A week from now, what colors would you recall the colors of these flowers? More likely than not, it won’t be purple and yellow. — Art by Pat Bean
Aging My Way
Memory is fickle, sometimes true and sometimes false. I didn’t need Sally Tisdale’s essay “Mere Belief” in The Best American Essays 2024 to know that. All I have to do is listen to my adult children. When they recall one specific family event, no two remembrances of it are ever alike, including mine. We all could have been somewhere else on a different day.
But I found the article well-worth the read as the author attacked the subject from an ethical writer’s point of view. She believes that we writers have a contract with our readers that says we are telling the truth.
I’ve always tried to adhere to this ideal – and wish all writers had signed the same contract. But enough of that.
Sallie also noted that writers sometimes don’t write the truth but think they are. This is especially true of memoir writing where an author recalls lengthy conversations that happened when they were only two or three years old. But then she went on to say that: “Our false and shifting memories of the past don’t matter to anyone but ourselves. The future only cares about what we learn from them.”
And that line of thought brought me to how I had looked at my childhood from a child’s point of view, and then how one day when I was approaching 40, I viewed it through an adult’s experience. I realized I had failed to be the mother I wanted to be, not from not trying, but from circumstances.
It was only then that I realized my own mother had actually loved me, that it was circumstances, including three much younger brothers and other heavy burdens she carried on her shoulder, that meant I didn’t get the same attention I had when I had been her only child.
A memoir I would have written at 20 would have been much different than what I would have written at 40. At 85, I can see how it would be even more different today. Experience, especially observing the world around me, has made me thankful for the great childhood I had.
Time has a way of changing things – and one’s fickle memories.
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.
Heading this year’s Thanksgiving list is that I’m simply glad to be alive – and doing well. Thanks to modern medicine I survived a heart attack and with the three stents I received, my heart and I still have at least a few more adventures to experience.
While thinking about this annual list, I came across this quote by Jane Goodall, that I’m planning to take to heart for the coming year. “Above all, we must realize that each of us makes a difference with our life. Each of us impacts the world around us every single day. We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place – or not to bother.”
I hope you will join me in “bothering.” Meanwhile, here are the next 99 things I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving:
2. All the abundant help I received while recuperating from friends and loved ones, especially a granddaughter and her wife who live next door and a granddaughter who flew in from Florida. They stuck with me even though I was a horrible patient.
3. My canine companion Scamp, who fretted over my absence during my hospital stay and stayed faithfully by my side after I returned home.
4. A new artificial knee, which preceded my heart attack by eight days and which is now working perfectly.
5. My small apartment, with its small tree-shaded yard that is a gathering place for birds and provides me a view of the Santa Catalina mountains.
6. The daily Wordle.
7. Sunrises and sunsets.
8. A hot bath.
9. Flowers, but especially wildflowers.
10. Books and the authors who write them.
11. Nature, and all its wondrous aspects that have kept me sane, or relatively so, down through 12. A comfortable bed.
13. Audible, especially when that comfortable bed is not enough to get me through a restless night.
14. Air conditioning and heating.
15. My doctors.
16. My large family, which includes five children, 12 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, and their partners and spouses.
17. The internet that feeds my curious mind and keeps me informed in an ever-changing world.
18. Libraries and bookstores because virtual is not enough.
19. A refrigerator and pantry that is always full enough.
20. Fun surprises.
21. Trees and plants that make the world a better and healthier place.
22. Soft pajamas and blankets.
23. My Social Security.
24. Colorful 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles.
25. My rollator – and a comfortable chair. Priorities change with age.
26. Comfortable shoes.
27. My Roomba.
28. Reality TV series like Survivor, The Challenge and Amazing Race. They’re my soap operas.
29. Being a writer, which makes me more observant of the world around me, and lets me experience life twice.
30. Kind people.
31. An honest media and journalists who only want people to know the true facts without taking sides. As a retired journalist, I have to believe this is still possible.
32. The return of wolves to Yellowstone.
33. Caring people.
34. All the national and state parks, animal sanctuaries and refuges that I have visited, and all the others, too.
35. Sunshine on a cool day, shade and a cool breeze on a hot one.
36. Home delivery.
37. A clean apartment, and that I can still mostly make it so.
38. That I still have a zest for life.
39. Sky Island Scenic Byway that winds its way to the top of Mount Lemmon – and all the other backroads and other scenic roads I’ve traveled in my life. I’m especially thankful that there are a lot of them.
40. Tie-Dyed T-shirts that have become part of my identity.
41. Peace, wherever one can find it.
42. Story Circle Network, my writing network and support group.
43. 50 years of personal journals.
