Pat Bertram's Blog, page 4

Going Cold Turkey

My internet went out yesterday. I didn’t worry because such things happen, especially in times of high winds, but when I wasn’t reconnected after an hour or so, I braved the labyrinth of the company’s automated phone system. Eventually I was transferred to a real person (at least I think she was) and after enduring multiple sessions of being put on hold, I was informed that it wasn’t an area problem but isolated to me. I didn’t even worry when she said that she’d schedule a service call, but when she gave me the day and time — sometime during the day next Wednesday, I panicked. Seven days without the internet? Not possible.

Well, it will be possible since there is no other choice, and I do have my phone, but still, I spend a LOT of time on the internet, playing games, researching, and various other things, and suddenly, all that time will need to be spent doing . . . who knows what. I already read too much, and because of the heavy rains we’ve been having, there isn’t much I can do outside unless I want to slip and slide in the mud.

I am sure I will be okay, it just takes a mental adjustment. After all, I spent most of my life without the internet, and I always found things to do. Of course, I was working full time, which filled most of my hours, so reading was a much-treasured luxury, not a way of life, and afterward, there were the years spent writing, but now? I guess I’ll find out if there is, in fact, life without the internet.

Luckily, I have things planned — working a couple of afternoons, taking my car in for a tune up, going to a farewell lunch for a friend who’s leaving the country for a year or two. When the ground dries a bit, I will
have a huge amount of weeding to do. And there are various projects I’ve been putting off that I can get finally get around to doing.

When I lost the connection, I was in the midst of trying to decide what seeds to buy to plant in my raised garden, which is supposed to be filled with soil next week. The internet going out seems to be a sign to wait on that purchase; after all, I’ve been through this before where a scheduled job was put off indefinitely. And if the garden is actually filled, well, I don’t suppose waiting a week to order the seeds will make much difference. And anyway, having an extra week to plan the garden isn’t a bad thing. It will give me something to think about while I am going cold turkey.

Looking Good!

Except for throwing out a few wildflower seeds between snowfalls this winter, I didn’t do anything for my garden. I wanted to see what of the perennials would come up again and what annuals would reseed themselves so that I wouldn’t plant over something I wanted. Not as many flowers as I expected came up again this year. In fact, as you can see, one of the areas in the bottom lefthand corner remains a blank slate. Oddly, that was one of the areas where the larkspur came up last year, but the larkspur garden moved a bit to the right. That wild growth along the path is where the grass died last year, and now I have a larkspur jungle. It should be gorgeous when the flowers bloom in another week or two, but seeing all those larkspurs was a bit of a surprise, to say the least.

I am grateful that the greensward to the right of the path is still doing well. Some people have mental health animals — I have a mental health lawn. I often stand at the back window and drink in the green. It makes me feel good, so it’s worth the effort to try to keep a lawn going.

Some of the grass that came back from near death last year is forming clumps and going to seed. Not attractive at all! It was just one of those flukes, I think. We had days of rain last week, which made the grass grow rapidly, and the ground was too wet to mow, so I got to see what would happen if I didn’t mow. Luckily, I enjoy mowing.

A nice surprise were the Siberian wallflowers. They were in a small package of wildflower seeds I’d planted three years ago, and not a single flower has ever bloomed. Well, this year, I have dozens of plants that are just coming into maturity. They are supposed to reseed themselves, which would be nice — I wouldn’t mind a swath of these cheerful little flowers.

The lilacs I planted when I first got here are growing fast now, and the blossoms are fully mature. Last year, I did get a lilac bunch or two, but they were scraggly.

It’s too soon to tell how anything else is doing. Well, the weeds, of course are doing well, and it won’t be long before I am unable to keep up with them. But for now, things are looking good!

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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.

The Joy — and Heartbreak — of Gardening

My yard is greening up nicely. The grass you see in the forefront of the photo is the grass I planted last fall after digging up the Bermuda grass that had taken over the area. The new grass survived the winter nicely. I was going to wait to see how the grass does in the unrelenting sun of summer before I planted more seeds, but I decided to go ahead and do some of the work now. The blue seed is where the old grass didn’t come back after dying off last summer. A lot of the lighter green is a larkspur invasion that took over where the grass along the path died. The larkspur will run its course in the next couple of months, so I’ll be able to plant more grass next fall.

