Pat Bertram's Blog, page 140

Up Over and Down Under

[image error]An Australian friend believes that the Southern Hemisphere is on top, and the Northern hemisphere is down under because as he says, “Australia is slowly sliding down towards the Equator and the Northern Hemisphere, and as the force of gravity makes things slide down not up I know we are on top cos we are sliding down, See?”

Makes sense to me. And a whole different way of looking at things. It gets tiring have to be up all the time. If we were naturally down, any sort of “upness” would be a special bonus, not a requirement. We’d still have the weight of the world on our shoulders, but at least it would be understandable since the weight of the world really would be on our shoulders.

Calling the hemispheres northern or southern is merely a local designation in relation to earth’s poles. In reality, a globe spinning in space has no up or down, no south or north. From that point of view, the same gravity that is pulling Australia toward the equator is keeping us all from spinning off into the heavens.

Whew! I feel upside down now, not really sure which end of me is up. I just hope gravity holds long enough to keep my feet on the earth for as long as I live.

***

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.

Tagged: being up all the time, different point of view, down under, gravity, northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, the weight of the world on our shoulders

Fun and Clever and Unique

I love talking about my books, though I seldom get a chance. Luckily for me, the following conversation with my sister was caught on text!

SISTER: I’m into chapter 6 of Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare and I have so many questions and comments!!!!!!

ME: You like it, though?

SISTER: Love it! It’s fun and clever and unique. Is the cover photo actually one of your dance mates?? Is there a Deb character in your class? How fun that you condensed your family into one representative sister and brother.

ME: Almost all the people are real. Yes there is a Deb, though she is a composite character and caricatured a bit. The first few chapters tell the true story of the story so the cover is exactly as described in the book. The woman on the floor is Grace, the one who suggested the project.

SISTER: That is so fun!

ME: Many of the conversations in the book actually took place. Buffy really did say, “I’m not the one who volunteered to be the victim.” Oddly, after the book was written, Grace asked how I picked her. She had forgotten the whole thing was her idea.

ME: Perhaps the only truly fictional character is Pat. I’m not sure she exists.

A Gift For You!!

 

Wishing you a warm and safe holiday weekend and a new year filled with possibilities. [image error] [image error]

 Click on the gift to open. Have fun!

***

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.

Tagged: gift, holiday weekend, new year, possibilites

Feasting!

I hadn’t planned on doing anything for Christmas this year, but somehow I am ending up feasting again and again, and the day isn’t even here yet.

[image error]It started last night with Pasta Night in a Box (a complete salmon pasta dinner that I fixed last night and shared with my landlord), continues this afternoon with lunch with a friend (and the beautiful flowers she gave me!), and will and end on Tuesday after Christmas when I have a tea party with my dance teacher to share a gift basket I received from a relative.

Meantime, there is tonight. Since I hadn’t planned on doing anything for Christmas, I obviously had no intention of cooking a Christmas dinner (Christmas Eve dinner, to be exact), but when turkeys went on sale for so cheap that I could buy a whole small turkey for the price of a pound of ground beef, I went ahead and bought it. I am pretending I don’t know about the horrors of turkey farms, and anyway, the poor thing was already sacrificed, so the least I can do is honor its gift. To that end, I stuffed the turkey with celery, oranges, carrots, and apples, and am currently crockpotting the bird, as well as making turkey soup, and cranberry sauce with oranges, apples, and honey.

[image error]

That’s a lot of cooking for someone who planned to enjoy a lazy couple of days.

Still, it was fun cooking — I haven’t really had a kitchen in a long time, at least not the sort of kitchen I wanted to spend any time in. (The kitchen in my last place was so encrusted with grease, there was no way to ever get it clean, no matter how much I scrubbed, and when I was on the road, the only “kitchen” I had the use of was my Solo camping stove.)

The one thing I had planned to do — go out to dinner with a few friends, I cancelled out on. I just couldn’t face another long wait standing in line. Maybe not the best reason for saying “no,” but I seem to be doing that more frequently lately. (It’s not as bad as it sounds — for most of the past seven years since Jeff died, I’ve tried to say “yes” to almost everything that came my way in an effort to feel as if I were living, so saying no is a nice departure.) Since I now have the day free (I won’t even have to cook since there is plenty of pasta left, and there will most of the turkey and cranberries), I am considering hiking to a friend’s house to deliver a gift. Six miles round trip. I wonder if I’ll make it, though stoked with all this feasting, I should have plenty of energy.

