Pat Bertram's Blog, page 178

Murder in 100 Words by Pat Bertram

Tom milled around the prison yard with the other inmates, waiting for the sound of death. There would be no stay of execution for their condemned mate, who would die in a most barbaric way.

���They don���t care that he���s innocent,��� Tom said. ���As are we all. The system is guilty, but no one wants to buck tradition.���

The thud of the axe made him flinch. He bowed his head out of respect for the dead.

In the silence, he heard the executioner���s voice drifting through the chicken wire fence. ���It���s a big turkey. We���ll have a grand Thanksgiving feast.���

***

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: 100-word story, death row, fiction

Winter Heat Blog Hop

I was invited to participate in the Winter Heat Blog Hop. A blog hop is a way of getting to view new blogs that are offering giveaways and opportunities to win prizes. Click here on this blue link to view the entire Winter Heat Blog Hop list!

As for my giveaway:

From now until December 5, you can download the first two books in the Rubicon Ranch trilogy for free. In case you���re not familiar with Rubicon Ranch, it was a collaborative and innovative crime series set in the desert community of Rubicon Ranch and was written online by the authors of Second Wind Publishing. No one knew the outcome of the novels before they were written — we just wrote our characters��� stories trying to prove simultaneously that they were the killer and that they were innocent. A real challenge, but according to Sheila Deeth, writer and reviewer extraordinaire, we succeeded.

Sheila wrote: I thoroughly enjoyed it. Different authors pen chapters from the points of view of different characters. But the end of each tale meshes perfectly with the next, and the story progresses, through twists and turns (and death), to its mysterious, perfectly logical conclusion, while the reader is left to guess, imagine, wonder, and reflect.

In the first book, Rubicon Ranch: Riley���s Story, a little girl���s body was found in the wilderness near the desert community of Rubicon Ranch. Was it an accident? Or . . . murder! But who would want to kill a child?

Click here to download a free ecopy of Rubicon Ranch Book One: Riley’s Story (no code necessary) in the ebook format of your choice from Smashwords.

In the second book, Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces, residents of Rubicon Ranch are finding body parts scattered all over the desert. Who was the victim and why did someone want him so very dead? Everyone in this upscale housing development is hiding something. Everyone has an agenda. Everyone���s life will be different after they have encountered the Rubicon. Rubicon Ranch, that is.

Click here to download Rubicon Ranch Book Two: Necropieces in the ebook format of your choice from Smashwords. Be sure to use Code LT25A when ordering to get your free download.��Offer expires December 5, 2014

These ebooks will make a great stocking stuffer. Just click on “Give as a gift” on the Smashwords page before proceeding to check out.

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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: Rubicon Ranch, Rubicon Ranch Necropieces, Rubicon Ranch serial, Rubicon Ranch: Riley's Story, Winter Heat Blog Hop

The Length of the Chain Between the Imagination and the Stake of Reality

Last night I rewatched The Long Way Home, a 1998 Hallmark movie starring Jack Lemmon. While this is not his best movie (oh, wait — maybe it is. I never particularly liked most of his movies), it certainly spoke to me considering my present situation.

In a way, our circumstances are the opposite — I have too few loved ones left and he has too many. In my case, the house where I am living (my father���s house) will soon be sold out from beneath me, and I will be left to fend for myself. In his case, his children made the decision to sell his home after the death of his wife and have him move in with them. He is lost, doing not much of anything but sitting around, having accepted their belief that he needs to be protected from the death sentence supposedly conferred by old age. (He is only 75, which might be old, but not in my world where my mother lived strongly to 85, my father��did it “his way” until he was 97, and my��forever young��dance teacher is 78 going on 48.)

But both Jack and I are poised on the precipice of a new life, struggling to find meaning, purpose, focus in the light of our losses.

I���ve been trying to envision various ways of continuing my life, perhaps traveling, and that is what Jack does — goes on a road trip. After a minor accident where he couldn���t make it home, he meets a college student on her way to Monterey where she will have to deal with her own family situation. Impulsively, instead of going back to his son and daughter-in-law, he decides to go with her, taking the long way home to his children in Kansas. (Kansas — a possible homage to the Wizard of Oz, the ultimate road trip / long-way-home��movie?)

