Chugging Along

August 7, 2026 — Pat Bertram

If I suddenly disappear, don’t worry. I’m probably fine, just taking a break from blogging. What’s going on in the world is just so discouraging that I get tired of writing about what I am trying to think through. Actually, I’m tired of trying to think things through, too, tired of trying to find a way to make everything — anything — make sense. (Though how does one make sense of what in many cases is utterly senseless?) In fact, I was seriously considering this to be my last post for a while, but a friend left me a message “Do not give up!” And that made a big difference. So thank you.

Not that I really want to talk about “the issues,” it’s that they are on my mind. Normally, I can push those thoughts away with talk of my garden, but right now, there’s not even much to say about my yard, not many pictures to show. At this time of year, the weeds sprout ten times faster than I can pull them up. (I am prone at times to exaggeration for the sake of making a point, but the speed at which the weeds are sprouting is the literal truth. Spurge, the worst offender, sure is a scourge! It’s everywhere.) Also, the summer flowers are mostly gone and the fall blooms still weeks away. Well, except for the marigolds. This year, they are like weeds, having planted themselves in copious numbers, even crowding out plants I paid for. What I discovered is that whatever marigolds are supposed to do to keep bugs away, they don’t. In fact, there are more bugs in my self-planted marigold beds than there are in the rest of the yard.

Although I don’t really like marigolds, except for their ability to brighten dead spots in fall, the French marigold is different. The odor isn’t as strong, the petals aren’t as compact, and the color is brighter. As with the traditional marigolds, these also self-seeded. In fact, I have more of them this year than were planted last year. (I didn’t plant them specifically — they came in an assortment of orange wildflowers.)

I do have a single pumpkin growing. I used to see a lot of thumb-size babies, but they all disappeared. I don’t even know how that happened. Maybe the momma pumpkin absorbed them. It’s a good thing I only need one pumpkin! Even though the tomato plant is as big as a bush, it still hasn’t produced a single blossom, and though the cantaloupe is producing flowers, it’s not producing fruit.

Yep. A discouraging time all around. Though that’s nothing new. According to blogs I posted at this time in previous years, that discouragement seems to a sign of the times. I can’t even blame my malaise on the heat — we had a couple of days hinting of fall before the 100+ temperatures returned.

I’ll chalk up my discouragement to the midsummer blahs, and keep chugging along, even if I do give in to my inclination to stop blogging every day.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, blogging, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , , . 10 Comments »

Promises

July 27, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s a promise you made to yourself that you’ve actually kept?
View all responses

I don’t really make promises to myself, at least not using those words. I do wake each day with the idea of trying to do better than I did the day before at taking care of myself, such as eating real food or doing stretching exercises if nothing else. I sometimes played around with New Year’s resolutions, though those resemble my daily betterment intentions rather than any resolution or promise to myself. Oddly, my unintentional resolution of daily blogging (I never decided to do it, never promised myself I would, just started doing it) is still in effect. 208 days and counting!

The closest I ever came to promising myself anything was after Jeff died and I became determined to be spontaneous. The only time in my life I was spontaneous was right after I met him. His very presence in the world made the world feel friendly, and I felt comfortable taking chances. Over the years, I settled back into my worrisome self. Our lives became constrained by his health, our finances, and various other matters beyond our control. He told me once it bothered him that our shared life had destroyed my spontaneity — but he never understood that he was the one responsible for whatever spontaneity I had developed to begin with.

I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life mourning, didn’t want to spend my life regretting that my shared life was ended, didn’t want to . . . well, I didn’t want to do a lot of things that I had to do, such as deal with the pain and go from there. Through it all, though, I kept that determination to be spontaneous as a way to honor him. And to honor myself.

I did many new things and took many chances — visiting museums, taking dance classes, hunting for wild poppy preserves, exploring the desert, hiking — though oddly, a lot of my spontaneity came with preparation and planning. For example, I couldn’t just start driving cross-country trip on a whim — I had to get both myself and my car into shape, stock up on the necessary emergency and camping equipment, notify people of my intentions in case they wanted me to stop by, and so many other niggling details. And yet, despite the planning, most of the trip was an exercise in spontaneity — driving how far I wanted each day, taking side trips when the signs beckoned me off the main road, accepting invitations from people I barely knew.

