Pat Bertram's Blog, page 52

Books for Book Lovers

When you are making out your Christmas list (because of course, you are making out a list even though it’s only August), here are some books for you to consider for your bookish friends, and for yourself too, of course, if you haven’t already read these books.

Bob: The Right Hand of God for those who love whimsical and satirical apocalyptic stories, rebellious loners, six-foot millipedes, baby volcanoes, and cities that suddenly turn into oceans. 

Click here to read the first chapter of Bob: The Right Hand of God

Click here to buy Bob: The Right Hand of God

Unfinished for those who love drama, buried secrets, stories that tell the truth about grief, and women who find themselves when they find themselves alone.

Click here to read the first chapter of Unfinished

Click here to buy Unfinished

Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare for those who love fun, dance, murder, mystery, older women who live with all the verve and nerve of the young, and perhaps me. (The main character is named Pat. Coincidence? You be the judge!)

Click here to read the first chapter of Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare

Click here to buy Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare

Daughter Am I for those who love road trips, treasure hunts, buried family secrets, mysteries, gangsters, young women coming of age and old folks who refuse to admit their age.

Click here to read the first chapter of Daughter Am I

Click here to buy Daughter Am I

Light Bringer for those who love precocious babies, aliens, conspiracy theories, secret underground laboratories, lost identities, and manipulative international corporations.

Click here to read the first chapter of Light Bringer

Click here to buy Light Bringer

A Spark of Heavenly Fire for those who love conspiracies with a medical twist and for those who wonder what it would be like if the world were to go through another pandemic.

Click here to read the first chapter of A Spark of Heavenly Fire

Click here to buy A Spark of Heavenly Fire

More Deaths Than One for those who like conspiracy theories, mind control experiments, the Vietnam era and its aftermath, and a bit of otherworldly strange midst the horror.

Click here to read the first chapter of More Deaths Than One

Click here to buy More Deaths Than One

Grief: The Great Yearning for those who need the comfort of knowing they are not alone in their sorrow especially during the first year of grief.

Click here to read the first chapter of Grief: The Great Yearning

Click here to buy Grief: The Great Yearning

Grief: The Inside Story — A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One for those who need to learn more about the mystery of grief either because they are grieving a person who had been intrinsic to their life or because they know someone who is grieving and want to understand more about what the griever is experiencing.

Click here to buy Grief: The Inside Story — A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Today’s Tarot

A new month means only one thing to me — a new tarot deck. Otherwise, one month is pretty much the same as another. Well, August is certainly not the same as December, but August is similar to the end of July and the beginning of September, so the months slide right on by without a lot of fanfare. Or at least they did until I started changing tarot cards at the beginning of every month.

This month, the deck I am using is one of the classic decks: the Rider Tarot. Also known as the Rider-Waite Tarot or the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, it is one of the most widely used tarot decks in the world, with over 100 million in print. The deck was created by Arthur Edward Waite, illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith, and published in 1909 by the Rider Company. In 1971, US Games Systems purchased the publishing rights, and that is the deck that I have. The copyright on the original deck is in the public domain now, so the only rights US Games Systems owns are any changes made after 1971.

One of the decks in my collection is a color-it-yourself deck — the B.O.T.A. deck. I thought coloring the cards would be an interesting way to learn the tarot, and since I didn’t want to ruin what might be a collector’s item, and since the B.O.T.A. deck is still under copyright, I downloaded a black and white copy of the Rider deck to color. Although I printed the cards on cardstock, they are too flimsy to use, and anyway, I only got through the major arcana. Someday, maybe, I’ll finish coloring the cards. But for now, this month, I’m using an official deck.

I’m also continuing my two-card reading, though I changed the layout from “Need to know/need to let go” to “situation/major challenge.” The question I ask, as always, is “What do I need to know today?”

Although many people use the tarot to learn the future, I have a sure-fire method of discovering what the future holds — get up each day and live to the best of my ability. Because, of course, today is yesterday’s future. Learning the future by living the future is a better way of foretelling the future than the tarot, because the tarot is not meant to be a divinatory tool. It’s supposed to be a way to connect one’s inner and outer life, to find guidance and gain insights, and to help with personal growth. I haven’t noticed any difference in me or my life since I’ve been doing a daily reading. Either I already know me or I am too obtuse to see anything I don’t already know. I suppose I could ask the tarot which holds true, but I’m not sure it would help to know either of those things about myself.

In the final analysis, the tarot for me is more about the discipline of it, and the curiosity — seeing what cards show up with what frequency.