The main theme of this movie for me is freedom. The college student tells Jack, ���Freedom is the length of the chain between the imagination and the stake of reality.��� (She says it in such a way that it sounds like a quote rather than a spontaneous outburst, but I haven���t been able to find the citation anywhere.)

I never quite understood this quote, despite having seen the movie two or three times, but now I���m getting an inkling of what it means. Reality imposes such harsh rigidity on us,��tying us��to the necessities of taking care of others and ourselves, and��keeping us bound��to the inevitablity of death. And yet, and yet��. . .

Our imaginations take us elsewhere, enabling us to envision other possibilities, which lengthens the chain that binds us, and sets us free to live not in the darkness left behind by our loved ones who are gone, but ���in the light��� of them.

The poster that hangs above the door of “my” dance studio.

 

***

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: envisioning life, freedom, Hallmark movie, Jack Lemmon, Kansas, old age as a death sentence, The Long Way Home, The Wizard of Oz

The Thing With Feathers

Hope seems to be the theme of my day. Though I���m not sure what hope is or what I am hoping for, Emily Dickenson���s poem Hope is tiptoeing around my mind:

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune–without the words,

And never stops at all,

She seems to think hope is necessary, maybe even eternal, but what is hope?

The freedictionary defines hope (the noun) as: A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment. The same��dictionary defines��hope (the verb) as: To look forward to with confidence or expectation. Both of these forms of hope seem to indicate a specific thing that is hoped for, though not everyone who has hope has a wish for something specific.

Hope is also a theological virtue, and hope the virtue��is defined as the desire and search for a future good. And yet, as that most prolific author, Anonymous, says: “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

So hope, but don���t hope? Very confusing, this concept of hope!

For many of us, we have hope of the archaic kind (hope used to mean trust or confidence), but even that definition seems to leave us with questions — Trust in what? Confidence in what? Others of us know hope only by the lack of its opposite — despair, which interestingly, is defined as the absence of hope. (So hope is a lack of despair, and despair is a lack of hope. The epitome of circularity.)

Still, hope is more of a thing, with feathers or not, than simply the lack of something else.

So what are we hoping for when we hope to have hope?

Scott Russell Sanders says: ���In order to have hope we needn���t believe that everything will turn out well. We need only believe we are on the right track.���

I���ll leave it at that, and not ask ���on the right track to what?��� We are all on some sort of journey through life, and the hope that we are on the right track makes hope about today, not some mythical future, and perhaps that is enough.

***

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: Emily Dickenson, hope, hope the virtue, hoping, Scott Russell Sanders, the thing with feathers

All Jazzed Up

I was invited to dance today. I don’t always get to dance when the class is invited to perform because sometimes — like today — there is only room for a few dancers and others in the class��are more experienced than I am,��but today��I was given a turn, and oh! What a joy! Of all the surprises life has thrown at me in recent years, the most surprising is this love of dancing and the privilege of��being taught by a professional dancer��who has studied with many famous dance teachers in Hollywood, Las Vegas, Australia and Hawaii, and who��is willing to pass on that knowledge to both the promising young and the unpromising mature. (Unpromising because of age, not enthusiasm. None of us adults will ever be prima ballerinas, nor we will ever wear toe shoes, though perhaps we — meaning me — might eventually be able to point��our toes in a dancerly way.)

We didn’t wear fancy costumes today, but we looked jazzy all the same. BTW, in case you don’t recognize me, I’m the second from the left with the page boy hairdo.

Let’s boogie!

***

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: dancing, jazz dance, love of dancing, perfoming

Throwing Paint at Life

I try to throw as much paint as I can on my life, but sometimes all I manage is to��dab��a bit of color onto the canvas. Today was a dab day (well, except for dance class — that always adds a spash of brightness to my life), so I thought I’d repost this��photo as a reminder for me to be bright and bold, and not sit around letting my recent losses narrow my life.

Wishing you a big, bright, bold day!

(The flowers are a photo of paradise poinciana that I shot and turned into my version of impressionist art.)