Even buying my house was as spontaneous as such a purchase can be. I got an unsolicited email from a real estate website saying that they had a house I might like. I did like it. And I bought it sight unseen. (Though I did have a realtor and two inspectors look at it for me.) Although my life has settled into a comfortable stay-at-homeness, and although I still have to live more or less according to a gardening schedule, my life is mostly unplanned. I do what I wish when I wish it, which most often means not doing much of anything, which I’m okay with, although oddly, yesterday I suddenly felt like cleaning house, so that was my big spontaneity of the day.

I suppose, in the end, I did make a promise to myself — that plan to be spontaneous — and I did keep it.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Halfway Through the Year

July 2, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Noon today marks the halfway point of the year. Although I noted the date and time on my calendar, it doesn’t really mean anything to me — it’s the days themselves that count since all I can control is what I do today. A year (or even half of a year) is rather an abstract, too long of a time to be able to live it as a whole. So why did I write it on my calendar? As a blog topic, of course. I’m always looking for things to write about since I’m still on my daily blogging kick. 183 days in a row as of today. That’s more than I’ve done the past few years, though it’s not out of the ordinary for me. Once I blogged daily for more than three years straight. Funny that — to do such a thing every day for so long, and then just . . . stop. Eventually, I’ll stop this streak, too, but not today.

As for the year passing — I’m more concerned with the summer. Hot. Dry. Windy at times. So not my most fun time of year! To be honest, neither is winter, but then, that’s still a ways away. And besides, as I noted above, all I can control is what I do today.

Today, I’m trying not to worry about the way this country seems to be heading. Trying not to worry about what the heat is doing to my yard. Trying not to worry about . . . well, about anything. That seems as good a half-year resolution as any, I suppose — trying not to worry. Of course, if I made it an official half-year resolution, then I’d have to worry about whether or not I’m worrying, so perhaps it’s better just to be. Take what comes.

What came today was a discovery that my “Archives: All Posts” page on this blog now only shows a few months. I’m trying to get with the WordPress people to see what happened, but so far, I’ve had only a brief, uninformative contact with something called my “AI Assistant.” It finally had enough of me and referred me to a human. So, I’m waiting for an email that might or might not come from a real person.

I doubt I need the entire blog archive — I mean, who wants to sort through 3,866 posts (3,867 after today) to find a title that catches their interest (I certainly wouldn’t!) — so I might just get rid of the “All Posts” designation and let the code do what it wants. I considered replacing the archives with a “best of” designation, but then, I’d have to go through all of those posts to see if any are worth highlighting. So, no.

What else came today was a lovely pair of daylilies! They brightened my day. I hope they brighten yours, too.

Happy halfway day!

[Update: I did get an email, and apparently, the server has to generate all the codes at once and with so many, it runs out of memory part way through. The email gave me an alternative way of posting the archives, which, if nothing else, shows me how many times I posted each of the past 225 months.]

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Profound Advice

May 29, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s the most profound piece of advice you’ve been given? Did you take it?
View all responses

WordPress, the host of my blog, is starting to pull out all sorts of tricks to get us more involved, or so I imagine, since people tend not to like long-form blogging anymore, seeming to prefer the photos, quick clips, and brief comments posted on most social networking sites. Some of what WordPress is doing is fun — for example, I won a “streak freeze” badge, which if I’m reading it right, if I miss a day of blogging activity, it still counts as an active day. It won’t matter to me and my personal stats, though. If I miss a day, I’m honest enough to admit it, if only to myself, but so far this year, I’ve posted each day. (149 days in a row so far.)

Oddly, though WordPress does keep tabs of my posting “streak,” they’ve only been counting the past ten days for their new activity badge, so according to that I’m on a 10-day streak.

Another thing they are doing, besides the badges and different challenges, is listing the blogs I posted on a particular day. Supposedly, I’ve only posted five times on a May 29th, but they don’t seem to include the ten years prior to 2016 when I was blogging every day. If I really cared, of course, I could go back and find those posts for myself, but I don’t. Don’t care, I mean. The past is the past.

