Pat Bertram's Blog, page 9

Doing the Best We Can

I was talking to my sister the other day and I mentioned that the sum total of all that I have learned in my many years of living is that no one is just one thing and that we are all doing the best we can.

Well, except for me. Somehow I don’t include myself in that “doing the best we can.” I’ve been noticing lately how negative I am about myself and how much I beat myself up for not doing what I think I should be doing. For example, the pendulum of my lifestyle swings slowly from doing all I know how to do to be healthy to not doing anything to promote my health. At the moment, I am at the far reaches of the arc — exercising very little and eating very much the wrong thing.

Every night as I review my day, I castigate myself for my stupidity of falling into the sugar trap. After all, if you know the right thing to do to promote health and don’t do it, you are either lacking in discipline or not very intelligent. Or both. Still, it doesn’t help the situation to berate myself for my foolishness. In fact, it exacerbates the problem because it underlines the situation and makes it even harder to rectify the matter.

I’ve been trying to work on this — not being so negative about myself, not judging my actions, believing that I really did do the best I could that day even if it was far from my ideal. More than that, I’m trying to get away from the habit of reviewing my day. (It’s a fairly recent habit and I have no idea how it came about except that perhaps it started when I began to talk to Jeff’s picture when I was getting ready for bed to help relieve the onset of late night loneliness, which is also a fairly recent phenomenon.)

It seems to me that the very act of reviewing one’s actions is a judgement and that an active acceptance of one’s actions is a sneaky way of judging without judging, which is why I want to get away from the habit of reviewing my day. Whatever I did or didn’t do each day should be left in the past and truthfully, everything is in the past. Obviously, as soon as something has been done, it’s already part of the past and not the present. (Which leads me to question if one can ever actually live in the moment since the moment is thinner than a knife edge and by the time one has acknowledged the moment, it’s already in the past.)

Even though this negativity about myself is something I’ve been struggling with, I haven’t wanted to write about it because it would seem to contribute to the whole concept of beating myself up, but lately I’ve come to realize that this is a fairly common problem. So many of us hold ourselves to a higher standard than we do others. (Or do I mean a lower standard?) It makes sense when you think about it — our most intimate relationship is with ourselves. No matter where we go, there we are. We are witness to our most base body functions, our ignoble thoughts, our failures and foibles. I think it’s hard to accept all that as “doing the best we can.” We could probably do better and probably have at some time or other, but on any given day, I tend to think that perhaps we really are doing the best we can. (In this case I am including me in the “we.”)

I doubt making this effort will change my life in any significant manner, but if it helps bring me peace, then it’s all to the 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.

Small Chores

This was a morning of small chores — replacing the furnace filter, cleaning long-unworn clothes out of a drawer to make room for more clothes that will probably end up as unworn, starting my car and letting it run for a few minutes, trying to shovel the driveway. Yikes — that last one was hard. When the snow was fresh, I shoveled the sidewalk, but since I don’t use that short driveway from the sidewalk to the street, I didn’t bother to shovel it, mostly because by the time I finished the sidewalk, I was exhausted. I’d forgotten that since it’s a slope made of concrete, the melting snow runs down the driveway to accumulate in the gutter. Because the drainage in this town is ludicrous at best, the melted snow just stays there until the temperature falls and then it becomes a bed of ice, making it impossible for me to get from my place to the street.

Unfortunately, since the snow has been around a couple of weeks, it was mostly frozen solid, so I wasn’t able to remove much of the snow. Not that it matters, I suppose — even if I had managed to shovel the snow, it will eventually snow again (Thursday, perhaps, or maybe Monday if the forecast can be believed) so the gutters along this street and especially in front of my house will not be navigable for quite some time.

It’s too bad I didn’t get my wildflower seeds sown before it snowed — with the snow hanging around so long, it would have given the seeds a perfect beginning, but there was no way for me to know snow was coming since the forecasters didn’t even know. Still, winter (the actual calendar season of winter, not the season of winter weather) has just begun, so perhaps after this snow thaws (assuming it ever does), there should be time to plant this winter.

I must admit, I like the snow hanging around. I can’t see my grass so I don’t worry about it. (Out of sight, out of mind, as the adage says.) I’m hoping by spring, when/if the lawn greens up, I can adopt a new attitude and adapt to whatever comes because I certainly don’t want to worry about my yard. There’s plenty of more important things to worry about, though to be honest, I don’t want to worry about anything. Unfortunately, not worrying is easier to say than to do, but I’m trying.

I’m especially trying to be kind to myself and not beat myself up if I do or don’t do something I should or shouldn’t do. Luckily, after I finished my chores this morning, I took a walk to the library, so even if I did want to feel bad about not walking, I don’t have to because I did. Make sense? Well, it did to me.