44. That I finally became an avid birdwatcher at the age of 60.
45. Chocolate.
46. Reading glasses.
47. Braless days, which is most of them these days.
48. Computer games.
49. My book, Travels with Maggie.
50. My health insurance.
51. The rainbows that follow thunderstorms.
52. The Cooper’s hawk that sometimes sits in my cottonwood tree, even though it dumps on my patio.
53. The coyotes, whose howls I hear almost every night and morning.
54. Good-natured games of Frustration with a granddaughter and her wife who are as competitive as I am.
55. Van Gogh’s Starry Night – and the real thing.
56. A good pen and a blank page in a journal.
57. My kind neighbor, who loves my dog and gives him a walk every evening, and all my other kind neighbors as well.
58. Washing machines and dryers.
59. Enlightening and interesting conversations.
60. Learning something new – every day.
61. That I no longer believe I have to be perfect.
62, The wisdom that comes with having lived for 85 years, which of course includes no longer feeling like I have to be perfect.
63. Good cream-laced coffee to start my day, and the daughter-in-law who sends me coffee in care packages on a regular basis.
64. For never feeling lonely.
65. Smiles and laughter.
66. Snail mail from a friend.
67. Hugs.
68. A good haircut.
69. Helen Reddy singing I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar. This one almost always makes my annual list because I go back to that era when women were fighting for equal rights – which they still seem to need to do.
70. Art.
71. Butterflies.
72. Morning walks with my dog Scamp, especially since there were some days this past year when I couldn’t walk him.
73. Discovery of a new favorite author, especially one who has written a lot of books.
74. Silver linings – and that I still believe in them.
75. The smell of the Sonoran Desert landscape after a rain, and for its saguaros that drink up the rain for the dry days ahead and bloom once a year.
76. For my new smart phone, which I’m finally learning to carry around with me when I go to the store or walk my dog.
77. For the cuddles and sweet doggie kisses my dog Scamp gives me.
78. For my heating pad when my back hurts.
79. For drop-in guests. I actually love them although most people don’t.
80. The New York Times Online – it’s my newspaper of choice these days.
81. Female role models, beginning with my own grandmother and mother.
82. A hot cup of lemon-ginger tea.
83. Zoom meetings with my long-time friend Kim when we can’t get together in person.
84. Weekend pancake breakfasts with my friend Jean.
85. My brother Robert, who is the sole remaining member of my childhood family.
86. Freshly washed sheets.
87. That I can still drive, and have a car to do so.
88. Phone calls from loved ones, near and far away.
89. Scented candles.
90. Moisturizer.
91. Doggie treats, because Scamp is so happy to get one.
92. My 35-year-old rubber tree plant, which has had lots of babies that I have shared.
93. Aspen leaves in the fall.
94. My 85 years of good memories, and even a few of the bad ones that I have survived and which have turned me into the person I am today.
95. That I’ve heard the song of the hump-backed whale.
96. Readers of my writing.
97. The nine years I spent traveling across America in a small RV, in which I lived full time. I found beauty everywhere – and everywhere is my favorite place, well next to sitting on top of Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park.
98. Ice cream.
99. Quiet mornings in which to ponder and think.
100. And finally, that I’ve finally come to appreciate and like myself.
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.
I’m at a crossroads. I’m worried about the world, especially attempts to silence a free press while anyone can deliberately speak untruths on the internet. It’s already a mine field trying to figure out what’s the truth and what’s not. People shouldn’t believe everything they hear or read.
Let me repeat that: People shouldn’t believe everything they hear or read. In these days, double and triple checking everything is a must. Even so, what I’m seeing and hearing for the days ahead has my head in a tailspin. I just want to stick my head in the sand and let the world pass me by.
I mean I’m 85 and retired. I could just bury myself in books, art, birding, friends who don’t talk politics and other things that give me pleasure. Why not? I often feel useless because I have no power to make the world a kinder place.
And then, while I’m reading, I come across Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem Ulysses in which he wrote about growing old: “How dull it is to pause, to make an end,/ To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!” And I realize I’m still not ready to turn the world off.
Suddenly my rabbit hole emerges to a time when I discovered Lord Byron’s poem, The Prisoner of Chillon. I wouldn’t know for another 15 years that I was destined to be a writer, but the ancient sounding words, or so they seemed to a 10-year-old, enchanted me. I memorized that lengthy poem, simply because I loved the sound of its words. Many of those words, I still remember 75 years later: My very chains and I grew friends,/ So much a long communion tends/ To make us what we are:—even I/ Regain’d my freedom with a sigh.
I love the freedom of being retired and yet I miss being chained to the feeling of being useful.
By now, well down that rabbit hole, I contemplate these two poems by authors that younger generations have most likely never heard of, and I’m back at that crossroads – and Robert Frost’s words about that road not taken.