Still, I did check out a few of the previous May 29 posts that they listed, and I came across an interesting one that seems to fit today’s blog prompt. In the post, When You Have to Go, I mentioned all the different places I went when I had to “go” during my cross-country trip, and I found a bit of advice that I’d forgotten. I don’t even remember who told me, but it was profound to me, anyway. She suggested that when I was camping, I should take a quart yogurt container into the tent for late night emergencies. The container easily contours to fit, and the cover made it spill proof. I followed her advice, and it truly was miraculous! I keep a container in my house in case of plumbing problems, which has also been a boon.

Okay, so the advice wasn’t profound in the sense of emotional or philosophical depth, or of something with far-reaching significance, and I’m sure it wasn’t the most profound advice I’d ever been given (though I can’t think of any such advice offhand), and yet, when you have to go, there’s nothing more profound than a place (or a yogurt container) to find relief.

Incidentally, the photo attached to this post is one I took at the Kohler Design Center located in Kohler, Wisconsin. If you look closely, you will see that the sculpture, which took up an entire wall, was created from dozens of stacked toilets.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in blogging, How to, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , , , . 11 Comments »

Quandary

March 20, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Many of my posts this year have been prompted by outside sources: a few in answer to official blog prompts, a few in reaction to articles I read, and more than a few in response to my reread of the first eleven Wheel of Time books.

I’ve mostly given up reading online articles. I don’t want to know what is going on in the world, but more than that, I’m trying to live in the offscreen world. I was going to say I’m trying to live in the real world, but the Wheel of Time isn’t the real world, though it often feels like it since it’s a reimagining of our world, myths, legends, cultures. But even so, I’ve been trying to read other books for now.

Which leaves me in something of a quandary since there’s not a whole lot left to blog about. Most of the official blog prompts aren’t that interesting to me, and with the up and down weather as well as the hazy days from out-of-state smoke, I haven’t been doing much outside, which gives me even less to write about. (Though I did find one lone hyacinth in my yard to celebrate the first day of spring!)

Since I never actually decided to blog every day, it won’t be going against any principle if I simply stopped, but I’m on a streak — 79 days and counting — so it seems a shame to give up now.

I should be glad there’s nothing much to say, especially with the anniversary of Jeff’s death coming up. Normally that in itself would have brought an onslaught of words, but our shared life ended sixteen years and a whole-lot-of-living ago. As a memorial, I had considered reading Grief: The Great Yearning, more or less my journal of that first year of grief, but I leafed through it the other day trying to see if there was any significance to a moment of sadness I experienced, and nope. Nope to finding any significance to sadness on that particular day. And nope to rereading the book. Sheesh. Just what I saw was enough misery to sink a tanker. It’s better for me to leave all that emotion between the covers of the book.

So . . . quandary. What to write when there’s nothing to write?

With any luck, I’ll find an answer in time to write tomorrow’s post.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in blogging, books, grief, life, writing. Tags: , , , . 8 Comments »

Blog Prompts

March 19, 2026 — Pat Bertram

When one blogs every day, which apparently I am doing, topics are sometimes hard to find. Usually, I write about what is currently in my head in an effort to clear it out — I do not like thoughts careening around in all that echoey space. Sometimes, though, what is in my head is not something I want to go on record as saying, especially when it touches on current events and policies. There is too much volatility surrounding the vocalization of such thoughts, which would only serve to add more careening thoughts to those already in my head.

WordPress, the platform that hosts my blog, offers a daily prompt that I sometimes make use of, but most are of topics that leave my mind blank. Nothing to say. Move on.

During previous bouts of daily blogging, I kept a list of blog topics, and sometimes I refer to that list to find something I’d like to write about. Oddly, I was able to delete many of those topics because they recently came up on the WordPress daily prompt. In fact, those from the prompt and those on my list showed up in the very same order, so apparently, they replay the same topics.

Mostly, though, I check out the list, and then put it away again, still not having anything to say about any of those items.

I do have a response to: “What Are Your Two Favorite Things to Wear?” Comfortable clothes with the addition of a hat when I go outside. But that’s the total extent of my thoughts on the subject, so it really doesn’t do much good as a prompt.

