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Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

The Power of a Book

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys, tagged on August 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Just a small rock detail I captured during a hike along Mesa Trail in Canyonlands National Park in 2011. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

I’m currently reading Ann Zwinger’s Wind and Rock: The Canyon Lands of Southeastern Utah. It’s a landscape that I spent many hours exploring when I lived in Northern Utah, back when hiking was part of my life.

The book is one of more than 20 on natural history that Ann wrote before she died in 2014. Another one is Down Canyon, which is about her rafting trip through the Grand Canyon in the mid-1990s. I read it after my own 1990 trip through the canyon, but before a second adventure rafting the Colorado through the canyon in 1999, which was a 60th birthday present to myself.

The two trips were entirely different: The first was for the pure adventure and thrill of the river’s wild rapids. The second for the experience of the canyon itself. I couldn’t help but be influenced in how I saw it because of Ann’s detailed descriptions in Down Canyon of the little things that she saw as much a part of the canyon as the river itself.   

Her book made me more aware of the whistle of a canyon wren, which I sometimes awoke to in the mornings, and such things as the orange globemallow and blue penstemon wildflowers that added color to the canyon floor.

Meanwhile, I’m reading Wind and Rock because in late September, I will once again be driving through southern Utah, through places like the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument, Garden of the Gods and Lake Powell. I suspect Ann’s book will once again have an influence on how I see the red-rock landscape as we drive through it.

Books are magical. Don’t you agree?

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. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

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An Old Broad’s Ponderings

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys, Morning Thoughts, Writing, tagged , , , on June 11, 2025| 2 Comments »

“We are necessarily influenced by those who have come before us.” – Elizabeth Strout, Tell Me Everything.

Aging My Way

The above sentence stood out to me like a yellow sunflower growing among rose bushes. Perhaps because I’ve come to realize how much I’ve been influenced by people and things that have gone before me.

Like all of life, some of the people and things I’ve experienced have been positive influences toward my becoming a better person — and some of my life’s experiences would have been better going straight into the garbage.

Now, at 86, I have this egotistical belief that I can mostly tell the difference. But then my still-with-it brain laughs at myself for even thinking such a thought. Rarely a day goes by that I don’t realize I still have much to learn. Morning chats with a granddaughter assures me of this.

But I have been fortunate enough over the years to have been exposed to a wide view of the world. First, because I read a bit of everything, including polarized versions of the same events; and second, because I was a journalist for 37 years during which time I saw both good and bad. 

Now, as I read the news and try to relate to the world from an old-broad’s point of view, I worry for young people who are denied such exposure because of such things as banned books, religious isolation and histories written by the victors.

Unless one sticks one’s head in the sand — which by the way ostriches do not do — one can’t help but wonder about the things young minds are being filled with today.  

Will these children be influenced by what their parents and friends and politicians say and believe all their lives, or will they begin to draw their own conclusions at some point? It’s something an 86-year-old with eight great-grandchildren ponders from time to time.

Meanwhile, I just hope my grandchildren all just grow up to be kind, regardless of what they believe. But then that’s my hope for all of us.

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. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

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For the Love of a Tree

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys, tagged , , , on May 29, 2025| 2 Comments »

Trees have long been a subject of my art. I’m a tree hugger.

Aging My Way

“Over the past twelve years I have learned that a tree needs space to grow, that coyotes sing down by the creek in January, that I can drive a nail into oak only when it is green, that bees know more about making honey than I do, that love can become sadness, and that there are more questions than answers.”—Sue Hubbell, A Country Year: Living the Questions.

These words in the opening of Sue’s book, not only made me want to read more of her words, but also made me question what I have learned the past 438 days. That’s how long since I suffered a major heart attack. Although thanks to modern medicine, a good cardiologist and three stents later, I am in much better health than I was before, it was still a life-changing event.

The biggest thing I learned was that I didn’t fancy at all being taken care of. I acted, sometimes still do, like a two-year-old stamping her feet and saying: “I can do it myself.”

The second thing I learned is that I’m loved, because loved ones have been with me every step of the past 438 days. No one could be more blessed than this, and despite my continued feet stomping I am beyond thankful.

This said, Sue’s words resonated with me in another way. It’s about the tree.