I fretted about the lawn, not sure what to do about the grass that died, but since I often find myself standing at the back window looking out at the shimmering emerald of the lawn in front of the bench and feeling calm settle over me, I decided it was worth keeping up with the lawn as a mental health aid, if nothing else. At the worst, I’ll have to replant some of it every year for a while as well as digging up the invading Bermuda grass, but you never know — this seed might be as heat tolerant as it claims to be. Still, the sun in this corner of Colorado can be fierce, made even more searing by low humidity and high winds, so I won’t blame the grass if it has a hard time establishing itself along the path where it gets no shade. Oddly, even the plants that supposedly need to be grown in full sun do better around here with a bit of shade, perhaps because the shade keeps the moisture in the soil a bit longer.

Because of the volatile weather pattern this spring — temperatures ranging from the twenties to the nineties with almost daily high winds — most of my tulips are stunted. The exception is this small patch that is in the shade most of the time.

I am hoping that if I water the remaining tulips copiously on the very hot days they will still bloom, but I have no idea what will happen. It could be too late in the season for them to recover.

Gardening in this corner of Colorado is certainly a challenge, but I am learning, paying attention to what grows best and where, what need extra care, and what plants that don’t seem to want to thrive no matter what I do. Luckily, plenty of plants seem to like it here, which makes the whole project a joy. Heartbreaking at times, of course, but overall, a joy.

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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.

Finally — Some Color!

It’s taken a while, but it’s great to see a bit of color in my yard. I’m not sure if the other tulips will bloom — they don’t seem to like the ninety-degree weather we had, so I’m celebrating whatever beauty I find in my yard.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, though they be but few, they are beautiful!

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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.

Thirteen Years

I’d stopped writing about grief a while ago and hadn’t intended to write anything else on the subject, but today is the thirteenth anniversary of Jeff’s death, and I didn’t think the day should go uncommemorated. To be honest, I’m not sure why I feel this way. Although I still feel the jagged crack in my soul from where he was ripped from my life, it has been mostly filled with new memories, new experiences, new foci. Besides that, he has been gone so any years that I no longer feel as if I have a claim on his life. Or his death.

Still, both his life and his death affected me enormously. I would not be the person I am today without knowing both love and grief, though I’m not sure that matters — the part about me being the person I am today, that is. For all I know, if things had been different, I might have been a better person, though I could have been worse or simply different or perhaps even the same. We can never know what might have been. All I know is that when he died, my life was sent on a completely different trajectory, and I ended up living a life I could never have imagined when we were together.

I wonder sometimes if we met up today if he’d still like me, but that is a futile speculation. He is gone. He has as little claim to my life now as I have to his. And yet, I do miss him, and perhaps always will.

Shortly after he died, I met an old woman who told me she’d been married and widowed three times and that she still cried for all of her husbands, even though the first had been gone for decades, and the second and third for many years. I can’t imagine the courage it takes to love again after losing a much-loved spouse, nor can I imagine the courage it takes to deal with so much grief piled on grief.

But we all do the best we can to get through our days, and today, the best I can do is to think of Jeff.

And to remember.

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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.

Lessons Gardening Teaches

Today was almost a repeat of yesterday. It wasn’t as warm, so I did errands in the morning instead of working outside, visited with a friend who stopped by, and then I picked up where I left off yesterday. Come to think of it, I started at the same time I finished yesterday, which is one of those tidbits that only interests me.

Before the clouds came and darkened the day, I managed to finish feeding and watering my lawn as well as water all the garden areas I didn’t get to yesterday. I visited with a neighbor, then came inside and collapsed.

We’re going into a slightly cooler time, which is good. I am sore and can use the respite.

Despite the hard work, it was fun being outside, and even more fun being able to show off all the plants that are starting to come in. Best of all, it gave me a chance to see the yard from a different perspective. I get so caught up with things that didn’t work out, such as the areas where the grass died, that I forget to look at what is there.

This is one of the lessons gardening teaches us — to see what is there today rather than what the yard was like in the past or what we hope the yard will look like in the future. In gardening, all we can work with is what exists in the present. We can try to recapture what we liked from previous years and can work for what we would like to see in the future, but that’s it. The rest is about what is here now. Of course, as with all lessons, what is taught and what is learned are two different things.

Another lesson I have yet to take to heart is that a garden is not just a work in progress but a work in flux. “Progress” connotes an unfinished project that can be finished. A garden is never finished and never can be. Things are in a constant flux, with seasonal plants coming and going, weeds sprouting and (hopefully) dying, bushes growing, perennials spreading, unknown seeds planting themselves. All sorts of things happen with or without the volition of the gardener, which makes it rather silly to get upset at anything that doesn’t perform the way we want. For example, I was upset last year that a large swath of my newly sodded lawn died from heat stress, but looking at the yard from a different perspective, I see that eventually my small lilac bushes will grow large and take over some of that would-be grassy area. But that won’t happen for several more years, so whatever the lesson I’m supposed to learn, I still reserve the right to be saddened by the demise of any of the green.

