Writing | Pat Bean's blog

Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

After the Rain

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Journeys, Writing, tagged mornings, pat bean, rain on November 22, 2013| 3 Comments »

“Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.” Roger Miller

Morning comes to Tucson’s Catalina Mountains. — Photo by Pat Bean

Morning Walk with Pepper

It was that magical moment before dawn when Pepper and I stepped out for this morning’s walk.

The landscape was all hues of gray, with a stillness over it that spoke louder than words, like the reflections on a lake bereft of a breeze,

I hadn’t heard it, but rain had fallen during the night. The uneven walk and grounds still held puddles that the desert’s dry air had not yet sucked away, or the land claimed for its own. Best of all there was the green smell of trees washed clean of dust, and an earthen spice that wafted up from the ground. No man-made perfume could ever smell as sweet.

The scents intrigued Pepper, whose furry black nose searched everywhere. I simply breathed in Mother Nature’s bounty and felt blessed, and my soul rejoiced that I was a writer. Although words could never fully capture and expel all that I felt during my short morning walk with a beloved canine companion, they were there in my head. And I knew I had to write them down and share.

And now that I’ve done just that, I’ll go have my morning cup of coffee.

The Wondering-Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Take an armchair walk in France http://tinyurl.com/mfjc37m While the architectural details of the palaces are magnificent, the walk through the trees is what drew me into this blog.

Read Full Post »

The Pain of Living

Posted in Journeys, Writing, tagged books, death, joy, paint on November 20, 2013| 3 Comments »

“Find a place inside where there is joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” – Joseph Campbell

Life is full of rainbows, and life is full of storms. The first without the second wouldn’t be as sweet. — Photo by Pat Bean

You Can’t Escape

I’ve been reading books for a female memoir writing contest. Several of them deal with surviving the pain of losing loved ones – and most of these books left me feeling a bit cynical. Everyone who lives to a ripe age loses loved ones. It’s part of life’s journey.

If we’re lucky we get to smell the flowers along the way. — Photo by Pat Bean

Sure it hurts. I’m still hurting from the loss of my mother, and I can only imagine the pain I will have to live through if one of my children dies before I do. That’s not the order in which life is supposed to be lived.

But why, I asked myself, did some of these authors act like their suffering was the only loss in the world? Get over it, I wanted to tell them.

But one of the memoirs involving death got to me. It was written by a woman whose activities included research involving hospice patients nearing death. She spent time with these people, recording their feelings and coming to care for them.

The researcher became especially close to one woman on the verge of death. This was a woman who had lived a hard street life, and admitted stealing, lying and prostituting herself to get the drugs she craved. “I cared for nobody else but myself,” she related.

And occasionally simply have time to sit and let the world go by. — Photo by Pat Bean

Before this woman died, the researcher herself found herself with cancer, and facing possible death. The news upset the former drug addict so much that she bullied her hospice attendants into transporting her in a wheelchair to the researcher’s side in a hospital.

When the researcher apologized for causing the dying woman pain, the woman thanked her instead.

“For the first time, I know what it feels like to care about someone besides myself. It makes me feel alive in a way that I never did before,” she told the researcher

These words caused tears to flow from my eyes. I, too, in a moment of sorrow had once been grateful for pain. While it was a love that was rejected that had given me the pain, it was this same pain that let me know I still had the capacity to love.

In my book, that was treasured knowledge.

Bean’s Pat: Grateful for one more day http://tinyurl.com/kcnd7fa And hopeful for many more

Read Full Post »

The Highways of Life

Posted in Journeys, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged decisions, highways of life, pat bean, Ursula K. Le Guin on October 8, 2013| 6 Comments »

Oops! I think I turned wrong somewhere. — Photo by Pat Bean

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to reach my destination.” — Jimmy Dean

Should I Turn South — Or West?

Have you ever felt that you knew exactly where you were going, and then suddenly discovered you were headed in the wrong direction?

Should I hike the high trail or the low trail? Perhaps I should do both. — Photo by Pat Bean

This happens to me a lot. And I’m not talking about making a wrong turn when traveling down the road – although I certainly do that a lot, too.

Life has taken me down many paths, some not so pretty, but all educational. Some paths presented themselves because of decisions I made – or didn’t make, which in itself is a decision. Some were made for me because I let someone else lead.