***

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: Danny Kaye, Danny Kaye quote, Life is a Great Big Canvas, throw all the paint on it you can

Being Important

I���m feeling restless tonight as if I should be doing something important, but here I am at the computer, playing games of solitaire.��(Well, I was playing games. Now I���m playing a different kind of solitaire called ���What will I blog about tonight?���)

When life is all about family, spouses, soul mates — creating a shared life — everything you do seems important, but when you are alone, importance is hard to feign because the isolation of being the only one in the room makes even breathing seem unimportant.

Despite the way it might sound, I���m not depressed or sad today. I���m feeling good, actually (probably leftover endorphins or adrenaline from dancing). I���m not lonely, either, just alone, and sometimes aloneness echoes in empty rooms, making it seem like some sort of lack. It is a lack, of course, but it isn���t a lack of life or . . . importance. It���s a lack of companionship and maybe a lack of ���other energy.���

There are some things I don���t necessarily understand when it comes to dancing. I call myself tone deaf, but I���m not — I just hear a single��track of melodic (and not so melodic) noise and find it hard to separate out one particular sound or thread��or beat from all the rest, which is why barbershop quartets hurt my ears and simple tunes are soothing. (I can count, though, and as my dance teacher says, if you can count, you can dance. Or something like that.) One woman I particularly enjoy dancing with (she���s so very elegant and graceful she makes me look good!) hears sounds and beats that pass me by�� even when she points them out, but I pick up on something she doesn���t — the energy of the group. When we are all dancing as one, I can sense the energy we generate, as if we are tied together with invisible strings, moving arms and legs, heads and torsos in perfect rhythm. There���s nothing quite like that feeling, at least not in my experience.

Even when we are not all in harmony, as often happens, there is an air of connectedness in the studio, with all of us focused singlemindedly��on the steps. One woman came with her husband last month, and though he didn���t bother anyone, it gave those classes an uneasy feel because it disrupted the flow of electricity of connectedness among the dancers. (This isn���t as mystical as it sounds. The energy I sense is more of a focus rather than waves of electricity, though I know we all respond to the electricity we generate.)

That energy from another person or a group��— that “other energy” —��is missing in a solitary room.

Some people spew energy even when they are alone, so rooms don���t seem as empty to them. I don���t spew energy, which makes my presence in a room even smaller and quieter than it would normally seem. And makes whatever I do seem unimportant, as if I am just passing time.

But the truth is, ���being��� is important, so even when we are alone, regardless of how it feels, we are being important.

***

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: barbershop quartets, being alone, being important, dancing, importance, living alone, tone deaf

Grief: The Great Learning, Day 423

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.

Please note that this particular letter reflected what I was feeling three and a half years ago. I am not feeling sorry for myself now ��� at least, not much. I���ve found a new love (dancing). Although I have largely moved beyond my grief, I still wish I could talk to him, see how he is doing, feel his hug, bask in his smile. I don’t think I will ever lose that desire, ever stop yearning for what I cannot have. His goneness shapes my days somewhat the same way his presence used to. Everything I do is because he is no longer here.

I am more used to the idea of living alone than I was when I wrote this letter, though sometimes��it still��scares me.��But one of the��lessons grief taught me is that��I��can get used to anything, even loneliness and aloneness.

###

Day 423, Hi, Jeff.

I went to St. Simons Island where I gave a speech on creating characters. My talk went well — I dazzled. I could see it in their eyes. I met some authors, toured the town, climbed the lighthouse, steeped myself in island culture, even ate fried green tomatoes, though I didn���t like them — too much rosemary. Then, on the last day, I got sick. Might be a cold, might be an allergy flare-up, might be psychological (I couldn���t bear the idea of coming back here rather than to you, and it was a way of keeping me isolated.)

I refused to think about you this past week — didn���t want to suffocate. The stuffiness of tears on top of the stuffiness from being sick would have made it impossible to breathe, but Saturday, my sadder day, I did cry. Just kept crying, crying, crying.