In today’s reading, the nine of pentacles tells me about my situation: a time of comfort and luxury, discernment and deep satisfaction. The hierophant tells me my challenge: to learn to embrace the conventional, at least some of the time; that it’s not necessary to always be unconventional.

Does that reading help me at all? Not particularly, though it does seem to have an element of truth. It did, however, give me a blog topic, which is a help. After 679 straight days of blogging (3,155 days total), a blog topic is not always easy to find.

***

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

Air Quality Alert

We are under an air quality alert starting yesterday, continuing into today, and perhaps ending tomorrow. The bad air has nothing to do with anything around here — apparently, upper-level wind patterns are bringing in smoke from fires in states far to west of here, such as California and Oregon. Oddly, at the same time, we are under a flood watch, also not because of anything happening around here. We haven’t had much rain to speak of in months, though heavy rains in other areas of the state have pushed huge amounts of water into one of the local rivers.

It just goes to show that as isolated as we are out here on the eastern plains of Colorado, no place is really isolated any more.

Situations like this remind me of a bizarre conversation I had with a woman from my grief group in California. At the time, just like today, there were large swaths of wildfire in that state. I mentioned almost as an aside, that when I lived on the western slope of Colorado, a mere thirty miles east of the Utah border, I could always tell when fires were raging in California because of the strong smoke smell.

The woman became incensed, called me ignorant, and said that because of her science background, she knew that there was no way for me to smell smoke at that distance. I was flabbergasted, of course, and puzzled, not just because of her reaction to an innocent remark, but at how wrong she was. I don’t remember what exactly her background was, but I do seem to remember that although she wasn’t a scientist, she was telling the truth about her jobs having something to do with science. But she certainly wasn’t telling the truth about the inability to smell smoke that originated a thousand miles away. I explained about air currents, about jet streams, about wind, about all the ways smoke can be carried to distant places. I even mentioned studies showing that odors are made up of minute particles that bind to receptors in the nose, and that these particles can be blown in from far away, or merely waft in on a breeze.

Nothing I said made any difference. She continued to harangue me about her science background and my ignorance until I finally just shrugged and agreed that I didn’t have a science background, and refrained from mentioning the thousands of scientific books I’ve read.

Now that I live in an area that routinely gets inundated with out-of-state smoke, as well as the air quality alerts that result from that smoke, I’m frequently reminded of her and her utter belief that I couldn’t smell smoke that originated more than a thousand miles away.

Incidentally, the fire in the photo is the sun as it was rising through the smoke this morning, and is not a result of an earth-bound fire.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God

Getting Over Grief

People often ask me how to get over grief, but the truth is (despite the title of this piece), we never get over grief for the simple reason that the person being mourned is gone for the rest of our life on Earth. Still, over time, the focus does change from the past and from our lost love to the future and perhaps a new love.

At the beginning, our focus — when it’s not on what we have lost — is about breathing. Taking one breath after another. Generally, breathing is simple. It’s something we do without thinking. But after the death of a person intrinsic to our life, such as a spouse or soul mate, it’s as if they took our breath with them when they left us, and breathing becomes something we need to focus on. A breath in, a breath out. Such a painful thing, those breaths! Adding to the complication is that so often we don’t want to breathe. We’d just as soon it was all over for us, too, and yet, we are compelled to continue taking those breaths.

As the years pass and the pain begins to subside, we hold on even tighter to our pain because grief is all that connects us to our lost love. During all those months and years, grief does its job, changing us into a person who can survive without the person we most loved. And gradually, a new love creeps into our life. Actually, I should say, a new focus comes into our life. Whatever it is that we find to focus on, it’s compelling enough to take our mind off our pain and sorrow and loneliness for a short time. And over the next months and years, all those “short times” add up. New memories are made. The past lessens its demands. The future becomes more compelling. And life goes on.

This new love or focus doesn’t have to be a person. It can be almost anything. Visiting museums. Hiking. Planning epic adventures. Yoga. Dance classes. Traveling. A new home. Gardening. For me, it was all of those things.

I tried so many things at the beginning. I wrote about my grief. I walked for hours. I visited museums. I went on day trips with people from my grief group. I took yoga classes. Sometimes, I could forget myself and my pain for minutes at a time, but nothing held. When the moment passed, I was right back where I started, in full grief mode.

It wasn’t until I started learning to dance that the focus lasted more than the moment. I started thinking about dancing, started practicing at home. Although grief didn’t leave me alone for long, it did start to lose its intense hold on me, and I could finally focus on something other than my loss and my pain.

