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Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

When I Am an Old Woman

Posted in aging, Art, Journeys on January 1, 2024| 11 Comments »

Common Yellowthroat — Art by Pat Bean

Aging my Way

I’ve long been a fan of Jenny Joseph’s poem Warning, more commonly known by its first line, “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple.”

Besides declaring that she would wear bright colors, Jenny also declared that she would sit down on the pavement when she was tired, go out in her slippers in the rain and make up for the sobriety of her youth.

The poem was written in 1961 when Jenny was just 28 – and I was just 22.

Today, I am that old woman. In my closet hangs a few purple garments, but instead of sitting on the pavement, I sometimes sit on the rollator I began using a year or so ago to get around with. The seat especially comes in handy while birdwatching, or stuck in a long line.

Meanwhile, since I am 84, one of my resolutions for 2024 is to free myself from my own and others’ expectations.

I will write what I want without a self-censor looking over my shoulder.

I will walk my dog in the rain – and go back to bed on cold days.

I will buy flowers for myself.

I will stop feeling guilty for telling people “No.”

I will finally accept that I can’t do it all – and try to accept help graciously.

And I will fill my days with doing the things I truly want to do – even if they’re silly and ridiculous, like wearing one of my favorite Tye-Dye T-shirts to a formal event.

My thinking is that since I’m not yet ready to stop getting older, I might as well reap the benefits.

Happy New Year to all!

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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The Yellow-Headed Blackbird

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, tagged , , on October 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Yellow-Headed Blackbird

Aging My Way

I saw six yellow-headed blackbirds last week. They were flying around Tucson’s Lakeside Park with a flock of Brewer’s blackbirds that they were bullying, shoving the smaller birds around whenever a tiny morsel of something to eat was found.

I guess some birds can be as unkind as some humans.

Nevertheless, watching these easily identified birds brought back memories of the last time I had seen them. It was during a trip to Antelope Island in Utah’s Great Salt Lake where they usually hung out among cattails and reeds at water’s edge.

It was after one of those earlier sightings that I painted the bird seen above.

While the blackbirds’ yellow feathers stole the show as they flew among the Brewer’s at Lakeside Park last week, the smaller birds also had some show-stopping qualities. You just had to look a little harder.

First there was the Brewer’s yellow eyes, and then the iridescent sheen of metallic purple and blue that make the bird’s black feathers seem to sparkle in the sunlight. People don’t always give these birds the respect they deserve because they’re such a common sight. They are often that little black bird you see in a parking lot or alongside a road.

And as humans, we too often value the rare over the common.

Meanwhile, if you go looking for either of these two birds, I’ve only described the males. The females of both species are brown. You can see some yellow on the head and neck of the blackbird, but the Brewer’s eyes are dark.

I usually have to see a male Brewer’s first before I can identify the female.

And happy birding to all.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Unfinished Thoughts

Posted in aging, Art, Dogs, Journeys, Writing, tagged , on September 8, 2023| 2 Comments »

Sitting on a fence with my thoughts. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

I was looking for an idea for a post, and found at least a hundred of them on my own writing to-do list. All those possibilities were on the list, however, because I didn’t yet know how to flesh them out.

 Ideas are as plentiful as the leaves currently dropping from the giant cottonwood tree in my yard, but turning them into an essay can be as difficult as keeping my yard leaf free.

As Maya Angelou said: “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

Here are just a few of the potential ideas that have intrigued me, or that I need to finish. First there’s an essay based on the theme unfinished. It has a September 16th deadline, but there are so many unfinished things in my life that my mind has become a muddle in a puddle.   

Other possible essays ideas fermenting in my brain include:  

Questions vs answers – which are more important?

Why is it that the same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg? Reasons to own a dog, like pizza crust ends. I’m working on this list.

The times when you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Why at 84 I still read Outside Magazine? Maybe because if I can’t hike to the top or a mountain or backpack 30 miles to reach a natural arch or a majestic waterfall at this stage in my life, I can enjoy the thrills vicariously. Hmm, maybe I should focus my writing efforts on this one for now. The muse has started buzzing around in my head.  

But then that’s what brainstorming is all about. Thanks, treasured readers for listening. Now if you have any ideas about the theme unfinished, whose deadline is fast approaching, feel free to share.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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OK! So, Do Something Else

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, Writing on July 4, 2023| 9 Comments »

Sitting under a large old tree in the shade is what appeals to me today. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

My granddaughter Shanna and her wife Dawn are cleaning my gutters. I came in from watching them because I felt useless – and because I got antsy about their safety climbing up and down the ladder.

But I knew it would be annoying to tell them to be careful, because at their age I was the one climbing the ladders and putting myself in even more precarious positions. It’s what you do before you reach your eighth decade. And I found people who told me to be careful, or especially “You shouldn’t do that,” quite irritating.

Meanwhile, there are a lot more things than cleaning my gutters that I can no longer do, or have to do differently, than when I was younger.

I use my rollator to bring in groceries and take out trash because carrying anything more than a few pounds hurts my back. I also use the rollator to walk my canine companion Scamp. I use a pair of pliers to open water and soda bottles because my hands aren’t up to the task any more. Household chores are accomplished a small bit at a time here and there during the day with occasional help to lift something heavy or move a piece of furniture.

