“Sooner or later, all vagabonds discover that something strange happens to them en route. They become aware of having wandered into a subtle network of coincidence and serendipity that eludes explanation. On Tiptoe, magic enters.” – Ed Buryn.
After coming across the above quote, I was interested in buying Buryn’s book, Vagabonding in the USA: A Guide to Independent Travel, which was published in 1980. I thought it would be fun to compare what he had seen and written about to my travels across North America in a small RV from 2004-2013 — and what I wrote about it in my book Travels with Maggie, which was published in 2017.
But I only found one copy of Ed’s book available on the internet, and it was a used paperback selling for $85. Dang it! That’s a bit too expensive for a retiree living on a fixed income. I then checked my local library, but also struck out. It didn’t have a copy.
Anyone have a copy of Ed’s book they would like to exchange for a copy of my Travels with Maggie? I know my paperback only sells on Amazon for $5.99, but maybe someday it might be worth more. Who knows? It happened to Ed’s book.
Meanwhile, I find it kinda nice to have such a dream.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My granddaughter Shanna often calls me as she drives to work in the mornings. She’s a fantastic woman who at 40 found herself starting life anew. She was a bit downhearted about it, but I told her that my life only got more interesting and exciting once I reached that landmark – and that’s the honest truth.
Yesterday morning as we chatted, she mentioned that she had met someone who might turn out to be a good mentor for her.
The word mentor triggered a memory of my first, a tall, down-home, y’all-speaking, Texas county sheriff, who taught me the ropes for covering a murder investigation when I was a green-behind-the-ears reporter – after he had humiliated me a couple of times. But then that taught me the power of persistence.
It was a good memory. But then I’ve always tended to bury bad memories beneath a heavy rock that rarely gets lifted — and that’s a gift I treasure.
Memories, at least for me, are one of the positives about growing older. And if you’re into your eighth decade, and embraced life, you’re bound to have a lot of them. And the years have taught me that sometimes the simple and quiet ones, like a phone call from a loved one, or staring out at a field full of Texas bluebonnets, can be as meaningful as standing under a waterfall at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
But don’t get me wrong. I’m not through with creating memories. I collected one just this morning as I watched a pair of courting mourning doves prance around my yard. At 83, I’m a lot more observant than I was at 23.
So, listen up brain. You better make some more room up there.
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.
I walked past this tree every summer for three years when I was a campground host at Idaho’s Lake Walcott State Park. I call it the tree with a split personality. — Photo by Pat Bean
Aging My Way
When I read the following, I realized I had not yet hugged the large cottonwood tree that grows in my small yard, even though it’s one of the reasons I love my new apartment. Wrote Ayn Rand, in a book I read many years ago:
“It had stood there for hundreds of years … Its roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it, but would swing the hill and the whole of the earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string. He felt safe in the oak tree’s presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength.” — Atlas Shrugged (1957)
I bought my last home, the one I lived in before I sold it to buy an RV when I retired, because of the magnificent elm tree that grew in its backyard — and the tall ponderosa pine that stood in the front yard helped sealed the deal.
I admit it. I’m a tree hugger.
Looking at the photos I took over the years, I find many pictures that contain simply a single tree. Some of them famous, like an ancient bristle cone pine in Great Basin National Park which I stood beside; or the General Sherman Sequoria in Sequoria National Park, which I first saw when I was only about 12 years old.
Then there’s The 2,000-year-old live oak on Goose Island State Park called simply The Big Tree. If I had to name my favorite tree species, it would definitely be a live oak, whose branches seem to wiggle as they grow and can spread out as wide as the tree is tall.
Another of the trees among my photos is a big old limber pine I saw up near Monte Cristo in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. My old bird-watching mentor Jack Rensel, who sadly died three years ago, called it the Old Dude, and said it had been around before Utah had gained statehood.
That’s just a sprout compared to the limber pine identified near Utah’s Alta Ski Area. That tree, named Twister, is at least 1,700 years old.
My cottonwood tree comes nowhere close to being as spectacular. And it’s fallen leaves have been a nuisance to sweep off my patio and to rake up in the yard. In addition, the tree is raising havoc to the sidewalk and my gate, as its roots stretch out to reach the generous irrigation water used on a patch of grass diligently maintained in my apartment complex.
I suspect the tree is a wanderer that put down roots a bit farther than usual from the nearby Rillito River, or perhaps another tree hugger planted it. A cottonwood tree can drink 50 to 200 gallons of water a day, which may be why the one in my yard is the only one of its species in the complex.
I’m thinking I should go hug my cottonwood before it’s deemed a nuisance and cut down as some other trees here recently were – after one of the trees in the complex decided to grow up into the living room of an apartment unit.
It’s an old complex, as are many of the trees that grow here, many of which are spectacular. Perhaps I should hug some of them, too.
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.
These days there seems to be a month for everything. In March, there’s Sing-With-Your-Child Month, Appreciate Dolphins Month, Berries and Cherries Month, Mad for Plaid Month and National On-Hold Month – and that’s just to name a few of the many I usually never hear about, nor celebrate.