As grief further eased its grip on me and I could sometimes imagine a future, I dreamed of — and planned — epic adventures. I was going to visit independent bookstores all over the country to see if they would sell my books. I was going to walk up the coast to Seattle. I was going to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. I was going to take a freighter to New Zealand. I was going to go on a year-long camping trip. I was going to drive cross-country in my vintage VW. I still have the research I did for all these adventures, but in the end, the only one I followed through with was my 12,500 cross-country road trip as well as a north/south trip along the western coast and several trips from California to Colorado.

A couple of years ago, I changed my focus yet again when I bought a house and found a place to call home.

And now, what I find compelling enough to propel me into the future is gardening.

I’m far enough away from my focus on grief that I seldom get snapped back to those early months, but for the first seven years, no matter how compelling my current focus was, I often found myself blindsided by grief.

I’m not sure how a person goes about finding a new focus. I tend to think that when a griever is ready, a new focus — a new love — appears, rather than needing to search for it, but however it happens, the readiness and the new focus are part of this process of change we call grief.

***

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

Things to Worry At

In a book I just finished reading, the character often stayed awake at night worrying about all the things in her life that she couldn’t do anything about. As it turns out, the one thing she should have been worrying about, the thing that will change her life forever, is something she could never have imagined. But that’s not what this post is about.

Mostly, her worrying got me to thinking about my worries. Luckily, my worries at the moment are all minor. Even better, “worrying” in my case doesn’t mean causing anxiety; it means to tug and pull at things. Like a dog worrying at a bone, I worry at thoughts — I poke and prod them, pushing them around in my head, looking at them from all angles.

The current bone that I am worrying at is what to plant in the “island” between my two sidewalks. The space lends itself to some sort of formal desert garden, or rather it would if it weren’t for all the shade that area gets. A garden like that would take more studying and preparation (and money!) than I want to deal with right now, though I can always plan such a garden at a later date. My latest thought is to take all the seeds I have, mix them together — cultivated flowers and wild flowers, annuals and perennials, new and expired — and then next summer toss them onto the space, cover them with dirt, water, and see what happens.

The summer after that would be the key to what I ultimately decide. If enough perennials take hold, then the decision would be made for me and I wouldn’t have to do anything. By then, too, the prostrate knotweed that passes for grass around here might have taken over, since it’s almost impossible for me to keep on top of it, and in that case, I wouldn’t have to do anything, either, except give up and let it be.

Ideas for that garden particular area are not all that I am pushing and pulling around in my head. Behind the currently roofless gazebo, in the middle of the reddish pathways, there will be a raised garden, and that, too, is something I worry at. It will be the focal point of my secret garden (because when all the bushes along the fence grow up, that space will be utterly private), and I’m not sure what one plants in a raised garden. It would seem as if tall plants would overpower the area and perhaps make it claustrophobic. And low-lying plants might get lost. I’d originally thought it would be a good place for a vegetable garden, but since I’ve killed a couple of my tomato plants and can’t even manage to grow a zucchini, I’m not sure it’s worth the time and effort to plant vegetables.

None of this matters, of course. It’s not as if the fate of the world lies in the decision of what to plant in my various garden spots. It’s not even as if my own fate lies in the decision. It’s that I like having some idea of what I am going to be doing. More than that, apparently, I also need things to worry at, and with nothing major to worry about, I worry at my gardens.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God

Just Like That

Awhile back, I accepted a job as a part-time caregiver (more of a companion, to be honest) for an older woman. I promised to stay a year, and wow! Just like that (snapping my fingers), the year is gone. I signed up for another few months, which is nice for all concerned. I get along well with the women, both the client and her permanent caregiver, they get a break from each other, and I get help with some of my expenses, most notably, my gardening expenses.

I spent a nice chunk of my paycheck on bulbs to plant for this fall. I got carried away, and so my spare time (weather permitting), will be spent preparing the soil for the bulbs. I have a good idea where the bulbs will go, so that’s good. Tulips will go alongside one of my garden paths, and lilies will go to augment the lilies I already have, so that eventually I will have a lily forest.

One area of the yard I have no idea what to do with is the six-foot space between the two sidewalks in my back yard that lead from my back door to the garage and gazebo. This year, I just planted whatever seeds I had plus any extraneous purchased plants. What seemed like a good idea has devolved into rather a mess, and I don’t want a repeat of that next for next year.

I’ve been considering a combination of cosmos, zinnia, larkspur, and baby’s breath because all of those go well together, but since those are all tall plants, I’m not sure how well they’d fit in the overall scheme of my yard. I considered various flowering groundcovers, but none of the samples I bought and planted seemed to take hold. In fact, some of them simply disappeared.