Since I moved into my current apartment almost three years ago, the cottonwood tree in my small patio yard has grown more majestic. As I stared at it this morning, I wondered if my love for it had been the fertilizer because nothing else has changed.

But now, because of its spreading roots, which are destroying my gate and fence, I may lose it. Just the thought brings wetness to my eyes. Sue nailed it when she said love can become sadness.

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. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

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Two Mornings

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , on May 14, 2025| 5 Comments »

Yellow warblers sometimes visit my small yard. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“Old age is something only the lucky get to do.”

I was surprised on a recent morning to realize I was sitting in my small patio yard – doing nothing. I had gone out to sit in a cool breeze and watch birds as I drank my morning cream-laced coffee.

But the wind was not gentle, typical for Tucson, and the birds had gone into sheltered hiding somewhere. Their absence barely resonated with me, until I finally realized how comfortable and peaceful I was just sitting there, a state of mind that is fairly new to me.

But I guess that is what happens when one is an 86-year-old broad. In my younger years there was a time I was so impatient to get from one place to another that I ran instead of walked. And my mind was always racing.

This morning when I sat outside with my coffee, birds were twittering all over the place. Amy Tan’s The Backyard Bird Chronicles, which I’m currently reading – and enjoying – inspired me to go inside and get a notebook and start my own chronicles. While my small patio yard doesn’t compare to Tan’s bird haven, I do have a tall cottonwood and two tall oleander bushes in it, plus a couple of bird feeders and one for hummingbird nectar.

As I watched and listened, house sparrows, verdins, lesser goldfinches, house finches, mourning and white-winged doves, Europeans starlings and a spotted grosbeak made their presence known. The bonus was a rose-breasted grosbeak that as far as I know was a first to visit my backyard.

I enjoyed this morning, too, — but not more I think then I did the one in which I simply sat quietly, with only my mind wandering about. It has never stopped racing.

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The Rabbit Hole of Web Surfing

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , , , , on March 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

A beach in South Goa — Image from a Goan government travel brochure

Aging My Way

It all started with a word I had never heard before: Vindaloo. From how the word was used in the sentence I was reading in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, I determined vindaloo was some kind of food, as the book’s protagonist was heating it up in a microwave for dinner.

But what kind of food, I wondered, and thus begin my journey down the internet rabbit hole, a place I visit almost daily. My surfing told me that vindaloo is a spicy Indian curry. To be more exact, a Goan curry dish, according to Wikipedia.

So, what is Goan, my curious brain asked – and Wikipedia answered: Goan is the demonym used to describe the people native to Goa, India.

So, where is Goa? India’s Southwestern Coast, and additionally it is the country’s smallest state.

And since I’m into travel, even if it’s just from an armchair, I spent a bit of time researching Goa. The Indian state is nicknamed the Pearl of the Orient and its motto, according to the Goan government, is: “May everyone see goodness, may none suffer any pain.” I like that.

Among the other trivia tidbits I learned along the way is that vindaloo is based on a Portuguese dish called vinha d’alhos, which caused my rambling brain to remember that my great-great grandfather was a Portuguese sailor who jumped ship on America’s East Coast.

And with that, I jumped out of the rabbit hole and got back to my day’s activities, which a little bit later found me reading Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, in which he encourages writers like me to stop procrastinating and write. And as if Steven had been peeking at me through a window, he wrote: “Resistance mounts to a pitch that becomes unendurable. At this point vices sink in. Dope, adultery, web surfing…

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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Late Night TV Viewing

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys, tagged , , , on March 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Bean’s Pat is back. It’s simply my way of saying I like something.

I woke up about 1 a.m. the other night and couldn’t get back to sleep. I suspected it was because my stomach, empty after an early, light dinner, was growling too loudly.

So, I got up and went in and fixed myself a bowl of oatmeal with some dried fruit, then sat down in front of the television, my usual substitute for a dining partner, and started flipping through programs. I wanted to watch something without violence or disturbing behavior, because shows featuring, dark characters with violent tendencies aren’t conducive to my sleep, some of which I was still hoping to get.

Because of the offerings, it took a while, but I finally, I came across a short series on Prime Video titled Travels with Agatha Christie with Sir David Suchet. It seemed a perfect choice for two reasons: I’m a big fan of Christie and I love traveling. Besides, having read almost all of Christie’s books, Suchet, who played the author’s Poirot for 25 years, is the only actor whose performances I have seen who matches my personal vision of the fictional detective.

