. But my life is in upheaval once more because of death.

The neighbors, who loved my father, have been snubbing me for the past three months because although I told them he died and made sure they could say goodbye as he left the house for the last time, I somehow neglected to tell them when the funeral was. It just never even occurred to me. His obituary was in the local paper and even though they knew where to find me, they never asked. Never stopped by to see how I was doing, either. Never expressed an interest in what was going to happen to me. And yet, devastated as I was by the rapid turn of events surrounding his death and my renewed grief for Jeff, somehow I was supposed to put them foremost in my mind. Oh, my.

No wonder the kindness of strangers brought me to tears.

Tomorrow, I will be back to my determined optimism, will be back to feeling maybe the universe is unfolding as it should be, will be back to believing wonder and joy await me, but tonight I will honor my dead with a few more tears laced, perhaps, with a touch of self-pity.

***

Posted in grief, life, relationships. Tags: clearing out a deceased person's effects, death of a father, optimism, the universe is unfolding as it should be, unexpected grief. 7 Comments »

I Am So Romantic!

January 29, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Nichole Bennett, author of Ghost Mountain and Sleeping Bear, wrote a blog post in honor of Valentine’s Day next month, entitled Are you romantic? Or romantic? She admits that she’s not romantic, “at least not in the “wine me, dine me, we live happily ever after” way. Then again, if you mean “romantic” in the Edgar Allen Poe, basing your writing on the Supernatural, I’m so romantic it’s not even funny.”

I can relate to that. I used to enjoy a bit of traditionally defined romance in movies, books, and in my own writing, but I’ve noticed lately that I’ve become something of a romance-phobe. I think it has to do with dealing with my loneliness, getting on with my single life, and accepting aloneness as my current normal.

I first noticed a change about a year ago. I could no longer handle books with a happy ending for the romance subplot (I don’t read romances per se; the romance always has to come as an adjunct to a more compelling story.) I didn’t like that the character got to have a romance when I no longer could. (It made me cry, if you must know.) On the other hand, if there was no happy ending to the romantic subplot, well, that made me cry too, and quite frankly, I’m sick of crying. So . . . no more reading.

Lately I’ve noticed that the romantic subplot in movies makes me itchy. Not only does secondhand romance seem pathetic, it makes me feel lonely, and I certainly don’t need anything to a) remind me that I don’t have a romantic relationship and b) make me feel lonelier than I already am.

Which brings me to writing. I’ve been thinking about writing fiction again. I want to find time and space (mental space, that is) to write the dance murder mystery that was once suggested to me, but beyond that, I haven’t a clue what to write. My work-in-progress features a necessary romance (necessary because they have to have a baby. Although that baby doesn’t show up until the very end of the book, he is the crux of the story). But I begrudge those poor characters their romance and so the book remains a work-in-pause. In two other WIPs, the poor girl goes off into the sunset by herself, which at one time fit my idea of romance, but now just seems . . . lonely.

So . . . no books, no movies, no writing. No coupling of any kind. If that’s romance, then yes, like Nichole, I am so romantic it’s not even funny.

Click here to read Nichole’s post: Are you romantic? Or romantic?

Click here to read an interview with Nichole R. Bennett, Author of “Ghost Mountain”

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Posted in culture, life, relationships, writing. Tags: are you romantic, defining romance, happily ever after, romance, Valentine's Day. 8 Comments »

Grief: The Great Learning, Day 445

January 28, 2015 — Pat Bertram

I’ve saved the letters I wrote to my life mate/soul mate after he died, thinking that one day I would write a sequel to Grief: The Great Yearning, the story of my first year of grief. I’d planned to call the sequel Grief: The Great Learning, and detail the lessons gleaned from the second and third years of my grief. Because I no longer want to keep revisiting such angst, there will be no sequel, so I’m publishing the letters here on this blog as a way of safeguarding (and sharing) them.

Although this letter was written three and a half years ago, it reflects much of what I am thinking about now. My father recently died, and now I am facing what I could only think about back then — the vast open plain of the future before me.

I am packing to leave this house and go . . . I know not where. I’ll probably stay around here for a while. I have made new friends after those referred to in this letter disappeared out of my life, and it just occurred to me that I can speak about all of my concerns to at least one of those women. It’s nice and helps offset the loneliness that still hits me every evening.