Today, the only person who takes the lead away from me is my canine companion, Pepper – when I take her for a walk. So I have no one to blame for where I end up than myself.

But lately, I’ve not been quite so sure that I’ve been heading in the right direction, although there is certainly nothing wrong with the path I’m on. Perhaps it’s just because life has taught me that the more paths I explore, the more I enjoy life.

I guess I’m one of those people who believe Ursula K. Le Guin’s quote – which is permanently on my blog site — “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.”

The Wondering-Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Life in Edit Mode http://tinyurl.com/kk6hmhz I laughed at the cartoon, and am now thinking, as I’m at the final rewriting process of Travel with Maggie, which has come down to the nitty-gritty dotting of every I and crossing of every T, that I need just such a muse.

Read Full Post »

The Value of Journals and Scrapbooks

Posted in Journeys, Writing, tagged editors, Grandparents Day, journals, pat bean, scrapbooking on September 18, 2013| 3 Comments »

The joys of being the first female editor to invade the editors’ meeting at the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah.

Managing to Survive my First Job as an Editor

When I sold my home in 2004, and rid myself of almost all my possessions so I could spend the next leg of my life’s journey traveling this country in a small RV, I packed away the few things I couldn’t part with in bins, which eventually ended up here in Tucson with my youngest daughter.

I just retrieved those bins and have been reliving the memories they hold. One of these had me belly laughing until I almost peed myself. It was a printout of an AP photo that had been posted on the board at an editors’ meeting, my first venture into what until then had been an all-male domain— I should note that the year was 1980 when women were just beginning to make themselves a force to be reckoned with in the working world.

On my first day in attendance as an editor at the meeting, one of the macho male newspaper editors boomed out: “OK guys. We all have to watch our language now. We have a lady present.”

I still journal and scrapbook. These 2 pages are from the Nana’s Day celebration my daughter’s family gave me for Grandparents Day.

Perhaps he didn’t mean his words as a put-down, but I took them that way. I didn’t want to be treated different, or special, because of my gender, especially not when I was fighting for equal pay for equal work. While I never cuss (unless you count the S word, and back then not even that) I flared back with: “That’s right. You #$%^&**” guys.” I didn’t spare the offensive adjectives. “Watch your language.”

They all laughed, but I think they got my message. At least there were no similar comments, or vulgar words either, in future editor meetings.

There did, however, continue to be sexism actions from the photographers, who posted the day’s picture selections on a presentation board. Almost every day there would be a cheesecake photo – one time it was Miss Nude America – that had no chance in a zillion of making it into our family-oriented newspaper.

Finally, I piped up: “OK. Fair is fair. What about some beefcake tomorrow?”

The above photo, with stickers identifying me as the blonde, and the caption: “Lets get this editors’ meeting over with, made the presentation board the next day. Everyone laughed, including me. I do have a sense of humor. In fact, I loved the joke so much that I swiped the photo printout and put it into my scrapbook. It still makes me laugh.

The upshot of my beefcake request, meanwhile, is that there were no more cheesecake photos brought into the editors’ meeting. Sometimes you just have to tackle issues by way of a back door.

And always scrapbook, so that memories, and belly laughs, can be relived.

Bean’s Pat: Totsy Mae http://tinyurl.com/ll74neu I absolutely adore this artist’s fantastic watercolors.

Read Full Post »

You Gotta Love Rejection

Posted in Art, Journeys, Writing, tagged pat bean, rejection on September 7, 2013| 12 Comments »

I think all great innovations are built on rejections.” – Louis Ferdinand Celine

“I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get me going, rather than retreat.” – Sylvester Stallone

I wonder if bears care about rejection, or if they are always all about being themselves — even if they are blue. — Photo by Pat Bean

Life Lessons from an Old Broad

These days I take rejection slips that result from someone not buying one of my writing submissions with great pride. They are evidence that I put myself out there.

And would a giraffe feel rejected if it looked different from the rest of its kind? OK, so I’m being silly. Reject me. See if I care. == Photo by Pat Bean

But that kind of thinking wasn’t always a part of my psyche.

Looking back on my life, as I sometimes find myself doing, I suddenly remembered all the times when I didn’t put myself out there, whether it was not applying for a promotion, or not taking the risk of revealing my true self because I was afraid of being rejected.