Still, the “flux” part of the lesson remains. Things will be changing rapidly in the next few weeks, and all that change will come even before I can plant any flower seeds or vegetable plants. (Around here, May 5th is the earliest date for safe planting. Until then, there will be grass greening up, tulips growing, lilacs blooming, and all sorts of other visual treats to be enjoyed.

Which brings me to perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from gardening: enjoy whatever the day brings. That is one lesson I am taking to heart. Or trying to, anyway.

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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.

Perfect Morning for Working Outside

This was a perfect morning for working outside, so I did — work outside, that is. I got a lot accomplished, too.

I started columbine seedlings — planted them in cardboard egg containers and then stashed them in a zippered plastic bag for a makeshift greenhouse. I’ve always liked columbines, but so far, haven’t had any luck with the seeds planted directly in the ground, so I’m hoping starting the seeds early will work.

I planned to get a head start on weeding, but as with previous years, I’m having a hard time figuring out which of the seedlings in the garden are weeds and which are self-seeded flowers, so I’ll have to wait on weeding a bit longer. As time goes on, I’m sure, I’ll get more familiar with the various seedlings, so I’ll be able to get rid of the weeds before they take hol

I watered my tulip bulbs and was pleased to see they are doing well. Oddly, even bulbs I planted when I first moved here that never bothered to come up are showing signs of life. Some of them are in the middle of my lawn, left over from an early attempt to start a bulb garden. Last year when a tulip came up in the middle of my grass it bothered me because the green expanse was so beautiful, but this year, I’m glad of any green that shows up. Well, any green except weeds and Bermuda grass. To be honest, I wouldn’t even mind the Bermuda grass, but it takes over, and I don’t like aggressiveness in plants. Or in people, for that matter.

For a fun chore, I set out some of the figurines for my fairy and gnome garden. I do get a kick out of seeing those miniature scenes as I wander around my yard or work in the garden.

Lastly, I fed and watered my lawn. Well, half my lawn. The lawn food sprayer that was supposed to attach to the hose didn’t work, so I had to use watering cans, which was rather labor intensive. Still, I got the saddest looking parts of the yard off to a good start. Some of the grass that died last year is coming back. Some isn’t. Interestingly, larkspur seeds are taking hold in the worst of the dead patches of sod, so I’ll have growth of some kind, anyway. I’m waiting to see how the grass I planted last fall deals with the summer heat. It made it through the winter, which was the first hurdle. If it makes it through the summer, then next fall I’ll dig up the dead grass as well as the places where the Bermuda grass took over, and gradually build up the lawn again. That’s the plan anyway.

Even though I was tired, I’d considered finishing the feeding and watering, but luckily, the wind came up. Normally wind is not my friend, but it was a good reminder not to overdo my first time out.

With any luck, spring will continue to be good to me and there will be many more perfect mornings for working outside.

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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.

Reflections

I’m continuing with my daily tarot readings, though I have reverted to a single card reading. I’ve also started to use the same deck all the time rather than switching to a different one each month. The Crowley Thoth deck is not one I particularly like, but I do have a great handbook that goes with the deck: Tarot Mirror of the Soul.

As the title suggests, this particular guidebook, more than any other, uses the tarot as a mirror to reflect inner realities without judgment and to offer new perspectives. Ideally, anyway. Admittedly, the tarot itself it a tool for self-exploration, though I have not often found it to be so. This book, though, gives me something to reflect on each day. Often the focus doesn’t seem to reflect my life except in a general way, but other times it accurately reflects what I am thinking.

For example, I’ve been trying to decide if I want to continue with the sole remaining group/club I belong to. At the beginning, it was fun; there were only a few members and I liked them all. A couple of them even became good friends. Because of the busyness of life, this is about the only time I see these people, which is a good reason to keep up with the group. Another good reason is that since it’s the only group I belong to, it’s the only time, other than my job, where I routinely see people.

But, as with all things, over the past couple of years, the group changed. There are a lot more people now, more than I am comfortable being around. Also, with more people come more issues, such as cliques and undercurrents and those who want to make it all about themselves. I get the feeling I’m the only one who senses these things because all the other members seem to have embraced the new people without realizing — or caring — how much things have changed, which make me feel like an outsider.

Unfortunately, the good and the bad seem equally balanced, making the decision of whether to stay with the group impossible.

This inner conflict was in the back of my mind when I picked yesterday’s card — the eight of swords. The Mirror of the Soul cautions, “You will not be able to come to a decision analytically. Your doubt, or fears of making the wrong choice, constantly destroys your inner clarity. No matter where you turn, no satisfactory solution seems to exist. The more you try to untangle the ball of yarn, the tighter the knots become.” The Mirror of the Soul goes on to offer this solution to the conundrum: “Relax and let things develop on their own. The problem which seems unsolvable now will find its own solution in its own way.”