Some years back, I took up birding when my white-water rafting and tennis activities seemed a bit too much for my years. And over time, I eased down my 20-mile hikes to five-mile hikes — until my knees said no more. My birding these days is mostly done from a shady place to sit to watch and listen.

The thing is, I’ve found ways and things to replace what the years have taken away from me. I make use of my time to read and write more, and to piddle with my watercolors. I also take online classes and try to learn something new every day, even if it’s just the meaning of a new word – today it was polymathy, which means having encyclopedic knowledge.

The plus side of aging is that the years have also taken away all the angst, insecurities and unnecessary drama of my younger days. Most days I feel as if I’m living my best days.

  It’s good to be an old broad, especially when you have loved ones like Shanna and Dawn to clean your gutters.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Peels and Books

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , on June 6, 2023| 4 Comments »

Tucson’s saguaros are now in bloom — and the Gila Woodpeckers love it. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

I shared some potato salad I had made with my friend Jean the other day, and she asked: “Why did you peel the potatoes? “Because I don’t like potato peels,” I replied. To which she said, “I do.”

I thought about this yesterday while reading Vegetables Unleashed, a cookbook by Chef Jose Andres who talked about vegetable peels, clearly stating that he always peeled his vegetables, even tomatoes.

“If the skins don’t bother you, you can skip that, but I’m not sure we can be friends,” he wrote. The comment, I suspect, was written as a joke. But then it reminded me of something I had read the week before in a post about books. Yes, I know. My over-active brain is always trying to connect dots.

Anyway, the earlier comment, was “I don’t think I could be friends with anybody who doesn’t read books.”

I thought that was a bit self-absorbed, even though I realized on reading it that my conversations with other book readers were always more fun, especially when discovering that the two of us liked and had read many of the same books.

Andres’ comment, meanwhile, was way over the top. I mean my friendship with Jean, who is also a chef, isn’t the least bit unhinged because one of us likes peels and one of us doesn’t.

Differences are what makes the world go round, or so I’ve been told – and believe. So as long as you don’t make me eat potato peels, or ban me from reading whatever I like… Oops, now my over-active brain is thinking about people who want to ban books.

Now those are people I’m sure I could never be friends with.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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But: I Was Never Silent

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, Writing on May 1, 2023| 4 Comments »

Aging My Way

My generation lies between what Tom Brokaw calls the Greatest Generation — those who lived through the Great Depression and then went on to fight in World War II – and the Boomers (1946-64).

Born in 1939, I belong to the Silent Generation, one the Encyclopedia Britannica says consists of: “cautious conformists who sought stability, worked hard, and thrived by not rocking the boat in an era of booming postwar economic prosperity.” This generation also had a lower birth rate than the generation before or after, it was noted.

I think we Silents were also influenced by the Great Depression because it was our parents who lived through it. I was raised by a mother who could stretch a penny to the moon and back, and a bit of it rubbed off onto me. By sometimes following her example, and also setting spending priorities, I was able over the years to follow a few of my dreams to completion.

But I’ve never been silent. And while my generation had fewer offspring overall, I had five children. That was awkward when all my work colleagues once were sprouting zero population growth pamphlets. Looking around at what we’re doing to Mother Earth today, I’ve shifted over to their way of thinking – and my adult grandkids seem to agree.

Time changes everything is an understatement.

Today, some politicians – racist ones in my opinion – are calling for families to have 10 or more kids. Ouch. I feel sorry for their poor mothers. Frankly, I wish we would all just mingle together more so that everyone would end up a golden brown.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to understand what the Generation Xers (1965-79), Xenials (1976-85), Gen Y/Millennials (1980-94) and Generation Z (1995-2012) are all about. Yes, I had to do a bit of research to name them all.

 Today, looking at my grand and great kids – who range in age from four to mid-40s — I think they’re doing all right. I know for one thing; they don’t put up with all the crap we Silents, who didn’t want to rock the boat, did. And that’s a good thing.

But I would like them to be more respectful when I tell them I had to walk 10 miles to school in a snow storm.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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The Idea of Dragons

Posted in aging, Art, Journeys, Writing, tagged on April 3, 2023| 1 Comment »

Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

          I’m always toying with writing ideas and, like many writers I keep an ever-changing list of them. The topics get erased as I follow through with a piece of writing, or deleted, when on second thought I decide the idea is worthless.

For about seven years now, the word dragons on this list has been taunting me every time I see it. My original idea was to write an essay called Dragons: A to Z. While that never panned out, I was reluctant to hit the delete button, probable because like other writers down through the centuries, these mythical creatures fascinate me.  

And while I didn’t get all the way through the alphabet with dragons, I did come up with some good quotes about them. Some, like the following, have had a special meaning to me.

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations if you live near him.” – J.R.R. Tolkien. This was the first dragon quote I copied into my journals, and metaphorically speaking, I was living next to a dragon at the time. 

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ~ Neil Gaiman. A good quote for anyone whose path becomes dotted with potholes – or deep gorges.