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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.

One Day

I walked to the grocery store today; it seemed such a treat to be out and about and on my feet. Compared to last week, the temperatures were positively summery — high thirties! Since the snow that’s been hanging around for the past couple of weeks is beginning to melt, I wore my thick-soled hiking shoes and used my hiking poles to help me step over puddles, around slush, and across ice. I had been getting a bit of cabin fever — I didn’t want to walk or do much of anything outside when it was so slippery — but yesterday I ended up going out to spend the day with friends. (Although I planned to walk to the get together, one friend picked me up and another dropped me off so I got there and back all in one piece.) It was lovely — delicious meal, good company, pleasant conversation. Even better, I wasn’t the only “stray” there. (When I am the only uncoupled person in a group, it makes it difficult to fit in, not so much because of me, but because couples so often prefer to talk to each other or to other couples. But that wasn’t the case yesterday.)

So, even though I didn’t have cabin fever today, I still went out and walked . . . just to walk. Well, mostly. I did pick my way to the grocery store to purchase a few items. I don’t like having a lot of one-dollar bills in change, so for a total of $16.17, I gave the clerk $26.17. Confused the heck out of the poor girl. After staring at the money for a few seconds, she said, “You gave me too much. It’s only $16.17.” I asked her how much I’d given her, and she said, ‘$26.17.” I said, “Yes, that’s what I wanted to give you. Now put that amount as cash received.” She still looked confused, so I smiled and said, “Just do it. You’ll see. It’s magic.” Her eyes lit up when she saw the cash back she was supposed to give me — $10.00. “Oh, I get it!” she said.

To be honest, I don’t get it — how can they not make such simple calculations? Still, by this time, I’m used to their confusion. What’s most shocking nowadays is when a check-out clerk can actually see what I’m doing.

Oh, well. It is what it is. And anyway, that’s not what I came here to talk about. What I did want to say, I said at the beginning — I walked!

Although I am off work the next couple of days, I might not be able to take another walk. The highs will be in the fifties, so the street gutters will probably be flooded, making it impossible to get around on foot.

Still, one day at a time, right?

And this “one day” was very nice.

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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.

Balmy Weather

I walked to the library today in the balmy temperature of nineteen degrees. The “balmy” isn’t totally ironic because it will feel balmy in comparison to tomorrow’s expected temperature. I had to check the forecast twice because . . . 2 degrees? Really? With a wind chill of way below zero? And that’s the high! The low will be minus twelve with a wind chill I don’t even want to consider.

I can’t even remember the last time the high temperature was that low. Maybe when I was a kid?

Not that it matters — it’s what I have to deal with now that counts, not what I had to deal with decades ago.

Although the thought of the low temperature makes me a bit uneasy, dealing with the arctic blast shouldn’t be all that difficult. I have a handful of books to read, food to eat, and nowhere I need to go. I will have to go to work on Friday, but by then things will have warmed up a few degrees, enough that I won’t get frostbite walking a couple of blocks.

Luckily, I’m already in the habit of leaving a faucet dripping on frigidly cold nights. And there certainly have been a lot of them! We’ve been stuck in a deep freeze for a while. In fact, strangely for these parts where the sun shines so hotly even in winter, the snow that dumped on us more than a week ago still hasn’t melted.

But seasons come and go, so things will eventually change. In fact, today is the beginning of a new season — winter — which is rather an anti-climax since we’ve been having winter weather for so long now. Still, this is the end of the creeping darkness. The days will be getting longer. And spring is only three months away.

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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.

Celebratory Spirit

I hadn’t planned to decorate for Christmas this year — I just don’t seem to be able to scrape up any sort of celebratory spirit — but after seeing how a friend who had recently been left alone after the death of her husband still managed to decorate her house with hundreds of ornaments and other Christmas collectibles (Santas, Christmas mice, Christmas teddy bears, votive candle holders) I figured I could put up one little tree.

When I realized the tree was in my garage, and I had to shovel the sidewalk from the house to the garage, that idea quickly evaporated. Even worse, the way I had the contractor make the ramp — right up to the door sill without a step — made the back door impossible to open from the inside when we get a huge amount of snow. Well, it wasn’t actually worse — it just gave me another excuse not to decorate. A couple of days ago, a friend asked me if I put up my tree. I told her my problem, and she volunteered to get it for me. Since she’s always busy, I couldn’t in all fairness let her do it, so yesterday, I spent the morning clearing a path the garage. (Dare I mention that I did it in open-toed shoes? I can’t believe I did that, but truly, I wasn’t out there long enough for my feet to get very cold.)