Good advice, for sure, and I planned to follow it, though I was so taken with the tarot reading and the way it reflected what I was feeling, that I’d been thinking about how to present both the problem and the tarot’s solution in a blog post. Apparently, the tarot doesn’t think this is good enough because today’s card was the same as yesterday’s, with the same admonition to relax and let things develop on their own.

Something to reflect on, that’s for sure!

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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.

Theory of Gardening

I did some work out in the yard yesterday. The weather was nice — sunny and still, but cool enough that I needed to wear a coat — and I felt like being outside for a while. Mostly I clipped the dead stalks from the perennial plants, ready for the new growth come spring. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do, but my theory of gardening is that since I don’t really know how to do anything, to do something. (The obverse is also true. If I don’t know how to do something, I do anything, just so that it feels as if I am making progress.)

I must admit, although the yard is still winter bland, it looks much nicer without all the dead stalks and shrubbery. I think it will also be good for my peace of mind not knowing exactly where things are so that I don’t worry if the growth this year isn’t as good as I hope it will be. I did see a whole lot of larkspur seedlings, so with any luck, in a couple of months, I’ll be enjoying a swath of purple blooms.

I’ve been wondering if I’ll feel like doing the necessary work this year since I’ve grown lazy over the winter, but if today is any indication, there won’t be a problem. I enjoyed doing something physical for a change, not just reading and playing games on the computer as I usually do. There will probably be a continued issue with my knees this gardening season, but I have knee braces to help with that problem. Admittedly, it would be smart of me to use my knees as a barometer of when to quit working for the day, but I tend not to heed such indicators but plow through whatever job needs to be done.

I suppose as time goes on and I become even more used to the seasonal gardening changes and chores, I’ll be willing to pace myself a bit. After all, no matter what I do, in the winter, things will always look bleak, and in the spring, they will always look greener by comparison. And no matter how much time I spend on digging weeds and weedy grasses, by the end of summer, they will have won the battle.

The weeds are in abeyance for now, which is nice, so that’s one chore I don’t have to think about yet. I did notice it’s getting dry out there, so I suppose I should break down and water, but despite the warm day today — in the 70s — tomorrow when I have time to water, we’ll be back to winter temperatures. Well, that’s no surprise, it is still winter, after all, and will be for another eleven days.

But whatever the next few days — and weeks — have in store for me, at least today, I did something.

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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.

House Anniversary

Four years ago today, I bought my house. Whoa! I had to stop and reread that sentence because . . . four years, really? The years slipped by so easily, it doesn’t seem possible that I’ve lived here for four years already.

I encountered a few weird instances, such as getting a water bill for 19,000 gallons of water (they said it couldn’t possibly be their new electronic meter that was off because those meters, like all electronic devices, always work perfectly. Yeah, right.) And there were a few scary instances, such as my homeowner’s insurance doubling after it had already almost doubled the year before. But for the most part, buying this house was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. It’s given me comfort and security, focus and confidence.

There’s still much for me to learn about owning a house, but little by little, I’m gaining the knowledge I need, or more specifically, I’m learning who to call to help me with anything that goes wrong. And I’m learning to garden and to take care of a yard. In fact, just this morning, my yard offered me the lovely gift of cheery yellow crocuses.

When I moved here, I had no idea how ideal this area would be for me. I came for the house, but I also found neighbors, friends, a library, a job, and so much more.

During all those years of being lost in grief after Jeff died, I held on to the hope of a something wonderful in my future because shouldn’t a supreme sorrow be balanced by at least a modicum of joy? And here it is, my something wonderful. My house. My home. For almost a decade, even though I had places to live, I always felt homeless. Jeff had been my home, and with him gone, I felt rootless. And now, I am putting down roots. Literal roots. Every time I plant something, I am both symbolically and actually putting down roots.

Being here gives me a sense of the ebb and flow of life. Not that I needed any reminders, considering how many people in my family have died the past decade or so, but still, I feel the flow of seasons. The life and death and rebirth of plants. And, unfortunately, the coming and going of friends. In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve already lost friends due to moving, ill health, and even death.

I also feel the ebb and flow of my own life and am so grateful for the waves that washed me up on this particular shore. I have to smile at that the silliness of that metaphor. Not only is it trite, but it is inapt since there are no waves around here — just miles of empty prairie. But still, here I am, and with any luck, here’s where I will stay for many more years.

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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.