The program seemed the perfect wee-hour viewing – and it was. I give it a Bean Pat. Perhaps you will like it, too.

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. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

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Starting Over: Lemonade from Lemons

Posted in aging, Art, Books, Journeys, tagged , , on February 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

After 85 years, I still believe that behind every storm there is a silver lining. — Art by Pat Bean

From vowing on Mondays that I will have a more productive week than the one before to life after a divorce, starting over has been the theme of my life for the past 85 years. The first time I remember this happening was when my family moved when I was 12 years old.

 I saw the move as a golden opportunity for a new beginning. It meant I would be leaving five years of being bullied and the nickname of Cootie Brain behind. I was that kid whom nobody chose to sit with at lunch and the last one called when team captains picked players. I wasn’t even popular with teachers due to my inability to stay in my seat and a loud voice that they were continually shushing.

I suspect the brain part of my nickname came from the fact I was a straight A student whose hand was always the first to go up when a question was asked, and the cootie part came from the fact I always came to school with stringy, tangled hair. I blamed my mother for that for many years, until I realized I used to scream when she tried to comb my hair, besides which she was burdened with two toddlers just 11 months apart, was the sole caretaker of her bed-ridden mother, and had a husband who spent most of his paycheck before coming home late Friday nights.

It was a stressful household, and I cried a lot, both in school and out of it. At least by the time we were forced to move from my grandmother’s house after her death, I had learned to wash, comb and even curl my own hair.

The move came at the end of fifth grade and I had the whole summer ahead of me to mull over the persona I wanted to present to my new schoolmates. It just so happened that this was the summer I read Eleanor Porter’s books about Pollyanna, a fictional character who is always cheerful and who always looks for the good side of things.

I credit these books for helping me get through the rest of my school years with at least a few friends, even though I still hadn’t conquered my tendency to get too loud when I was excited. Years later, I realized that the friends who accepted me as I was were really the only friends I needed.

Meanwhile, Pollyanna’s philosophy continues to influence me today in that I look for a silver lining when bad things happen. The glitter usually isn’t too hard to find – until this past year when I had a massive heart attack that required three surgeries and the placement of three stents.

My whole life became a start over, and I didn’t take it graciously. While I appreciated that I had family and friends who were there to help me, I resented that they were too eager to help me. I had always been, out of necessity for most of my life, self-sufficient. It hurt me that suddenly I couldn’t fully take care of my own needs. Having to accept that I couldn’t do it all on my own was even worse than being called Cootie Brain. This was a start-over that was out of my control and I resented it.

Thankfully, I’ve mostly come to grips with my new life by now. On the plus side, I have more energy this year than I did at the start of 2024 and have healed enough so I can mostly take care of my own needs once again – but I’m not so dumb as not to know how blessed I am that I have loved ones waiting in the wings.  

In the meantime, life has become even more precious – plus just as important, I still believe in silver linings.

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. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

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Best Books I’ve Read in 2024

Posted in aging, Birds, Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on January 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »

When I was traveling the country with my canine companion Maggie, which I wrote my own book about, my RV was always full of books. Perhaps that is why I had a couple of flats while on the road.

Aging My Way

What I yearn for in books is good writing, surprise and depth. I also want to read books that teach me something new – and I want the good guys to win. Justice has become a dear thing to me.

That’s not asking too much, is it?

In my earlier years I gave an author 50 pages before I decided I wasn’t going to turn another page. Today, I only give them 25 pages. There are simply too many books out there to let myself be bored and uninterested.

Normally, there are five books on my reading stack, with bookmarks at different points among their pages. While I sometimes find a page-turner among them and finish the book in a day, other books are best enjoyed at a slower pace, especially ones that give me something to think about and savor.

I usually read about two books a week, with this including the audibles I listen to in bed at night – sometimes for hours when sleep won’t come.

I read all genres except horror and true crime, but mostly I favor fantasy, mystery, memoir and travels genres, as well as books about birds and nature. I prefer the feel of a book in my hand, but also read e-books. When I come across the title of a book that sounds interesting, I first check out my library, but Amazon and bookstores, new and used, also get a lot of my business.

It’s my belief that as long as I can afford a book, I’m not poor.