I still didn’t feel like decorating, but I do like my ornaments. They tell the story of my life.

A nod to my house, of course.

Books, definitely.

My car, naturally.

A dragon because we all need a dragon to guard and protect.

And several other special ones, such as a gardening spade and hats. 

So this morning I decorated the tree and put up a wreath, but, knowing that what goes up must come down, I didn’t do anything beyond the simplest tasks so that cleanup in a couple of weeks will be rather simple.

Still, it’s nice to see treasures that are packed away most of the year, and it’s nice to at least pretend I have a celebratory spirit.

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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.

Staying Warm

The snow we got at the beginning of the week hasn’t melted, which is rare for Colorado. Even in the middle of winter, the snow usually melts quickly, but we are stuck in the middle of a deep freeze — lows close to zero, highs barely above freezing and then for only an hour or two.

Not that it’s a problem — I don’t really have to go anywhere, and if I do, I can walk. Walk very carefully, that is, considering all the ice.

I do feel bad about not knowing the snow would come. (Though how could I have known when even the weather forecasters didn’t know?) This would have been the perfect time to plant my wildflower seeds, with plenty of snow and cold to give them a good start, but there should be other opportunities. After all, winter isn’t even here yet, and from what my neighbors tell me, February is generally the coldest and snowiest month. The very thought makes me shiver. Colder than this? Yikes.

At least I don’t have to worry about watering my lawn! From what I remember of last year, I was watering almost until Christmas when we got our first major snow.

Speaking of Christmas — is it really only nine days away? It doesn’t seem possible — it feels as if this year started only a couple of months ago.

Before Christmas, though — only five days away — is the winter solstice. The end of the creeping darkness. Admittedly, with electric lights, and with my eyes focused so often on a book or the computer screen, I don’t notice the darkness as much as I did when I was younger and having to go to work every day.

And after Christmas — a mere seven days later — a new year begins.

I wonder what’s in store for me. Something good, I hope, though what that good thing would be, I don’t know. If I knew what I hoped for, I’d go after it myself and not wait for the new year to bring it.

Meantime, I’m doing what I can to keep warm. I hope you are too.

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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.

Snow!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

Writing For Fun

Several years ago, I participated in a round-robin writing project where everyone took turns adding to the story. It frustrated me because it seemed as if many, if not most, of the writers made a point of changing characters or adding ridiculous elements, making it impossible to create a cohesive story. So I got the idea of doing a project like that, but each person got to create their own character and no one could change it without their permission.

Getting people to agree to participate was fairly easy. Back then, there was a site similar to Facebook, but for writers, so everyone I knew online was interested in writing. Getting them to follow through, however, was a completely different story. Even before we started, people wanted to change things.

My idea was that a horrendous crime was committed in the neighborhood, and I wanted to show how everyone was affected, but oh, no. That would be a boring story. Huh? We hadn’t even started so how would anyone know it would be boring? Besides, they were writers. They could make it not boring. Still, they decided it had to be murder mystery, which was in no way at odds with my original plan. Because if there is a crime in a novel, there has to be a resolution, right? I thought that went without saying.

My publisher at the time was one of the participants, and he said to me, “The hard part for you will be to relinquish control.” Again, huh? The point was for us each to be in charge of our character, each to post our segment to the blog on our assigned day, each to keep with story so that each segment followed the timeline in order to keep from making blunders that couldn’t be fixed. (In a novel written offline, obviously, one can edit at the end, but in a blog novel, as this one was, there is no editing afterward. It is what it is.) But almost no one did what they were supposed to. I ended up having to remind people when it was their turn, had to edit their hastily written segments to get rid of the worst of the typos, had to post the segments to the blog myself because no one wanted to do it.

So, the hard part for me was not in relinquishing control but being forced to take control. That was so not fun! Still, we did a did a trilogy, and by the third one, the authors that remained were very good, so that one was a bit more fun for me.

Afterwards, I tried to do a different collaborative novel with other writers, and again, before a single word was written, people wanted to change things. Instead of a mystery, we ended up with a sort of steampunk anthology with loosely connected stories. As it turned out, the person who insisted on steampunk dropped out, but by then we were committed to the story.

What has made me revisit all this is that I’m considering doing a blog novel, but with myself as the sole author, which should make things a lot less stressful than trying to do it with other people. I also like my original idea — how a certain crime affected people in a neighborhood. Did it make them revisit their life choices? Did it make them grateful for what they had? Did they decide to move away? Were they the one who committed the crime, and were they glad or sorry they’d done it?