But I have no response to: “What is the worst thing you have ever done?” Cripes, I sure as heck don’t want to dig around in my memory bank looking for such a thing. If I’ve forgotten it, that’s all to the good since it probably means I’ve made amends or come to terms with my actions or it’s so far in the past that it no longer matters. The worst thing I’ve done today is renege on my intention to stay away from anything that can be construed as news — I did some research for a friend but stopped after I started getting jittery.

Nor do I have a response for: “What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?” I suppose the logical answer would be Jeff’s death, but the fact is, it was a heck of a lot worse for him than me since he’s sixteen years gone and I’m still here. I also don’t like the thought of making his death about me, though my grief was all about me and how I tried to get through the days until I found a new way of being. But I’ve written hundreds of posts about that grief and don’t need to rehash any of it. As for the worst thing that happened to me today? Perhaps that jittery feeling at catching a glimpse of what’s going on in the world.

I should have a response to: “What moment are you proudest of in your life?” But I don’t. If I thought about it, I’m sure there would be many things I am proud about, but as for a single moment, such as standing up to a bully or saving the world with a well-placed word, there’s nothing. Except perhaps for keeping my mouth shut over what exactly in the news today gave me the jitters.

The following item on the list is not a question, more of a theme for a blog: “Don’t like doing, like having done.” I touched on that a few weeks ago when I wrote about not doing anything for fun. I do a lot of things, not so much for enjoyment, but simply for the doing, though I like having done the things. Like gardening for example.

Another theme that I think on. A while back, a friend said to me, “I was told once I was dead. Then we laughed.” Although this comment doesn’t prompt me to write anything in a blog post, it would make a good theme for a book, perhaps a horror story, or even a story about someone coming back as an angel.

Which brings me to yet another prompt: “write a novel about someone, perhaps an angel unaware who changes the life of everyone she meets, not in an It’s a Wonderful Life sort of way, but just someone going about life and things change.” It’s been done many times, I’m sure. In fact, I know it has since I hear echoes of those stories in the back of my mind.

Another prompt: Joe Hill said, “Getting Old is No Way to Stop Being Young” Sure it’s true, but a whole blog post on the obvious? I think not.

Then there’s Paul Coelho who wrote, “Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” I think about this frequently. In fact, I tend to believe it’s true. But by the time I “unbecame” as much as I could, there wasn’t much left but a sentient consciousness. If you spend a lot of time alone, as I do, very little pulls you out of your own head, and if you also live for the moment, nothing stands separately from you that says “hey, I am feeling this” or “hey, I am thinking this.” You just feel. You just think. Of course, things change when you’re visiting with someone. Then you become you, the person that’s different from the person you’re talking to, and it becomes obvious you’re the person who is feeling, saying, thinking, whatever.

Which brings me to the final prompt on my list: “Myths we live by.” Frankly, no matter what we think, we all live by myths. And a lot of those myths tend to become illuminated in political discourse, whether protest or quiet talks. We all see and react to the world based on our own myths of what is right or wrong, what is a hero or villain, what is important or not worth thinking about. I have a hunch this prompt was more for me, to discuss the myths I have created for myself, but it’s been years since I put this on my list of blog prompts, and I have no idea what I intended. Obviously, I didn’t know it back then, either, or I would have written the blog and not put the topic on a list.

Well, that takes care of this blog topic list.

I better start another!

 

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

 

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Daily Blogging

February 22, 2026 — Pat Bertram

For years, I blogged every day mostly as a discipline to give form to my days and because I knew that if I ever stopped, I might just let the practice slide away. And the practice did. Slide away, I mean. In January 2023, I still posted every day, and I continued until the middle of February. After that, I posted only sporadically, maybe 25 posts the rest of that year, 7 the following year, and 14 last year. Not very impressive, but then, it wasn’t supposed to be. I simply had nothing to say that I wanted to make public. I’d gradually become sensitive about putting my thoughts out there for anyone to read, so unless I had something innocuous to post, such as pictures of my garden, I kept my thoughts to myself.

Which makes me wonder why all of a sudden this year I’ve found myself blogging again. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I just posted on the first of January, then the second, then . . .