And oh, yes. I still keep hoping for major changes — good changes.

###

Day 445, Hi, Jeff.

I’ve been going through an upsurge of grief, missing you so damn much. It stuns me, like a snake stunned by a rock thrown at it, to think I’ll never see you again. You’d think I’d have come to an accommodation with that, but such ”acceptance” of that fact does not bring acceptance of what it means — death for you, loneliness for me.

Life involves people, doesn’t it? I’m trying to “people” my life, but it’s not the same thing as being connected to one specific person. We were often lonely even when we were together, but this loneliness is incomprehensible. I’m considering staying here after my father dies because at least I know people here, but so many of the people I have met, especially those from my grief group, have already faded from my life. And if the rest disappear, then what?

It should be exciting to have the vast open plain of the future before me, but all I see is bleakness and aloneness. I have no one to talk to about my concerns. I don’t know how to cope with that. I keep hoping for major changes (good changes), but all that seems to be happening is a slow descent into inevitability.

I hope you’re not lonely. I couldn’t bear that.

***

Posted in grief, life, relationships. Tags: building a new life, death of a soul mate, emptiness, grief, grief and survival, letter to the dead. 2 Comments »

Decluttering

January 26, 2015 — Pat Bertram

In between bouts of sorting and packing my stuff (which in many cases entails finishing started projects so I can store the equipment and supplies in their appropriate boxes), I’ve been clearing out my father’s stuff. I’m leaving the furniture in the house for now because supposedly it’s harder to sell completely empty houses, but even though my father lived sparsely, there are still many things to be sorted through and given away or boxed up for donation— medical and first aid items, bedding, towels, office supplies, dishes and kitchen tools, books, and on and on. And then there are the personal and household cleaning products that can only be tossed away. (I donated his clothes to a rescue mission a couple of months ago.)

I’m making pro clean gress on clearing out the house. In fact, most of the rooms except the linen closet and the kitchen (and my rooms, of course) have been decluttered. Nothing personal remains to destroy the fictive dream of prospective buyers. (Apparently, house hunters need to see themselves in the house, and other people’s possessions keep them from doing so.)

Strangely, after all these years, I’m falling in love with the house. I’ve appreciated the shelter, but never had any fondness for the house itself. It has been a sad place for me, the place I came to nurse my grief, to look after and then nurse my father, to deal with my abusive/alcoholic/schizophrenic brother. But as I am cleaning out the stuff in house, I am also cleaning out my “stuff” — my grief for my deceased life mate/soul mate, my despair over my brother, my complicated dealings with my father.

When my dysfunctional brother was here and banned from the house, he often expressed outrage that I lived like a millionaire and never felt grateful for the great gift I’d been given. I used to think, “No millionaire has ever had to look after both an abusive brother and a dying father, being torn between the two of them.” But what do I know. Maybe that’s what being a millionaire is all about.

Now however, I am living like a millionaire, reigning over a house full of empty rooms that speak to me of peace and comfort, of expansiveness, of new possibilities. (It is ironic that I so love empty rooms because I live in a clutter of projects-in-progress.)

Although the house is more than ten years old, there has never been a fire in either fireplace, nothing has been cut on the cutting board, the Jacuzzi has only been used a couple of times, there has never been more than one car in the three-car grease-free garage. Someone, somewhere, will be getting a lovely barely-used house to turn into a home.

And me? Well, I’ll be . . . somewhere. But I’ll always be grateful I had this time to declutter.

***

Posted in culture, life, relationships. Tags: decluttering, empty rooms, getting a house ready to sell, living like a millionaire. 6 Comments »

My Problem With Men

January 24, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Lately I’ve been noticing a strange thing about men. If I get upset by something they say, even if they are simply imparting information and not saying anything to purposely hurt me, they respond, “I shouldn’t have told you.”

Huh? Just because I don’t like the news doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have told me. Just because I get upset is no reason to keep me in the dark. Are men so fragile they can’t handle anger, tears, heartbreak, even if it’s not directed at them? Or even if it is directed at them? (To tell the truth, I’m not sure I could handle anger or tears if they were directed at me, but if I did something to provoke those reactions, I sure would do something to try smooth things over.)