We’ll see. Meantime, I need to go check on my turkey.

***

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.

Tagged: Christmas Eve turkey, cooking turkey with apples and oranges, feasting for Christmas, fun cooking, pasta night in a box, turkey in a crockpot

All I want for Christmas

[image error]

Unlike you — or should I say unlike some of you — I did not go shopping today. I did get a burrito at a taco stand, though I don’t think that actually counts as “shopping.” Instead, I again spent the day at my storage unit, clearing out more of my things. After getting rid of three carloads of stuff, the storage unit looks even fuller than it did before. (Admittedly, a Volkswagen Beetle carload is not the same as an SUV carload, but there should have been some obvious indication of all the work I did.) I still haven’t gone through everything — I only managed to get to about a fourth of what’s in the unit. The rest is packed in tightly, but little by little, I will find a way to get to it all.

Next I have to clean my room. Much of the stuff I need to sort through I brought here, so the room looks like a mini storage unit. So unattractive, and such a mess!

But that’s a project for tomorrow.

Tonight I’m writing this blog and drowning my sorrows in sparkling apple/peach cider.

Not that I have any real sorrows at the moment other than the very sore muscles and aching ex-broken hand from all the lifting. There’s nothing I particularly want. (Lucky you! If you were thinking of getting me a Christmas present, you are now off the hook.) And, considering the amount of stuff I still have, there is apparently nothing I need.

The few things I do want are more for the future, and I am making a concerted effort not to worry about things I cannot (or will not) change right now. When the time comes to worry about money or . . . anything . . . then I will. So even though someday there will be things I need, I don’t need them now.

Of course, there’s still that impossible dream, but that’s not about wanting, either. It’s more about doing. Striving toward a goal. To that end, I got my backpack out of storage, and beginning in January, I plan to stash a gallon bottle of water in the pack, and see if I can walk around the block. (A great tip I read once — use water to weight a practice pack, that way, if you get too tired or sore, you can dump the water to lighten the pack. There will be no dance classes that first week in January, so if I destroy my feet carrying that extra weight, I’ll have plenty of time to recuperate before I need to use them again.

***

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.

Tagged: backpacking, clearing out stuff, impossible dreams, packing, room a mess, sparkling apple peach cider, storage unit

Getting and Getting Rid Of

[image error]Tomorrow is Super Saturday, a day that rivals Black Friday for total number of sales. An estimated 126 million people will be shopping tomorrow. I won’t be one of them. If I am not comatose from exhaustion (I spent most of today working on clearing out stuff from my storage unit) I will be spending tomorrow in the storage unit again seeking more punishment.

I hadn’t realized the irony until this very second — tomorrow, 126 million people will be getting stuff, and I will be getting rid of stuff. (Or maybe that isn’t irony. Maybe it’s balance, but there is no way I can get rid of enough stuff to balance out all the new purchases everyone will be making, so I’ll stick with “irony.”)

It’s an interesting experience revisiting possessions I haven’t seen in so long. I’m finding things I didn’t know I kept, which to me is an indication that I should get rid of them since obviously, I have no real attachment to the items. On the other hand, I can’t find things I am positive I saved. Yikes.

I’m also repacking boxes that have gotten smashed from too much weight sitting on top of them for two and a half years. So much fun!

I hope your pre-Christmas weekend is as exciting as mine.

***

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.

Tagged: 126 million shoppers on Super Saturday, clearing out stuff, Super Saturday

The End of the Creeping Darkness!

[image error]

At 8:28 this morning, Pacific time, winter came. Twice. The calendar winter, of course, but also the weather winter. Soooo cold! 8:28 am PT also marked this year’s winter solstice, ending the creeping darkness. “Solstice” comes from two Latin words, sol meaning “sun” and sistere meaning “stationary” because on this day, in the northern hemisphere, the sun seems to stand still, as if garnering it’s strength to fight back the darkness.

Technically, the winter solstice marks the moment when there is a 23.5-degree tilt in Earth’s axis and the North Pole is at its furthest point from the sun — from here on, the days will get longer, gaining us an additional 6 and 1/2 hours of sunlight per day by June 21st when the days begin to get shorter again. (This is reversed in the southern hemisphere, so today those down under will be celebrating their summer solstice.)

Though neo-pagans have claimed the solstice for their own, this is one of those natural holidays (holy days) that we all should be celebrating. The triumph of light over darkness. A day of stillness, of hope, of giving thanks for the promise that even in our darkest hour, light will return.