Luckily, I don’t have to make any decision about that particular garden space quite yet. We haven’t even made it through this summer. But the fall and winter will go fast (in fact, by the time next spring comes around, my most recent job stint will have come to an end), and I’ll need to have some idea what to do. I guess if inspiration doesn’t strike, I’ll go with my idea of zinnias, cosmos, larkspur and baby’s breath. Considering that those are all annuals, it would give me an extra year to decide what would look good in that area. Maybe a perennial about a foot tall with big showy flowers. I have no idea what that would be, but it would give me a place to start looking, because (snap) just like that, it will be spring and time to plant.

***

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

Call to Adventure

As I’m sitting here, mentally sorting through my recent activities to find something at least vaguely interesting to write about, I hear a train whistle as it passes through town. This train whistle has an old-fashioned mournful sound, evocative of summer days and faraway places.

I’m glad the trains that pass by within a few short blocks of where I live use that particular whistle. The last place I lived before I moved here was also close to the tracks. It was actually about a mile away rather than a matter of blocks, but there were no houses between me and the train to absorb some of the sound, so sometimes, the train sounded as if it were racing past my window, a few feet away from where I slept. From what I understand, there is a variety of horn or whistle sounds that can be used when a train goes through a town, and trains in that particular area used a horrendous screeching noise. Sometimes, I’d be awakened by what sounded like banshees shrieking outside my window. At first, it scared me until I realized what it was — no monsters, just a train making a monstrous noise.

I never did understand why those trains shrieked rather than wailed; perhaps the train rushing through a populous area made it imperative. Luckily, that train is a thousand miles away. Even more luckily, at least for now, the trains trundling through this town use the more traditional sound.

It’s too bad the trains just pass through. There is a station here that once was used for passenger traffic, and if it were operational to this day, I could walk a few blocks, get on the train, and head . . . somewhere. As it is, the train stops at a town about twenty-five miles away, which isn’t far but would require a concerted effort and some planning to take a trip rather than the impulse of the moment.

It’s just as well, I suppose. I’m still working, still have a house to take care of, still have a yard to landscape. Besides, there truly isn’t any place I would rather be than where I am at the moment: in my own house, on my own property, listening to the train calling me to adventure.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God

The World at Small

When I was young, the cool kids all used VO5 shampoo, which was then a premium brand. I’m not sure why people liked the shampoo; it’s possible the name seemed high-tech for the times, invoking images of race cars. The name in actuality referred to the five vitamins and oils that had been added to the shampoo, which perhaps made it a better shampoo than its competition because back then shampoos were little more than gentle liquid soaps. They might still be, for all I know. It’s been a while since I’ve done any in depth research on such products.

I hadn’t thought of this particular brand since . . . well, never. When I was young, of course, I used whatever shampoo my mother bought. Later, I bought so-called “natural” products from Jeff’s health food store. (That’s where I met him — at his store.)

Still later, I used the shampoos we’d stocked up on before his death. (I can tell you for a fact that old shampoo never loses its luster.) And then, of course, during my months of travel, I used motel and hotel shampoos.

When I moved here, one of the first things I had to do was buy shampoo. I stood at those seemingly endless shelves for a long while, trying to figure out which one to get. I finally purchased a couple of shampoo/conditioner sets that bragged about being natural and having herbs, but they weren’t any different than any other shampoo I’d used in recent memory. So, a week or so ago, when I again found myself in need of shampoo, I stood in that same spot without a clue about which of the hundreds of bottles to pick.

And then I saw them, there on the lowest shelf — bottles of VO5 shampoo. It shocked me, not just that such an old brand was still extant, but that it was priced so cheaply — under a dollar. It seemed much the same as the bottles of high-priced shampoo I’d been looking it, so that’s what I bought.

I seldom talk about the products I use, and almost never mention brands, but this particular incident has stayed with me, probably because of the wider lesson.

I’m sure, to the world at large, my value has been discounted the same as that once prestigious hair product. Luckily for me, I live in the world at small. In my small world, whether my small space online or my small space in my small neighborhood in my small town, my value still holds true. At least, it does to me, to the people I work for, to the people I have befriended.

Luckily, too, there is no price on my value to the world at small. It would be rather disconcerting to find oneself relegated to the bottom shelf while other folks, younger and flashier though perhaps no better, lounged on higher tiers.