Now here I am, day 53 of daily blogging, though I have no idea why. Can’t even begin to guess. Not that the reason matters. What matters, I suppose, is that I am sitting at my computer. Digging words out of my sluggish brain. Trying to make sense of the world at large.

I originally wrote, “the world around me” and only substituted “the world at large” when I realized that world around me makes sense. I look out the window, and I see that the sky is blue, the grass a dry winter green, the streets empty. I hear clucking from chickens a couple of houses away, tapping now and again from the roofers halfway down the block, and a train in the distance. But it’s mostly quiet. Peaceful. When I close my computer, the only tensions I feel are from the book I’m reading, and most of those come because I’m not engaged in the story at all. (I thought I should get away from the Wheel of Time for a while, but going from the study of a multi-layered epic to reading a simple one-note novel, makes that novel feel even flatter than it really is.)

But this isn’t a post about reading. It’s about writing, finding words in my own head rather than in someone else’s, even if the words I find don’t mean a whole lot. It’s about being able to see something to appreciate in my small life and being able to express my feelings. It’s about being centered on what truly matters to me right now rather than worrying so much about things happening elsewhere that I have no control over.

What I do have control over are my words, and I that, I imagine, more than anything, is what makes this current practice of blogging every day important to me. Though to tell the truth, I’m still not sure I want to make my thoughts public. Luckily for me, my tulips are making themselves known, telling me that gardening season is coming, and soon we can both contemplate something more interesting — watching my garden grow.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in blogging, books, internet, life. Tags: , , , , . 8 Comments »

My Every Day

February 5, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.
View all responses

My most ideal day? Well, that’s simple enough to describe — it’s pretty much my every day so far this year:

Get up. Do stretching exercises. Make the bed. Have a cup of tea. Play a bit of a hidden object game. Write a blog post. Read. Have breakfast. Read. Have lunch. Read. Take a short walk. Read. Rest a bit. Read. Have a quick snack. Read. Check online to see what if anything is going on with my blog. Read. Read some more until it’s time to go to bed, then read until lights out.

Well, that’s my every day except for the walk. I keep trying to get back into walking every day, but I can’t seem to always find the energy. Of course, in an ideal day, I’d have plenty of energy, no sinus issues, and the get up and go to just get up and go. Sometimes, of course, my ideal day involves a visit with a friend or neighbor or whoever else I might encounter during the walk, but apparently not today.

I used to play the hidden object game a lot more until much of that online time got supplanted by blogging. Odd how that happened. I never actually decided to start posting every day as I used to. I just . . . did.

I must admit, blogging does help make my day an ideal one. It feels like coming home, in a way, a comfortable way to spend time, a pleasant way to communicate without having people cut me off while I am speaking if they disagree. (You might cut me off and stop reading, but since I’d never know, it’s not hurtful.) It also gives me something to think about other than the state of the world and the lack of common sense (though why something that’s in such short supply is called “common,” I don’t know, and neither does anyone else, apparently, since this is a sentiment I encounter so often that it’s embarrassingly trite). Best of all, blogging allows me to play with words, like above when I wrote “the get up and go to just get up and go.” I tend to be too serious, so word play lets me indulge my fantasy that I’m witty and charming and lighthearted. (And no, that fantasy is not part of my ideal day since ideally, I need to be what I am, whatever that might be.)

Well, this part of my ideal day has been fulfilled. Now on the next part: Reading!!

(I couldn’t find a photo of myself reading, so here is the next best thing: my 97-year-old father reading one of my books during his last days.)

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Intentions and Unintentions

January 15, 2026 — Pat Bertram

So far most of my New Year’s resolutions are on track, both the intentional ones and the unintentional ones. My plan of taking a walk every day was pretty much buried in the snow a few days ago. Although the snow is melting, there is too much slush to for me to want to be out there; also I’m fighting some sort of allergy or early cold symptom, which gives me even more of an excuse to remain inside. I am doing well staying away from the news, though occasionally the news comes calling with an email or an inadvertent glimpse when I let my attention wander. I’m also staying with the no sugar/no wheat thing, though I am looking forward to some sort of treat when the month is over. (This resolution was only for a month, though the intention of sticking with real food is an ongoing one.)