I seem to have lost the ability to deal with men, assuming I ever had the ability to begin with. I’ve lost a friend who was dear to me because he couldn’t handle my emotional reactions. He didn’t seem to think I had the right to be angry or feel hurt by anything he did, or maybe it was just that he didn’t like my show of emotion. For a while, I thought my problems with him were more of a personal nature, but now I see that the problems stemmed from a basic conflict — he is a man and I am a woman. We might not be from Venus or Mars or whatever planets we are supposed to be from, but there is a distinct difference in the way we see things.

Today, another man told me that my neighbors were hurt by my not telling them about my father’s funeral, though I had done so. They had been shunning me, turning around and walking the other way when they saw me or when I spoke to them, and even though I was upset by what he said, I needed to know because his words explained their actions. When I made the comment that it was my father who died, I got tearful as I always do now at the reminder of death. He immediately said, “I shouldn’t have told you.”

So what if I was upset? So what if I cried a bit? So what if I was momentarily angry at the unfairness of it? It’s not like I’m going to spend the rest of my life agonizing over the neighbor’s snubbery. (My word processor doesn’t like my making up words. It keeps changing snubbery to snobbery.) Luckily, my emotional reaction passed as quickly as it came, and luckily he was reasonable so we were able to get beyond our differences.

My real problem with men and emotions comes when I interject my emotions into the middle of a story or explanation. I don’t know whether it’s the interruption that upsets men or that the interruption is emotional. (I never notice this with women.) I don’t deny that my emotions are close to the surface now, and they pop up when and where they will without waiting for the end of a tale. I suppose I should try to cap my emotional responses, but I’m not sure I want to. It’s easier to get beyond life’s sad/bad parts if I can emote a minute (or a lot of minutes) and then let go.

There is a lesson in all this, though I’m not sure what.

***

Posted in culture, life, relationships. Tags: differences between men and women, emotions, getting upset, interruption, men vs women. 14 Comments »

Letter to Jeff, Day 435

January 23, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Day 435, Hi, Jeff.

Another Saturday. I’m tearing up again, though I’m not sure why. Loneliness, I guess. Feeling sorry for myself. I need to get on with my life, concentrate on myself. But how lonely is that? Perhaps it’s better to have no hope. Just try to take the days as they come. It sounds a lot easier than it is. The damn emotions get in the way.

Will this sorrow ever end? Will anything good ever happen to me? Do you miss me? Do you still exist? Will I ever love again? Will anyone ever love me? Is this all there is — this emptiness? I can fill the emptiness with doing things — reading, writing, walking, whatever comes my way — but as soon as I stop concentrating on the “fill,” the emptiness shows up again.

I need something to hold on to. I need something concrete to build my life on, but there isn’t anything but maybe survival. Survival — that’s what your life ended up being about. Is that all there is? Survival until there is no more survival?

How did you manage to survive as well as you did? Was it worth it living with such pain? I guess, in the end, there isn’t really a choice. You have to play out the hand you’re given. Damn. I wish I weren’t so lonely. I might be able to deal with your being gone if not for that. And I really should be able to deal with it. For cripes sake, I am not a child.

What a mess my life is, well, if emptiness can be called a mess. I wish I cared about something. I wish I could talk to you. I wish you weren’t dead. I wish you hadn’t been so sick for so long.

Maybe I’m being insensitive, whining about my life when you no longer have a life. But then, maybe you got the better end of the deal. I hope so.

I love you.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, 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 grief, life, relationships. Tags: building a new life, death of a soul mate, emptiness, grief, grief and survival, letter to the dead. 1 Comment »

We Are Not All Created Equal

January 21, 2015 — Pat Bertram

Despite what the U.S. Declaration of Independence states, all men are not created equal. Nor are all women. Ideally, people are equal under the law, but even that is a specious claim since so often rich folk who can hire high-priced attorneys with dozens of partners and associates are more equal than those who have to make do with overworked public defenders.

But this bloggery isn’t about such grand matters. It’s more about the little things that makes us so very different from one another.

People who love Mexican food are often perplexed by my dislike of cilantro. “How can you not like cilantro?” a friend asked me in accusatory tones, as if she thought I were being contrary by choosing to dislike something most people loved. I retaliated by asking her what cilantro tasted like to her. She said it tasted citrusy, slightly bitter and very refreshing. But that is not how it tastes to me. To me, it tastes like soap. Cilantro contains chemical compounds called aldehydes, which are also present in soaps and other cleaning agents, and apparently I don’t have the enzyme that breaks down the soap-like compounds of the herb into a tasty seasoning, so I get the full soap taste.