***

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

Possible Dreams

As I water my various plants, I daydream about what the yard will look like in the coming years, assuming I can keep up with the work. I hadn’t realized I would like lilies, but I find them amusingly cheerful. I looked up my order for the lilies I planted and discovered they are orienpet lilies, a combination of oriental lilies and trumpet lilies. To be honest, I hadn’t remembered planting them. Luckily, they remembered! Apparently, their lying dormant the first year is not unusual. Even better, every year they’re supposed to get bigger than the previous year, and eventually they will grow to be six feet tall. Now I am dreaming of a lily forest. I bet it will be beautiful, especially if I order more lilies to fill in the space around where these lilies are growing. And since I water and weed that area anyway, there won’t be any extra work once the lilies are planted.

Although the lilies are supposed to be strong enough not to need staking, mine are still so young that I need to invest in some garden stakes. Right now I am using wooden stakes leftover from the various concrete jobs around the property, but although functional, they detract too much from the flowers.

Another place I have dreams for is the area in front of the lilacs along the path next to the garage. It seems perfect for tulips. I water there anyway, just like with my future lily forest, so once the bulbs are planted, there won’t any extra work. And it won’t look like a mess once the flowers have faded.

I felt more like playing in my yard today than I have the past couple of weeks, so I harvested hollyhock seeds, which I am willing to share with anyone local who wants some. Just let me know. I also cut down a couple of the spent hollyhock stalks that were unsightly, but that only made the weeds along the fence more apparent. I’m thinking it would be a good idea to extend the slag driveway along the fence line to help with the problem. There will be way too much inside the fence for me to take care of without having to worry about anything outside the fence. I also did a bit of weeding, but wore out quickly. And anyway, I had to put the gardening on hold because I needed to start my car. Even though the brakes aren’t fixed yet (the brakes work, but the brake warning light still comes on), I’ve been doing a bit of driving just to keep the car mobile.

It still amazes me how gardening has gotten into my blood. When I first moved here, all I could think of was putting in some sort of landscaping that would take care of itself, and now I’m dreaming of a mini estate that will take plenty of work.

But we all need dreams, right? And not impossible ones either.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God

Technological Marvel

Like many people, I am conflicted about the ever-growing incursion of the electronic world into our daily lives. It seems that so much of it is about keeping track of us, one way or another.

For example, one feature that not everyone knows about in some modern cars, is the ability for the car manufacturers, insurance companies, and various legal authorities to track drivers’ movements, not just where the drivers go, but how they get there, how fast they go, how they maneuver through traffic, and whether the driver starts smoothly or indulges in jack-rabbit starts.

I don’t know if all cars come equipped with this technology — some people add it intentionally because it lowers their insurance bill. I do know that there is so much technology in cars — way more than I like — that I restored my old pre-tech car so I wouldn’t have to deal with any of it.

If eyes on our personal space inside our vehicles isn’t bad enough, there are cameras everywhere, including far up in space, that can keep track of our every movement.

The same is true with the internet. Although computer software purveyors pretend they aren’t using our data in any way, to a certain extent, they are more in control of our computers than most of us non-technical folk are.

And then there is the whole black web thing, where all sorts of unsavory things go on.

Like most everything I do, my online life is a cotton candy version of what is out there. I stick with this blog, play a game or two, make use of email, do a bit of research and do even less than a bit of shopping. It’s so ho-hum that I doubt anyone is watching me, though I am always cognizant of that possibility so I protect myself as best as I can. Still, even with a certain level of vigilance, and maybe even because of it, I tend to take technology for granted and forget what a marvel it all is.

Today I got a phone call from a local area code. Most people don’t answer unknown calls in their own area code because that recognition factor is how the scammers try to sucker people into answering the phone, but my area code is from a city I’ve never lived. I don’t even know anyone who lives there. So any call from that area code, I immediately block. But the area code from where I live? Those calls tend to answer because every once in a while, I do get local calls from people I know who aren’t in my contact list.

So I answered the phone, and oh! What a surprise. I am watching a house for a couple of friends who are out of the country, and the husband called me today. At first I thought he was back in town because of visa problems, but no, he’s still out of the country. He just wanted to talk, to tell me how they are doing, to let me say hi to her, and to thank me for taking care of their house.

So how did this marvel happen? Skype. I thought to use Skype, both people had to be signed up, but apparently not. He was able to get a Skype number from the closest city, so now he can call all the way from Bangkok, and it shows up (and is billed) as a local number.

Truly a marvel!

Note to local folks: B & L said to tell you hi. She is doing better, though she’s having trouble walking. They thank you for your prayers. And, of course, they miss all of you and hope you are doing well.

***

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