Meanwhile, in case you’re interested (you can always stop reading if I’m boring you), here’s a list of what I considered to be the best books I’ve read the past year:

 The House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. And I’m currently reading the sequel, Somewhere Far Beyond the Sea.

Remarkable Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.

The Best American Essays 2024.

The (Big) Year That Flew By by Arjan Dwarshuis, who in 365 days set a world record for seeing 6,853 species of birds, some of which are on the verge of extinction. If this book interests you, you should also read The Big Year by Mark Obmaksic, which I read way back in 2005.

The Kingslake and D.C. Smith series by Peter Grainger. These books were free on Audible, and an unexpected and wonderful find.

A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke.

The Armor of Light, by Ken Follett, continuing the Kingbridge series. Follet’s always a great read.

The Rise of Wolf 8 by Rick McIntyre. A great book about the Yellowstone wolves.

The Inspecter Gamache series by Louise Penny. I’m currently reading A Better Man, which is 15th in the series. Penny is a great writer, but justice doesn’t always win in her books, and so they keep me grounded to the real world.

Happy Reading.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, 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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Lollygagging My Days Away

Posted in aging, Birds, Books, Journeys, Nature, Writing, tagged , on October 6, 2024| 1 Comment »

Cumbres Pass in Colorado, a fall scene I stumbled into after taking a wrong turn during my RV-ing years. Thankfully, the sight is still embedded in my memories. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

It amazes me how, in my eighth decade, I can finally sit so quietly, simply enjoying the sights around me and communing with my brain’s thoughts and memories. I’m finally able to let go of the intense need I’ve long had to constantly be doing, doing, and doing.

In my earlier years, the doing was a way to cope with a too young, too wrong marriage. The doing then became a necessity as I had five young children underfoot, and then a need to support the family financially.

When that was accomplished, the doing turned into a desire to celebrate a late, second adolescence because I had missed that first season of my life. At the same time, I was also deeply involved with an exciting job I loved, and which, because it was as a journalist and I was involved in reporting the world around me, was on my mind almost 24 hours a day.

When I retired in 2004, doing, doing and doing had become an ingrained habit. If I wasn’t constantly involved in some activity, I felt substantially reduced as a person. As a result, I planned my life so I was either always on the go or had an ongoing project, like traveling the country in an RV, writing a book, or seeing as many bird species as I could.  

I treasure those years of doing as I spent nine wonderful years living on the road during which I saw an abundance of this amazing country. And I did, finally, write that book. As for the bird watching, I’m still doing that, and I’m still writing – just at a much slower pace, which has left me with plenty of time for lollygagging.

What astounds and amazes me is just how much I’m enjoying it.

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, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, 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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Keep Moving – And Writing

Posted in aging, Art, Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , , on September 25, 2024| 1 Comment »

Life is full of flowers so keep moving and enjoying them. Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

My fight to make my days meaningful during these latter pages of my life, which is already a long book, paused for a bit this past week. While I can fight to keep my own self moving, I had to come to grips with the fact that I can’t do it for others, no matter how much I desire to do so.

A feeling of helplessness when a loved one attempted suicide caused me to pause doing the one thing that for more than 50 years has given meaning to my life. I stopped my daily writing, including journaling. What does it matter? I thought.

To be truthful, this wasn’t the first time I had stopped writing, especially when hard times hit. But my job back then as a newspaper reporter kept me writing, if not journaling. And my busy, active, engaged with life world meant I didn’t miss, or even notice, that I had stopped any writing in my journals.

What’s different now is that at 85, my days are my own to fill. And since I can no longer dance through them playing tennis, white-water-rafting the Snake, hiking new terrain, or working at a job I love, writing has become more meaningful.

Being a writer is an honor, a title I was reluctant to even claim until I finally published a book. Now living in a world so different from the world I was born into, has filled me with stories I want my children and children’s children – and if I were honest, the world – to know.

These latter years have given me time to connect the dots of my life. And perhaps there is a person or two out there who can learn from my mistakes, or that it’s OK to follow their dreams, or to realize they are not alone in who they are or how they think.

Others’ words do that for me. Like those from Maggie Smith, whose book Keep Moving, I picked up, not for the first time, again this morning.

The title of her book says it all. Keep moving. I intend to do just that, and hope with all my heart that my loved one will do so as well.

I also intend to keep writing. Perhaps that second book that still resides within me will finally decide to come alive.    

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, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, 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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