One of the problems with the first such project was that each person had to write as if their character could have done the crime, but at the same time, make it possible to prove they didn’t. That could be the same problem here, but it’s possible the crime wasn’t committed by one of the neighbors — I won’t know until towards the end anyway. I want to try writing a story where I don’t know the end, to just follow along with the characters and see what happens.

I still have other commitments — my job, for one — which makes it harder for me to want to commit to a time intensive project like a blog novel, but at least this gives me an idea of what to start thinking about.

And maybe, this time such a project would be fun for me.

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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.

Dredging Up a Bit of Festivity

It snowed this morning and I also received my first Christmas card of the season. You’d think that would be enough to put me in the Christmas spirit (whatever that might be), or at least make me feel like digging out my Christmas decorations, but nope. The snow melted and the sun came out and anyway, I’m not one who gets all sentimental about a white Christmas. Admittedly, snow is pretty, especially when lights are reflected in the crystals, but it makes a mess of travel, unless, of course, one is traveling in a one-horse sleigh or behind a team of Clydesdales or eight or nine reindeer. But for traveling in a car? Snow and ice are not exactly conducive to safe travels.

Come to think of it, I don’t have to drive anywhere, so perhaps a white Christmas would be nice after all.

I did think about decorating again this year as I have every Christmas since I’ve moved here, but it seems a lot of work for just myself. In previous years, I have enjoyed seeing the house lit up with my bowls of light and my tree filled with ornaments that tell the story of my life, and perhaps as the solstice comes closer, I’ll be more willing to celebrate the end of the creeping darkness if nothing else.

Or not. The problem with decorating is that one eventually has to undecorate, and that takes even more energy than decorating does. At least, with decorating, you can have the fun of seeing things that have been packed away for a year.

On the other hand, what else do I have to do? There’s no gardening work to do, though I still water the lawn occasionally when the temperatures get into the mid-fifties and there’s been no moisture, and next month I’ll have to plant my wildflower seeds, but until then, I have all those hours I used to spend gardening to fill with other things so I don’t go through gardening withdrawal.

Luckily, it’s not even December yet, so I have plenty of time to dredge up a bit of festivity. And if I don’t? Well then, I don’t.

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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.

Statistics That Seem to Speak for Themselves

I came across an interesting statistic the other day: between 2000 and 2019, the number of students in the USA increased by 7.6 percent, the number of teachers increased by 8.7 percent, and the number of district administrators increased by 87.6 percent. In case you think that’s a typo . . . well, it isn’t.

It goes go to show where the problem with our education system lies — in the bureaucracy. It explains the politicization of the schools and why students are being taught so many topics parents think are their purview, such as sex education, gender identification, political leanings, and a whole slew of other subjects that don’t really belong in schools. Or maybe they do. I do know that, as many totalitarian political leaders discovered, if you want to change the social fabric of a country or a world, you start with the youngest. (I hesitate to use the dreaded term “indoctrination,” but that’s what anything beyond the basics — reading, writing, arithmetic — comes down to.) Such changes aren’t made immediately — it takes generations and whole lot of political hacks to force those changes.

Not surprisingly, the blue states have a greater growth in the number of administrators, since it seems that what is being taught in schools is more of a liberal agenda, but in all states, education funds and authority are flowing away from schools and toward the bureaucracy.

Do I sound outraged? Well, I’m not. I’m all out of outrage. During my life, I’ve dealt with a vast number of outrageous matters — systemic injustice, torture, genocide, terrorism, horrors galore. Not that I experienced much myself, though I was alive for many such instances and beyond that, I learned of some ghastly occurrences from history classes, and the rest came from my years of reading. (It’s why I stick with mostly fiction nowadays — if there’s an issue I don’t want to deal with, I close the book or skip to a more felicitous chapter.)

Still, these statistics do surprise me, though they shouldn’t. There is a war going on this country between two completely different ideologies. In my younger years, it didn’t matter too much what one’s politics were — we all basically wanted the same thing: a safe place to live and to raise families, freedom to believe what we believe, a chance of financial success or at least a living wage. Nowadays it seems as if the ways of getting those things are vastly different depending on one’s politics, so much so that it’s hard to believe people still want the same thing. In fact, how one defines those things are different from person to person and party to party. One side wants a heck of lot more government intervention, the other side wants less.

Admittedly, this division hasn’t simply sprung up in the past few years. It started generations ago — long before I went to school. And now this war is taking place in the classrooms to a greater extent than any time previously.

And oops. I can’t believe I wrote this. I try to stay away from anything that smacks of politics because nothing I say really matters and only makes people argumentative, but oh, well. The statistics seem to speak for themselves.

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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.