Regardless of what she seemed to think, I was not being contrary. Just unequal.

A similar situation happened when I drove a friend to her mountain home this weekend. In a couple of instances, I had to drive down very steep roads that made me feel as if I were free falling down an elevator shaft. She made a few comments about my nervousness, and she didn’t seem to believe me when I told her I wasn’t nervous, that it was a physical reaction. I explained it using the example of a level. Some people are born with something similar to the bubble in their center, so they always know where they are in relation to the earth. These people can turn cartwheels, ride roller coasters, descend steep slopes, and never lose their equilibrium. I on the other hand, have no bubble, so I never know where I am in relation to the earth. (It’s an inner ear thing, or so I have heard.) I remember once as a very small child, maybe 5 or 6, I took tumbling lessons, and I couldn’t do what the other kids did. I got too disoriented, and feared I would break my neck. (They always say kids that young don’t know there is such a thing as necks breaking, but I bet others who lack an inborn plumb bubble also were aware of the possibility.)

Again, I wasn’t being contrary by repudiating her calling me nervous, I was simply explaining our inequalities. Some things I can do, others can’t, and some things others can do, I can’t. It’s that simple.

I’m not sure that being equal is an important matter, anyway. We all wish to be treated the same as others in similar circumstances, and we should be. But other than that, it’s the ways we are unequal that make us who we are, and that is something to celebrate.

***

Posted in culture, life, relationships. Tags: aldehydes, celebrating inequalities, cilantro, created equal, disorientation, inner ear, plumb bubble. 9 Comments »

I Am Truly Blessed

January 18, 2015 — Pat Bertram

As I was setting up for my party last night, cooking the various taco fillings, chopping the many garnishes, and arranging everything in a pleasing and practical manner, I thought about all the people I had invited, and what they meant to me.

First were the people from my grief group. When I came here after the death of my life mate/soul mate, I joined a grief group to be with others in the same hideous and incomprehensible situation, and they helped me get through that awful time. I’m still friends with some of those folks, though I don’t see them very often, and it was nice to think of seeing them again.

Then there was the group I went walking with. Through the hugs we shared and the stories we exchanged during the three-mile walks, these friends helped see me through the torments of dealing with my dysfunctional brother and dying father.

And finally, the dance group, especially our teacher, who helped me see that life was still worth living, that there were still things to be learned and much joy to be experienced.

Although I hadn’t planned the party to be anything other than a simple get-together with friends, it turned out to be more than that — a chance for me to say thank you and to let everyone know how much they meant to me.

While I was making my little speech to my guests, I realized the truth: that although the past five years as I lived them seemed to be one trauma after another, in retrospect, because of these people, those years seem pretty damn wonderful.

I am truly blessed.

***

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, life, relationships. Tags: dancing, grief group, I am blessed, taco party. 2 Comments »

Phones and Other Connections

January 16, 2015 — Pat Bertram

When did talking to someone on the phone become something that people did while doing something else?

I have a friend who calls me only while she is walking. I have another friend who calls me only when driving. I just talked to someone who put me on the speaker so she could make her bed while we chatted. I know several people who play computer games while on the phone. In other words, no one really talks to anyone anymore. They just phone seem to be filling in what might otherwise be almost-empty time.

I no longer feel slighted by this disregard as I once did, but I am egotistical enough to want people to want to talk to me, to want them to want to connect on a more personal level rather than using me to keep from being boring by mundane activities. (Or — perish the thought!! Could they be doing those other things to keep from being bored by me?)

I do realize time is at a premium in this insanely busy world, that sometimes people can only converse during barely-used moments, but still, it would be nice to feel as if what I have to say — or what people have to say to me — is important enough to experience unaccompanied by the huffs and puffs of the walkers, by muttered comments to other drivers, by computer beeps and dings.

We’ve come a long way from the days of being tethered to stationary phones, but still, it seems as if we’ve gone too far. Just because we can drive and talk on the phone, or walk and talk on the phone, play games or do housework and talk on the phone, it doesn’t mean that we should.

Or maybe I’m being too unrealistic and should be grateful for any moment of another person’s attention, no matter how divided.

***