I���m doing okay mostly, but I miss you. I hate that you���re gone, both on your behalf (though I doubt you care) and on my behalf. I still panic at the thought of dealing with life alone. Growing old alone. Dying alone. Living alone. I never expected to be so lonely, but I am. I���m lonely for someone generically and for you specifically. You���re so far out of reach! It seems pathetic that I need you — needed you — to give my life shape, form, focus, but it seems even more pathetic to be alone.

What���s to become of me? How can I go on alone? I know I���m strong enough, but shouldn���t there be more to life than simply endurance?

I miss you. I yearn for you. Just one more word. One more smile. Doesn���t seem too much to ask,��but it kills me they are things I can never have again. How can it be over? And how can it still be painful after all these months?

I love you. Take care of yourself.

***

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: aloneness, being alone, lessons of grief, letter to the dead, loss of a life partner, loss of a soul mate, writing to the dead

The Continued Deforestation of America

I���ve been sorting through files that belonged to Jeff, my life mate/soul mate, files that I couldn���t sort through right after he died. It felt voyeuristic then, and it feels voyeuristic now because the pictures, notes, cartoons a person saves tells a lot about that person, more maybe than they would want anyone to know. Still, I didn���t want to throw out that particular file without going through it just in case there was something I might need. (Though how I could need something I���d never seen before, I couldn���t tell you.)

I���m glad I did. I came across the photos posted below, photos��that took my breath away. I remember reading stories in grade school history and reading classes about settlers, and��the stories always seemed to begin or end with the hardy souls cutting down trees and clearing the land. This legend was so ingrained, it wasn���t until my twenties I realized the truth. What????? They cut down trees for farmland????? Trillions and trillions of trees — for what? The American dream of owning a piece of land? The insanity of it all is . . . well, insane. Yes, I know — persecutions in Europe, religious and political freedom, etc, etc, etc, but unconscionable for all that.

Coincidentally, I recently wrote a piece about how wilderness areas are being called irrelevant now, but I guess the truth is, wilderness areas have always been irrelevant to this country. Once people had cut down all the eastern trees, they set out to tame the west. And here we are today — tamed into submission. Is it any wonder I am committed to finding the wildness within?

Jeff and I planted hundreds of trees. I have a hunch most of them have been cut down by now, but still, we did our part to reforest America. And that is something to be proud about.

***

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: american forests in 1620, american forests in 1850, american forests in 1999, clearing the land, irrelevance of wilderness areas, legend of the American settlers, the wildness within

Give a Gift of A Spark of Heavenly Fire for Half Price!

Until November 23, 2014, A Spark of Heavenly Fire will be available at 50% off from Smashwords, where you can download the novel in the ebook format of your choice. To get your discount, go here: A Spark of Heavenly Fire and use coupon code ST33W when purchasing the book. (After you read the book, posting a review on Smashwords would be nice, but not obligatory.)

If you wish to give the ebook as a gift,��go here: A Spark of Heavenly Fire, click on “give as a gift,” fill out all the information required, such as the recipient’s email address. Be sure to enter the coupon code ST33W in the designated box to get your discount.

Though��A Spark of Heavenly Fire��has been classified by some readers as a thriller ��� and there are plenty of thrills and lots of danger ��� A Spark of Heavenly Fire is fundamentally a Christmas book. The story begins on December 2, builds to a climax on Christmas, and ends with renewal in the Spring. There are no Santas, no elves, no shopping malls or presents, nothing that resembles a Christmas card holiday, but the story ��� especially Kate���s story ��� embodies the essence of Christmas: generosity of spirit.

(Why does A Spark of Heavenly Fire begin on December 2 instead of December 1? Glad you asked that. All through the writing of the book, I kept thinking: if only people could get through the first fifty pages, I know they will like this book. So finally came my duh moment. Get rid of the first fifty pages!! With all the deletions and rewriting, I couldn���t make the story start on December 1 as I���d originally intended, but that���s okay since it didn���t end on December 25 as I had hoped. The story overgrew it���s bounds, but the symbolism still held since it ends around Easter.)

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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: A Spark of Heavenly Fire, Christmas, ebook gift certificate, Pat Bertram, spirit of Christmas