My unintentional resolution of blogging every day is still on track. Fifteen days and counting! I never really planned to blog every day . . . I just started, and now here I am. It feels good to be back blogging. An additional benefit is that it’s getting me away from playing games on the computer, which is just as well. The hidden object game I play is getting tiresome, though I still log in and play a bit every day just to keep my hand in, but any sense of wanting to work toward game goals has dissipated.

One unvoiced intention this year was to reread The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and try to pick out clues to the real ending, not the ending we ended up with, which I am trying to do. Jordan, the one who created his world out of a mosaic of our history, culture, myths, and legends, died before he could finish, and the author chosen to finish the series did an execrable job. Not only was he at best a serviceable writer, he dumped characters that played a role through Jordan’s writings, ignored many characters’ development and regressed them to the beginning, traded established subplots for new subplots of his own that added nothing to the story, destroyed his own timeline so that things happened in no order (even seemingly having one character in two places at a time and two characters meeting where their timelines couldn’t have intersected).

[What astonishes me about those ersatz books is how protective everyone is of that substitute author. There are no one- and two-star ratings of his offerings, though there are plenty of low ratings when it comes to Jordan’s books. (Admittedly, some of those are deserved. Although much of Jordan’s story is brilliant and shows the ten years he spent researching, and his writing seems epic at times, it could do with a serious editing, including slashing huge sections of a couple of books.) I did find one review that was an honest critique of the last three books, yet the overwhelming response to the thoughtful piece was that the review was “overwrought drivel” written by an angry fan. (Even though the reviewer admitted he wasn’t a fan.)]

I read this series multiple times because after volume 6, I could no long remember what had happened in volume one. Most of the brilliance in the series comes from foreshadowing, and it’s hard to tell when a foreshadowed event occurs when you can’t remember the foreshadowing. So now I am able to remember the story going both ways — what I’ve read and what I’m going to read. Unfortunately, now I can’t forget those last three mishmash books by the substitute author in order to come up with my own ending as foreshadowed by Jordan’s writings.

I am not a fan of these books so much as a student, which is why I want to puzzle out the real ending. (Something to occupy my mind, if nothing else.) Perhaps as I find more of the clues to the ending Jordan intended, I’ll be able to override in my mind the bad ending with one of my own concoction.

Meantime, the year progresses. Already halfway through January! And my intentions (and unintentions) are still holding strong.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Snow!

December 13, 2022 — Pat Bertram

It snowed last night — a lot! (6 inches with drifts up to 12 inches.) And I was not at all prepared. Though how could I be? The forecasters offered only a 40% chance of snow, and if it did snow, was supposed to be just a dusting, like all the other snows we we’ve had this year.

It’s too bad I didn’t know that it would snow so much — yesterday would have been a good opportunity to sow my wildflower seeds, but with high winds also in the forecast, I figured the seeds would scatter all through the neighborhood if it . Still, it’s early in the season. I’m sure there will be plenty of time to plant the seeds.

The other thing I would have done if I had known it would snow so much is to take my heavy-duty ergonomic snow shovel out of the garage and bring it into the house. (What makes is ergonomic is the bent handle, though why that makes a difference, I don’t know. It certainly makes the shovel unwieldy!) Luckily, I keep a plastic scoop shovel in the house. It’s not really a snow shovel — looks more like a coal shovel — but it does the job in an emergency.

It seems funny to be writing this — ever since I’ve stopped blogging every day, whenever I have an insight about something, I just let the thought (deep or not so deep) go unrecorded. It’s a shame, in a way. Every once in a while, someone will leave a comment on an older post, and since I don’t know what they are referencing, I have to go back and read the item. Often, I am surprised by my perspicacity. Now, though, since I am out of the habit of blogging, I lose those insights. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing. Maybe just having the thought is enough, even if I don’t remember or record it.

Sometimes I think I should get back to the discipline of daily blogging, but, like the rest of my thoughts lately, I let it go.

Still, you never know. Obviously, this snow goaded me into writing, and I’m sure other things will come along to goad me, too.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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