“We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.” ~ Tom Robbins. I remember clearly the day I gave up my idea that a knight on a white horse ever existed. It was a harsh reality that turned into major, and positive, turning point in my life. And it became the theme for my group of white-water rafting buddies.

And finally, a reminder that there are things in life worth fighting for. “Here be dragons to be slain, here be rich rewards to gain; If we perish in the seeking, why, how small a thing is death!” — Dorothy L. Sayers.

Perhaps you have a favorite dragon quote you would like to share?

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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High Five to Differences

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, Writing on March 27, 2023| 6 Comments »

The Meadowlark and the Chukar, different but both still awesome. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

It is the part of us that is not like the others that is the best of us.

I came across these words recently, and it set my brain cells to pondering. I mentally started listing my own oddities, going back to my childhood when I was way too loud. I know that for a fact because I was always being told to lower my voice.

And being told to be quiet and shut up didn’t stop at home, where my mother and grandmother often told me that children are to be seen and not heard. It was frequently echoed by my teachers and classmates.

Except instead of being cute — I was skinny and freckle-faced with stringy hair — I can see myself, when young, as being very like Hermione in the Harry Potter stories: a know-it-all and always the first student to raise a hand when a question was asked.

My classmates nicknamed me Cootie-Brain, which followed me around from first to fourth grade, finally ending when my family moved and I went to a new school.

But the label Cootie-Brain was so hurtful to me as a child that I couldn’t speak it as an adult until I was in my 40s. And it wasn’t until I could finally write the word down and talk about it that the wounds it had inflicted on my soul could heal.

While the years toned me down, I also came to the realization that my true friends accepted me just as I was, because the loudness still returns when I get excited or enthusiastic about something. But now at 83, I’m happy I can still get excited. Maybe if I had tamped down my enthusiastic loudness when I was young, I wouldn’t have this wonderful asset today.

There are many ways I’ve always felt different from others, but the years, along with life and books, have taught me that we are all different in our own ways. And isn’t that wonderful?

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Self-Portraits of Two Self-Confident Artists

Posted in aging, Art, Journeys, tagged on March 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Judith Leyster, holding 18 brushes in her self-portrait

Aging My Way

The theme for the March issue of Artists Magazine is “Put Your Best Face Forward.” It then goes on to feature self-portraits of artists, of which two stood out to me as being women who knew their own worth. The portraits were painted by Dutch artist Judith Leyster and American artist Alice Neel.

While we live in a world where too many of us spend way too much time trying to copy media influencers and others who may or may not have admirable qualities, the self-portraits of these two women tells me that, flaws and all, they knew they were enough.

I wonder if their self-confidence was easier to come by because they lived before the age of social media.

Judith Leyster even knew her worth, or so it looks like from her self-portrait, as far back as the 1600s. Her self-portrait (above) exudes confidence, even though she lived in a time when women were still considered property. In fact, her work, after her death, was attributed to her husband and another artist, a common practice back then

Thankfully, Judith was rediscovered in 1893 and her work properly attributed.

The second artist, Alice Neel (1900-1984) is an artist whose work I have long loved. And the self-portrait she painted, and is sitting beside below, is one of my very favorite pieces.

Alice Neel, sitting proudly by her self-portrait.

It’s called Alice Neel at 80. The painting tells me that Alice was a confident old broad who didn’t give a damn that her body parts had succumbed to gravity. Alice knew her worth despite the toll the years had taken.

Although I have no intention to paint a self-portrait of my own nude 83-year-old body, Neel’s painting does let me feel more self-confident about it – and to see the beauty the years have given all us old broads.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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A Blog for Trekkies and Oldsters

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, tagged on March 13, 2023| 8 Comments »

Aging My Way

          Some asshole writer commenting on William Shatner, in the NY Times no less, implied he wasn’t a fantastic actor and hadn’t lived an incredible life. The comment had me screaming.

While I might agree Shatner’s acting might not be Oscar worthy, his role as Captain Kirk helped launch Star Trek’s incredible popularity, and as for leading an incredible life, how many of us can say we’ve flown in space.

Besides, I believe that each and every one of us lead incredible lives, ones that no one else can duplicate. I know I have. While I may not have had as many incredible things happen to me as Shatner – aftercall I’m only 83 and he’s 91 – I’m still enough.  

Even if people have the same experiences, no one reacts, comprehends, thinks, or responds exactly the same. Each of us is valuable in our own way. But that nitwit writer judged Shatner, I suspect because of his fame, against some higher standard.

The writer’s words certainly weren’t kind – or necessary, and in my mind represent the bullying that we’re trying to stem among our youth.

Still, since I’m not a Trekkie, you may be wondering, why the words of that nincompoop had me screaming, I’m kind of wondering about my reaction as well.

Screaming at something I read is not common, but then again, it’s not rare either. But this reaction was pretty strong.

Maybe it was my growing awareness, now having time to reflect on life, that each of us, in our own way, is incredibly enough for this world. Or maybe it’s because I have a grandson who qualifies for that Trekkie moniker, and I was screaming for him. .

 Or maybe it was just one old person taking up for another old person.  

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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