Pat Bean's blog

“It’s surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.”  — Barbara Kingsolver

“To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward.” — Margaret Fairless Barber

This simple colored-pencil drawing of a cardinal holds all my past memories. I hung it on my wall this morning.

A Lifetime of Memories in a Golden Frame

The year was 1978 when I found myself single with two of my five children still left to support. It wasn’t an easy time, especially that first month when I had to borrow money to pay rent.

Although there have been many difficult times since that day, as there are for all who occupy this planet, my life from this point forward only got better and better..  

I spent the next 26 years finishing up a 37-year career in journalism, following it – and twice  where my heart led me to go.

My career took me to the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, Texas, for three years, then to Ogden, Utah, as features editor for the Standard-Examiner. I stayed for three years here before love took me to Las Vegas for eight months that included a stint working for the Las Vegas Sun.

I find it interesting that color-pencil drawings of birds, like this eastern bluebird I quickly doodled this past week, are the most common sketches in my art journal.

When love betrayed me, I took myself away from the neon lights to Twin Falls, Idaho, where I stayed for two years as regional editor for the Times-News. It was then back to Ogden, where my former newspaper offered me a job as assistant city editor

In 1987, I answered my heart once again and moved to Erda, Utah, and undertook a daily 56-mile commute to my job in Ogden. But in 1989, I moved back to Ogden alone. I happily stayed there until 2004, at which time I sold my home and bought my RV, Gypsy Lee.

With few exceptions, everything I owned was either packed into my 22-foot home on the road, sold or given away.  The exceptions, mostly books, were eventually stored at my youngest daughter’s home here in Tucson, where I recently moved into a small apartment after almost nine years spent living on the road exploring America from sea to shining sea. .

Sunday, my daughter brought me a few of those bins. And this morning, I hung the only remaining possession that remained from 1978 on the wall of my apartment.

As I stood back and looked at this simple sketch of a cardinal, which belonged to my grandmother, whom I adored and whom died when I was only 10 years old, tears came into my eyes.

The colored-pencil drawing, which even for a while accompanied me in my RV travels, held a lifetime of memories. It is the only thing I own that connects me to my past. As a person who prefers to look forward not backward, I have no regrets that there is nothing else.

But my heart tells me that this red bird may be the most precious thing I own today.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Unusual Hotels http://tinyurl.com/a7n3736 This blog made me want to travel to Fiji for a night’s stay beneath the sea. I may have moved into an apartment but my itch for traveling to new places is unabated. I found these places fascinating. Which hotel would you stay in if you could?