On a more relevant note, at least to me, is that March is National Women’s History Month. I’ve come a long way from being raised in a time when women’s proper place was thought to be married, barefoot, and pregnant to thinking I should have the same rights as a man.
My original perspective was that women’s fight for equality began in the 1960s and ‘70s, spurred by women like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, and the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment.
These were the years that marked the beginning of my awareness of inequality and unfairness in the world, and not just for women. Not surprisingly, these years coincided with the beginning of my 37-year journalism career and my personal fight for equal pay for equal work.
History, however, tells a different story. While there are many individual stories going way back in time, the big fight for equal rights for American women began in 1869 with the founding of the National Women’s Suffrage Association by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who along with women like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Hull, fought for women’s right to vote.
This resulted in an 1884 decision by the Supreme Court that citizenship does not give women the right to vote. Women didn’t give up, however, even though many of them were severely harassed or even jailed simply for continuing to fight for the vote.
Then, in 1913, thousands of women marched on Washington D.C. demanding the right to vote, a right that was finally achieved nationally in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment. As a writer, I think of all the stories, told and untold, that led up to this momentous occasion. I also am still astonished that this took place just 19 years before I was born.
It’s because of these strong women of the past that I have the privileges I do today. And I’m thankful. Yes. National Women’s History Month is one I will celebrate.
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.
I came across a quote by John F. Kennedy this morning that I thought was worthy of being copied into my journal. “Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought,” he said. As I don’t want to write about politics today, I’ll let you put your own understanding and meaning to these words.
Meanwhile, I frequently copy quotes into my journal. Usually, they are ones that cleverly and inspiringly put into words something meaningful to me, sometimes even causing me to rethink a subject.
One quote that came to my wandering/wondering brain this morning was the well-known (well at least it sure be familiar to some of you) was “The pen is mightier than the sword.” As I added those words to my journal as part of my thoughts, I wanted to give credit to the author. My brain was telling me it was Benjamin Franklin, but then the old reporter adage, “double check even if your mother says it’s so,” sent me doing some quick research.
I’m glad I did because I discovered that the phrase was first written by novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton. He penned the words in his historical play Cardinal Richelieu in 1839.
As so often happens, that search sent me on another search. Why was Edward’s last name hyphenated? The answer was that his father’s name was General William Earle Bulwer and his mother’s name was Elizabeth Barbara Lytton.
Now that seemed odd to me, as in those days women were still considered property. So, who was Elizabeth?
My research continued and I learned that she was a member of the Lytton family of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, England. After her father’s death, Elizabeth resumed her father’s surname, by a royal license of 1811. That year she returned to Knebworth House, which by then had become dilapidated. She renovated it by demolishing three of its four sides and adding Gothic towers and battlements to the remaining building.
She lived at Knebworth with her son, the writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton, until her death. Because of a long-standing dispute she had with the church, she is buried not with her ancestors at St Mary’s Knebworth, but in the Lytton Mausoleum.
Hmm. I wonder if the dispute had anything to do with women’s rights. But what’s the significance of Knebworth House. My brain was still on a roll.
It’s an English Country House (Looked like a mansion to me), according to Wikipedia, that has been the home of the Lytton family since 1490. Furthermore, the grounds are home to the Knebworth Festival, a recurring open-air rock and pop concert held since 1974, and until 2014 was home to another hard rock festival, Sonisphere.
And suddenly I realized the morning was almost over. This happens a lot.
It’s a good thing I’m retired.
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.
My former newspaper colleague and dear friend Charlie Trentelman has been browsing the archives of The Standard-Examiner, where I worked for over 20 years. He came across these old clippings and emailed me a copy. Ah! … The memories.
Aging My Way
Laurie Lisle, in her memoir Word for Word said perhaps one of the reasons she wanted to be a reporter is because she could ask anyone about almost anything.
I remember responding to that question a few times in the same way. Of course, it went much deeper than that, with the most important thing being that I wanted to write, and I wanted to be read.
That’s why I blog. It’s why I wrote Travels with Maggie, why I am the staff writer for Story Circle Networks’ journal, and why, occasionally these days, I still submit articles to a variety of publications.
And if that isn’t enough, I fill a page or two in my personal journal most days.
I write because to not do so would be to not breath. I consider myself blessed to have found this passion in my life when I was 25. It happened about 2 a.m. in the morning when I couldn’t sleep, and for some unknown reason found myself getting up and writing about an incident that had moved me deeply the day before.
The only thing I had ever written before this were high school English assignments, which I didn’t particularly enjoy. But I had been, from the time I first learned the alphabet, a bookworm. I read every opportunity I got, from the words on a cereal box to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In my mind, writers were a breed so far above me that I couldn’t picture being among them.
In fact, it was a dozen or more years after I was supporting myself as a newspaper writer before I finally realized I was actually one of them. And even longer after that before I could actually call myself a writer.
It has now been 58 years since that devious writing bug infected me — and changed the whole trajectory of my life.
I’ve come to love that bug with all my heart. And I’m still writing and hope to be right up until the day I die.
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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“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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