It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of rejection, but that I was afraid for others to know, on any level, that I had been rejected.

Now I realize how foolish I was. Not only is it true that nothing ventured means nothing gained, but the only person who can truly reject me is me.

Does that make sense? This wondering-wanderer says: “Yes.” Now I just wonder why it took me so long to come up with the right answer.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Lightning Dropets http://tinyurl.com/kdkr6bn This blog about writing rejections is what got me thinking about rejections on other levels

Read Full Post »

What’s Most Important

Posted in Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged goals, pat bean, rainbows, writing on August 26, 2013| 4 Comments »

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene

You may never find that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, but that shouldn’t keep you from looking. — Photo by Pat Bean

Stepping into the Unknown

I’m not a person who likes to give advice. I’ve made too many bad decisions in my own life to think I can mentor anyone else, particularly someone whose end goals may be 180 degrees from my own.

This refrigerator magnet is how I want to be remembered.

But the ages have taught me that if you want something in life, you should go for it. And then, if you don’t get it, you should celebrate yourself for having the guts to have gone for it.

Some things we want, like my fulfilling my dream of travel by selling my home, buying an RV and driving that first mile, only depended on me having the guts to do it.

Other things, like my dream of finding an agent and a publisher for my book, “Travels with Maggie,” depend on others – and it may never happen. So right now, I’m celebrating each rejection slip as a triumph. I’m taking that first step toward my goal – and even if I never achieve it, I’ll know it wasn’t because I didn’t try.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Not Yet There http://tinyurl.com/m8clwct My morning coffee and my journal and list of things to do for the day are the way I start my days. And so this poem and photo spoke to me.

Read Full Post »

With Apologies to Edgar Allan Poe

Posted in Birds, Journeys, Writing, tagged bad poetry, edgar allan poe, pat bean, ravens on August 19, 2013| 10 Comments »

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” – Leonard Cohen

The Worst Poetry Ever, I Do Admit

I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.

My morning visitor. — Photo by Pat Bean

The Raven

While I welcomed the morning cheerily

While I drank my coffee dearly

While I sat upon my balcony pondering

Over my daily list, wondering

There came a cawing, cawing

Tis’ a bird, I muttered smiling

Only this and nothing more

And it is August, I said and more

And it’s sunny on the desert floor

Now who is cawing outside my window

I know for certain it’s not Lenore

Because it is black and feathery

This it is and nothing more

I went for my camera

To capture an image for ever more

But alas I failed, as I was told

This device cannot record.

Would this bird too soon fly away?

Before I could retrieve the disk

From my computer inside the door

Only this and nothing more

Quickly I ran inside

And retrieved the tiny disk

That would make the camera work.

Black feathers still perched upon the roof

Waiting and cawing, cawing

Tis a raven, I said.

And nothing more.

Bean’s Pat: Travels and Trifles http://tinyurl.com/lsm93un Love the quote, and the trees

Read Full Post »

Monday Morning Wondering

Posted in Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged pat bean, wondering, writers, writing on July 15, 2013| 6 Comments »

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” – Richard Wright

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” — Vita Sackville-West

This is the view of the Catalina Mountains from my third-floor bedroom balcony. The sliver of rock between the two larger humps is called finger rock. I’ve adopted it as a finger pointing at me, asking: “So have you met your writing goal today?” — Photo by Pat Bean

Is it Good Enough?

I’ve been a writer for half a century, although I didn’t call myself one for many years. It seems to be a failing with writers. Many of us think that unless we’ve written a best-selling book, we’re just a piddler of words.

I recently met such a person, a retired history professor who read a chapter of his book in progress. He started it by saying “I’m not a writer.” But he was. His words were richer and more readable than those of many a published author. I later told him he was a writer, and should call himself just that

The place where I spend many hours a week. Sometimes I simply open the shutters and gaze out the windows, wondering. — Photo by Pat Bean

Yet, even as I accept that my book, “Travels with Maggie” — which is undergoing a final editing — contains some of my best work, this Monday morning I found myself asking: “Is it good enough” – good enough to throw out to the public and risk it not being good enough?

Perhaps I’m still thinking about the words contained in a blog I read this past week: “The fine line between creativity and crap.”