Finally, I laugh at myself. Who says that road can’t be taken on another day? And who says I can’t still keep one foot in the world around me and try myself to be kinder, and the other foot in books and birds and art and pleasant friends.
Perhaps there is no crossroads at all – just plodding on.
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.
Scamp is the one with his head on the pillow. Sharing the bed with him is his best friend Dusty, whom I babysit while her owner is at work. Yup! You’ve noticed. They are pampered pets. — Photo by Pat Bean
Aging My Way
I came across a story recently claiming pizza crusts were why you should have a dog. The thought made me laugh – and then I began to think about other reasons to have a four-legged, wagging-tail pet.
Fool-proof exercise: My current canine companion is Scamp, whom I rescued from a shelter when he was about six months old – and quickly discovered he wasn’t house trained. The task of training him not to pee or poop in the house took three miserable weeks of walking him, almost every hour, from a third-floor walkup. I may have trained him too well, however. He now demands to go outside of the fenced yard of my current abode to do his bathroom business. The silver lining is that by being forced to walk him, I always get at least some daily exercise as recommended by my cardiologist.
Less food waste: I never bought into the idea of feeding my dogs only regular dog food. Food is food. And while I’ve been careful not to feed my dogs items that are bad for them, their regular dog food is often mixed with leftovers.
As an alarm system: No stranger can be outside the perimeter of my fence without Scamp alerting me, night or day. He’s not a barker, but he gives a quick woof and stands at attention staring outside until any intruder either walks on by or enters the gate and announces themselves. My former dogs were even more protective.
Companionship: Most important of all. Mine has been a one-human home for over half my 85 years, during which time Scamp has been my fourth canine companion since 1983. Owning a faithful pet, as all mine have been, makes it very hard to be lonely.
Scamp, and the memories of past canine companions, do bring a smile on my face. Besides, what else could I have done with that mountain of pizza crusts they’ve eaten.
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). She is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.
As if by magic, a lakeside campground often turned up during my nine years of living and traveling on the road exploring this beautiful country. — Photo of my RV Gypsy Lee resting at Jackson State Park in Alabama by Pat Bean
Aging My Way
When I was traveling around the country in my small RV, I almost never took the direct route from place to place. An interesting looking side road always seemed more important than the destination where I was headed.
My mother told me this was a trait I had gotten from a grandfather who died before I was old enough to remember him. “He could never pass up a turnoff,” she told me on one of our back-roading trips to Jenny Lake in the Tetons, a place she fell in love with the first time she saw it.
Judging by how she enjoyed taking different routes to get there, I could just as easily have inherited it from her. I think that quite likely, because promising her a road trip to the Tetons was often the bribe that I had to make to get her to visit me from her home in Illinois to my home in Northern Utah, where Yellowstone was only a five-hour drive away.
My mother and I made many of those trips in her later years. I treasure every one of them, but especially those in which we got off the beaten path. There’s magic in driving down a road not knowing what you are going to see, especially when you stop and explore along the way.
As Ursula K Le Guin said, and I believe, “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.”
As I ponder Le Guin’s words, I think of the journey I’ve been taking for the past 85 years. The destination I’ve arrived at is far from the one I envisioned when I took those first wobbly and uncertain steps along an expected path. Detours along the way — some forced and some on purpose – have put me where I am today.
And since I’ve come to a place where I have love, friends, a lovable canine companion who keeps my life interesting, and a continuing zest for nature and life, the detours along this hard-won journey surely must have had some magic in them.
What do you think?
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). She is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.
“It’s good that at 85 you can still do the techie stuff,” my granddaughter Shanna complimented me the other day when I was telling her that my Roomba was misbehaving and that I had been texted a link to a YouTube video that would show me how to fix it.
I was tempted to say “But I don’t wanna? Have I mentioned how much I hate doing techie stuff. Still, I was pleased that my granddaughter thought me so capable – but even more appreciative when her wife Dawn fixed the Roomba.
I love technology, but all I want to know is which button do I push,
I was blessed with that before I retired, as there was always someone around to fix my technical problems. Since I’ve never been afraid to push a button, I sometimes even created those problems myself. That’s probably why when I went to find an IT specialist and they saw me approaching, they usually exclaimed: “Ohhh. Here comes trouble.”
But not having those helpful specialists around these days makes me want to go back to work – well, almost.
Meanwhile, my loved ones and friends mostly take care of my technical problems. Of course they’re not always available. What happens then is that I spend four hours figuring things out for myself instead of a techie taking 10 minutes to do the same thing.
The silver lining, however, is that when I finally fix whatever techie thing went wrong, I do feel pretty proud of myself –and I like that feeling.
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 and is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.