My celebration was simple. I lit a vase of lights and went outside and toasted the pale winter sun with champagne. Well, it was really sparking apple/peach cider, but the sun didn’t seem to care. It slid beneath the desert knolls without even a wink or a nod to acknowledge my obeisance. But it will return with greater strength tomorrow. And so will I.

Wishing you a bright and hopeful end of the creeping darkness.

***

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.

Tagged: holy day, meaning of solstice, natural holiday, solstice, triumph of light over darkness, winter solstice

Happy Birthday to the Crossword Puzzle!

To honor the 104th anniversary of the crossword puzzle, here is a special gift just for you! (Feel free to print the puzzle to make solving it easier.)

Bertram’s Puzzle

[image error]

Across

3. A formal assessment of a work

4. A person who has written a particular work

6. A fictional person

7. Death notice; the piece in the newspaper that catapulted Bob Stark onto his journey for self-discovery in More Deaths Than One

9. The interrelated sequence of events in a work of fiction

11. Category of a novel

13. The state that was quarantined in A Spark of Heavenly Fire

14. Archaic word processing instrument with delete capabilities

15. A book-length work of fiction

17. A person who uses penned or typed words to communicate ideas or tell stories

18. An electronic version of a book

19. Relationship of James Angus Stuart to Mary Stuart in Daughter Am I

Down

1. Name of Pat Bertram’s blog (2 words)

2. Prose that describes imaginary events and people

5. Author of A Spark of Heavenly Fire, More Deaths Than One, Light Bringer, and Daughter Am I (2 words)

8. Pat Bertram’s publisher (2 words)

10. The country where Bob Stark from More Deaths Than One lived for eighteen years

12. The treasure that Mary Stuart searched for in Daughter Am I

16. A written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers

***

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.

Tagged: anniversary of the crossword puzzle, crossword puzzle, Pat Bertram's crossword puzzle

Measuring Success

In her book Anatomy of Spirit, Caroline Myss writes: “While we measure our own success in terms of our personal comfort and security, the universe measures our success by how much we have learned. So long as we use comfort and security as our criteria of success, we will fear our own intuitive guidance because by its very nature it directs us into new cycles of learning that are sometimes uncomfortable.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever measured success by comfort, though it has long been a favorite pursuit of mine. Why try for big adventures when you can stay home in the comfortable chair and get almost the same benefits by reading about people on big adventures? (Apparently, there is a place in our brains that translates such vicarious pleasures into its own reality, though I doubt you get the same benefit you would get if you were actually out on the adventure, and I know you don’t get any physical benefits, but it is definitely more comfortable.)

I have never measured success by security, either, though I certainly wish I didn’t have to worry about money. (Whenever I think such a thought, a tiny reciprocal thought appears — “well, then, don’t worry about it.”)

As for what the universe wants and measures, I haven’t a clue. Does the universe have cognition? It’s hard to tell. The universe doesn’t talk to me, and it has not yet imparted what sort of lesson I have learned from nearly destroying my hand/wrist/arm/elbow. Shouldn’t I have learned something? You’d think such a traumatic experience would have led me somewhere meaningful, but I cannot think of a single lesson I have learned.

[image error]This is all just semantics because, with my continued talk of going on a grand adventure, I obviously believe the truth of Myss’s statement — I  do feel some sort of intuitive guidance toward the very idea of doing an iconic hike. And she make sense of why I would dream of going on an epic backpacking trip that not only is seemingly impossible for me, but also terrifies me.  Oddly, mental stagnation scares me even more — while comfort is . . . well, comfortable . . . it certainly is not something to get the senses heightened, brain synapses firing, and the body challenged.

The more I think about the impossibility of an epic backpacking trip, the more I find myself guided by the thought, “but what if . . . ?” That “what if” keeps me focused on getting there (wherever “there” might be), and if an epic hike truly is as impossible as it seems, there will still be all the “practice” adventures, the smaller adventures that are supposed to prepare me for the big one, and each of those adventures will bring its own cycle of learning.

Learning has always been my main thing, even more than comfort or security. As frustrated as I get when trying to learn a new dance (sometimes my mind goes blank instead of processing the sequence of steps we’re given), it’s the learning that is as compelling to me as the dancing itself.

It’s the possibility of learning and the fear of how I might learn what I will need to learn that makes the idea of an adventure so frightening and compelling, not just the impossible dream adventure, but the possible ones. In the case of the possible dreams, the learning comes in two parts. The first part is the planning/researching, which is what fuels the fear for the second part — the doing. The more I learn about the vigors and rigors of various campsites or trails, the more I want to bury my head under the covers, but also the more I want to go.

(I just thought of something — it’s this comfort vs. learning thing that could be the block that keeps me from finishing my decade-old work in progress. Since I know what I want to write, there is neither the fun nor the excitement of learning something new to keep me going. Maybe I have to turn things upside down to see what happens.)

I will not consider myself a failure if I am never able to even attempt the impossible dream of an epic hike; I will, however, measure my success by the learning and adventures (no matter how uncomfortable) to which I am directed along the way.

***

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.

 

Tagged: Anatomy of Spirit, Caroline Myss, comfort as success, directed into cycles of learning, intuitive guidance, security as success, the universe and success

Letting Go

I spent most of yesterday sorting out a few boxes in my storage unit. I have no idea why, but I woke with the feeling that I needed to start getting rid of more of my stuff. I got rid of half of everything Jeff and I owned when I left our home, and a third of what was left when I left my father’s house, but I still have way too much stuff for someone who is somewhat of a nomad, moving from one temporary place to another.

Although I hadn’t intended to, hadn’t even remembered I still had them, I ended up tossing out my grief journals and the letters I wrote to Jeff those first years after his death. I’m sure there was much wisdom in those pages, but there was also too much sorrow and too many tears. No one needs to keep that sort of grief-laden memorabilia. And anyway, if ever I am interested in my thoughts back then, I have hundreds of blog posts and of course, my book Grief: The Great Yearning.

It’s odd, but I don’t feel anything — neither relief that the sorrow is thrown away nor regret that I got rid of the journals. I suppose that means I chose the right time to let them go.

I still have Jeff’s ashes, but it’s getting close to time to get rid of those, too. It might be nice to take them with me on my May trip, and sprinkle tiny amounts in all the places I know he’d love. (Shh. Don’t tell. It’s illegal to dump human remains without a permit, but a teaspoonful here and a smidgeon there spread over hundreds of miles shouldn’t upset the ecology of any area.) Still, the trip is still months away, and anything can happen before I have to decide.

I also threw away the handwritten versions of my books (the first four were completely written by hand, and even parts of the more recently published books were handwritten). I’d been saving them for . . . I don’t know . . . posterity, maybe. But posterity has passed me by, and so far I haven’t needed them to prove my claim that I wrote the books, so it was time to let them go, too.

Some things I did not throw away, such as the binder filled with maps and information about places I’d planned to visit on my cross-country trip two years ago. The most astonishing fact about those pages is that so many were about long-distance hiking trails, including maps. I vaguely remember planning to hike and backpack in the various national lands along the way, figuring that when I hit North Carolina, I’d be ready to hike part of the Mountain to Sea trail. Unfortunately, by the time I got to North Carolina, I could barely walk up stairs. (I’d wrenched my hip in ballet class before I left, and the hiking I did in the beginning and all that driving only made things worse. I’ve been doing piriformis muscle stretches ever since, and maybe this next adventure, though shorter, might be more active.)

[image error]One piece of torn paper that I tossed in the trash yesterday while working was picked up by the wind, and so I went dashing after it. (Although I might not have a problem with littering the wilderness with Jeff’s ashes, any other sort of littering is anathema to me.) I have that dusty, wrinkled bit by my side as I type this blog. It was a quote I’d found and jotted down with pencil:

“Let go, trust and just take the first step. The pathway will unfold before you.” That advice comes from The Peace Pilgrim, a 44-year-old woman who set out to walk for peace carrying only a pen, a comb, a toothbrush, and a map, trusting to those she met to supply what she needed, though she never asked for anything. I wish I had her trust, her courage, her zeal. Could I ever just head out on foot with nothing and wait to see what happens?

It’s one thing to let go of possessions that no longer have value, but another thing to just . . . let go.

But maybe . . .

Someday . . .

Meantime, most of my stuff still needs to be sorted, and more gotten rid of. Do you notice I’m using the passive voice? That’s because I don’t want to have to face the reality of who is going to have to do all that work.

***

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.

Tagged: getting rid of possessions, letting go, mountain to sea trail, North Carolina, peace pilgrim, planning a long distance hike, walking for peace