Why do writers have such a hard time admitting they are writers when asked their occupations? What’s the proper usage of passed and past? Do I write my book in first or third person? Will what I write offend a loved one? What will someone think if they read my journals and learn my true feelings? Why can’t I find an agent for my book, is it not good enough?

The questions are endless, and writers seem to have too many of them rattling around in their heads, like a poisonous snake coiled and ready to kill their ability to write. Some call it writer’s block.

I’m learning to call it simply wondering.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Lime Bird Writers http://tinyurl.com/nv7mrs6 One of the writing blogs I follow regularly. This day’s blog offers some market opportunities.

Read Full Post »

Fate

Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged fate, pat bean on July 3, 2013| 6 Comments »

“Fate is not an eagle. It creeps like a rat.” – Elizabeth Bowen

I’m a believer

We never know what we’re going to encounter on the path of life. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. — Photo by Pat Bean

“We make our own fortunes then call them fate,” said Benjamin Disraeli. His words were the gist of almost all the quotes I could find on “fate.”

I agree, and yet I also disagree. I’m not a religious person, but there have been many times in my life when it seemed as if fate took a hand.

Most recently, it was after I broke my ankle and met Betty Ann, who was a dog walker, well of sorts. It was something she fell into while searching for a job. She was my next door neighbor, and thus agreed, for a pittance, to walk Maggie until I could take over the task again.

Recently I discovered, she had excellent editing skills. And again, for a pittance, she has agreed to edit and
proofread “Travels with Maggie,” the book which I desperately need to finish and publish so I can move on.

Every writer needs an editor, if for nothing more than to see what the writer really wrote, and not what she thought she wrote. She hadn’t even got past my dedication of the book, which read: This book is dedicated to my canine traveling companion, Maggie, and to John Steinbeck. His book, “Travels with Charley, was one of the inspirations for my vagabond lifestyle and also for this book’s title. I would also like to think the hundreds of other great travel writers who taunted me to discover my own adventures.

Did you catch the mistake? I didn’t. Think should have been thank.

I truly believe it was fate that brought Betty Ann and me together. What do you think? Or is that thank?

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: The Mockingbird and the Cat http://tinyurl.com/l4ebgew I’m both an avid bird watcher and a cat lover, so I’m a fence sitter on the issue of cats being allowed outside. I put a bell on my cat to give the birds warning, just fyi. But I sure do love this mockingbird’s attitude.

Read Full Post »

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged henry david thoreau, journal keeping, Northern Cardinal, pat bean on June 7, 2013| 4 Comments »

Time Changes your Life

“Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.”– Khalil Gibran

And your Journals

I write these days more about nature than I do about the daily chaos of living. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I write these days more about nature than I do about the daily chaos of living. This is a photo of Taggart Lake in Wyoming. — Photo by Pat Bean

Henry David Thoreau once said that his journals became less personal as the years went by and he found less drama and entanglements in his life.

Reading those words gave me pause to contemplate the changes in my own journal writing. This blog actually makes up about 90 percent of my journaling these days.

In it, I talk much more about birds, nature, magical landscapes, my dog Pepper, writing and the books I’m reading – and my reactions to these topics — than I do about the personal business of living.

That’s quite the opposite of my early journal writing, when I was bogged down in raising children, trying to find love after it failed me again and again, worrying how to survive until the next paycheck, feeling that I wasn’t good enough, and worrying about children who were nowhere to be found at curfew. I probably had enough chaos in the first 50 years of my life to keep a soap opera going daily for 20 years.

And I could journal forever about the birds I see every day, like this northern cardinal. — Photo by Pat Bean

Some of that inner anguish, when I could face it, was written down in my journals in the expectation that no one would ever read what I was writing but me.

In total contrast, here I am today keeping a very public journal, and loving it. I won’t say that my life doesn’t still go through an occasional soap-opera installment, but time has given me plenty of experience to know life will continue on even without the drama.

Bean’s Pat: Memory Lane at the Museum http://tinyurl.com/ljrr9eb I love the comparison of scenes. A Thomas Moran print of Shoshone Falls on the Snake River hung in my home for many years. The artist also painted Devil’s Slide in Weber Canyon, which was located not to far from my former Utah home. FYI: The reason the color of Morning Glory Pool in Yellowstone has changed is because of human pollution especially coins thrown into the hole. The first time I saw the pool, many years ago, it was still emerald green,

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »