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Archive for June, 2026

An Artist, an Author and a Tree

Posted in aging, Art, Books, tagged , , , on June 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Lawrence Tree by Georgia O’Keefe. It’s my new favorite painting by this artist.

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.”– Kahlil Gabran

Aging My Way

I’ve long been an avid fan of Georgia O’Keefe’s art, and was thrilled when I visited her namesake museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. But I’ve never visited the D. H. Lawrence Ranch, just an hour and half away from the museum in Taos, where Georgia’s painting, The Lawrence Tree, hangs.

She and Lawrence were friends and the painting of the large Ponderosa Pine symbolizes the tree that the author sat beneath to write. I hadn’t even known such a painting existed until I read about it this morning in The New York Times Cultured Traveler: 100 Trips for Curious Minds from Agadir to Yogyakarta, a book that attracted my attention on a recent trip to the library.

But now, as a long-time tree hugger, The Lawrence Tree has become my favorite O’Keefe painting. The artist herself described it as: “a fitting and generous tribute to the author whose legacy she had become heir to.”

About the tree, which he sat beneath to write, Lawrence wrote: “The big pine tree in front of the house, still and unconcerned and alive…the overshadowing tree whose green top one never looks at… One goes out of the door and the tree-trunk is there, like a guardian angel.”

Lawrence must have felt the same love for his tree as I do about the tall Cottonwood – so out-of-place from its native home near some creek or river – that shades my one-bedroom apartment and small patio yard. So how could I not write about it.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Escape Reading

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , on June 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Along with mind-speaking white horses known as Companions, Mercedes Lackey’s books involve birds, both real and fictional. Just another reason her books provide me so many hours of escape from this world.

Aging My Way

Sometimes, especially at night when this old broad’s body wants to go to bed with the chickens – something I used to make fun of my mother for doing – I want a book that simply lets me enjoy the story without having to think.

I don’t want to take notes; or have to look up terms or words I don’t understand; or be so inspired by what the author says that I have to journal my own thoughts. I just want to relax and discharge myself from reality.

And one of my favorite escape-reading authors, one I’ve been reading and rereading for over 30 years now, is Mercedes Lackey. I got hooked with her first book, Arrows of the Queen, published in 1987, which introduced me to the fictional country of Valdemar, a place where “there is no one right way.”

Valdemar characters, and those of other series by Mercedes, have provided me many, many hours of enjoyable reading, and continue to do so. Mercedes has written more than 140 fantasy books since Arrows of the Queen — and the prolific author is still writing them. Over 40 of these books involve Valdemar characters – and I’ve read every one of these.

It’s the Valdemar credence that there is no one right way, and that all, as long as they don’t harm others, should be respected and allowed to live their lives as they choose, that has so captured my imagination. I want to live in a world like this.

As I said, I call it escape reading.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Mona’s Eyes

Posted in aging, Art, Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , on June 3, 2026| 3 Comments »

I just discovered Gustav Klimt (1862 – 1918). I love his explosion of color in this painting. If I hadn’t used a gift card from a grandson to purchase the book, Mona’s Eyes, which is dedicated to all the world’s grandparents, I might never have discovered this awesome artist.

Aging My Way

Some books I read in a day, staying up until the wee hours of the morning to finish them. Other books may take me weeks, which is the case for one of my current reads, Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schalesser.

It’s a charming story about a grandfather and his 10-year-old granddaughter, Mona, who might be losing her eyesight. But the book is also filled with a layered depth of other events and characters.

Each chapter is short and has the grandfather taking the girl to the Louve (the book was originally written in French) or other places to view a classic piece of art by artists like Seurat, Boticelli, Da Vinci, Rembrandt and Van Gogh.

 Along with a notebook and pen, which usually accompanies any reading I do, I’ve been taking the time to look up each piece of art, and with the help of the grandfather’s explanations and sometimes a bit more research, educate myself as well.

I read Chapter 32 yesterday, and discovered a new artist, one that even rivals my love of Van Gogh, whose starry nights and sunflowers have long enriched my life. The artist is Gustav Klimt, and Mona described his paintings as “explosions.” I agree.

I can’t imagine how I hadn’t come across Klimt earlier in my life. And if I weren’t such an avid reader I might not ever had. Meanwhile, here’s a few tasty tidbits from Mona’s Eyes:

“…life mustn’t only be lived. It must be danced.”

“The image of a woman smiling, with such a disarming smile, is an invitation to smile, too,” in reference, of course, to Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.  

“Always believe miracles are possible.”

“Sometimes, you really do see only what you want to see!”

“And so, he became aware that he was still learning plenty of things at his age, and after eighty summers, that was wonderful.”

Yes! It is!

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Edna and Miami

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , , on June 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

In the 1980s, in Florida, everyone knew who Edna was. I didn’t live in Florida, but I knew. She was Edna Buchanan, a police reporter for the Miami Herald, and one of my role models.

Aging My Way

On my weekly visit to the library, I picked up The New York Times Cultured Traveler: 100 Trips for the Curious Mind. It’s a classy anthology about a hundred places, from Agadir to Yogyakarta, that were featured in the newspaper’s travel section.

Reading about exotic and interesting places is high on my list of enjoyable things to do these days. While once that was to discover new and adventurous places to visit, these days it’s mostly only armchair travel — and an opportunity to recall memories of places I’ve visited during my lifetime.

The library book’s first section focused on the United States, so I had much to enjoy, like a story about Alaska’s Inside Passage, which I had experienced on a ferry ride from Haynes Junction to Vancouver in 1999.

But the book’s pages took me back even farther in time when I read an essay about Miami. While I had mostly bypassed the city to spend my time exploring the Everglades when I visited Florida, I had a connection to Miami that I had long forgotten. It was the note at the end of the article that suggested additional reading about the city that jolted my memory:

“The Corpse Had a Familiar Face by Edna Buchanan. Narrative of Miami’s dark side as seen by the Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald,” it read.

Edna was born in 1939, the same year as me, and she also wrote mystery novels, including a series featuring police reporter Britt Montero, that I had read. As a late-blooming and inexperienced reporter, Edna had been one of my role models. But I had completely forgotten all the newspaper stories and books I had read that she had written until her named popped up.

Gads, what else has my old-broad brain forgotten, was my first thought. I then went online and discovered Edna’s books were still in print, and I found and ordered a copy of The Corpse Had a Familiar Face.  I can’t wait to see what other memories pop up when I reread it.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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