Daily photo memories began dropping into my email about a year ago. They almost always bring a smile to my face along with good memories – from seeing how my great-grandchildren are growing up to recalling some of my travel adventures.
One of the more recent photos to show up was one I had taken of the giant tori gate that welcomes visitors to a small island an hour away from the city of Hiroshima. On seeing it, I was immediately transmitted back in time to the three days I spent there with a son who spoke perfect Japanese and a granddaughter taking a break from her college studies.
My granddaughter Heidi and I had spent Christmas in Guam, where my youngest daughter was then living. We had stopped in Japan on the way home where we were met by my son Mike, who had lived in Japan for a couple of years.
The three of us, often hand in hand, had walked all over the island, enjoying its quaint nature trails, museums and shrines. It was January of 2005, just shortly after I had retired, and just shortly after I had become an avid bird watcher.
When our landlady at the charming little bed and breakfast where we were staying learned that I was interested in birds, she gave me a small field guide written by a local birder. As a result, I was then able to identify and add a dozen new bird species to my life list. The birds were mostly colorful and ones that can’t be found anywhere in North America.
I revisited the Miyajima birds with a little research this morning and found them just as delightful to see a second time. According to my record-keeping, the birds I saw included the Brown-Eared Bulbul, Yellow Bunting, Jungle Crow, Common Gull, Grey Heron, Black Kite, Rock Pipit (not sure which subspecies because I didn’t note it at the time), Daurian Redstart, Eastern Turtle Dove (also known as Oriental Turtle Dove), Japanese Pied Wagtail, and Varied, Coal, and Long-Tailed tits.
I remember my granddaughter joking about how casually I used the word tit.
My memories are like the crazy quilt that my grandmother made, and which I slept under as a child. They are all over the place, and I treasure them – well, most of them that is. As an 85-year-old broad who doesn’t travel too far from home these days, it’s heartfelt to have such good memories.
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
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.
This is a Green Heron that I saw here in Tucson at Agua Caliente Park. — Photo by Pat Bean
Aging My Way
Since my heart attack, and the installation of three stents in this old broad’s body, I’ve pretty much nested. It felt like a major triumph when two months out I could drive again, even if just to the doctor’s, pharmacy, grocery store and library.
Then on my first real outing, a party accompanied by “the girls” – my granddaughter and her wife – I took a fall. It was a little one, with me going down on my knee, rolling forward on my left side and just barely hitting my head. In my younger life, I would have just gotten up and been embarrassed if someone had seen me.
But I’m on blood thinners and my head and knee swelled up to gigantic proportions, so “the girls” rushed me to the emergency room for a CT scan. I was fine and the swelling soon went down. However, I was black and blue on my left side from my knees to my head for several weeks.
After that, I was reluctant to leave my comfortable abode except for necessities. It kind of felt like I had agoraphobia. I decided I didn’t like it – and in response recently set a goal of doing one outside activity a week. Last week, it was a pool party at the same friend’s house, but because I was accompanied by “the girls,” it kind of felt like I was cheating.
This morning, however, I got up early and went on an accessible bird watching outing all by myself. The event took place at Sweetwater Wetlands, one of Tucson’s birding gems. Before my heart attack, I had hiked the trail around the small lake often but hadn’t been back in recent months.
While most of the lake had been drained in anticipation of the upcoming annual burn to control invasive plant species and mosquitos, there were still birds around. These are the ones I saw as I walked along the accessible path with my rollator – or simply sat in it and watched: Say’s Phoebee, Gila Woodpecker, Green Heron, Least Flycatcher, Western Kingbird, Cooper’s Hawk, Vermillion Flycatcher, Gambel’s Quail, Kestrel, Black-Crowned Night Heron, Mourning Dove, Abert’s Towhee, and lots of Mallards of varying ages.
The Cooper’s gave us a nice fly-about view, but the Green Heron, which flew in and settled among the Mallards was my favorite sight of the morning. These birds have been a favorite since I saw one sitting on a branch barely above the water watching the scene below intently. Its watch paid off as a small fish swam beneath the branch and quickly became lunch for the heron.
Watching birds is still about the only thing I have patience for. Now, as I sit here in front of my computer in my cozy air-conditioned apartment, I’m thinking about what I will do for an outing next week. Stay tuned.
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.
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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“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
Pat Bean is a writer, avid birder, hiker and passionate nature observer with wanderlust in her soul. She spent nine years living and traveling in a small RV. She now lives in Tucson with Scamp, a rescue who was supposed to be a Schnauzer mix but turned out to be a Siberian Husky-Shih Tzu mix who is as stubborn as his owner, her granddaughter says. She was also a journalist for 37 years, and can be reached at patbean@msn.com
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