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Super Bowl Morning

February 12, 2023 by Pat Bean

Antelope Island in 2002. The water level of Great Salt Lake has dropped significantly since then. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“It’s quiet, peaceful. My soul feels blessed,” I wrote in my journal on March 19, 2002. This was the winter that I visited Antelope Island in Utah’s Great Salt Lake at least once a week. My companion was usually only my canine companion Maggie — and I usually had the 42-square-mile island almost to myself, given that there was often snow on the ground.

It was a very busy winter for me. As city editor in charge of my Ogden newspaper’s coverage of the 2002 Winter Olympics, whose downhill ski events were all being held in the paper’s backyard, Antelope Island was my recall to sanity.

 I also thought of the lake and island as my personal Birding 101 Lab. It was here, with the help of birding field guides, I learned to identify ducks and swallows and shorebirds and songbirds all on my own. And I recorded it all in my journals.

The robin and meadowlark sharing a tree and seemingly trying to out-sing one another. The magpie stealing food from a golden eagle. A chukar sitting on a rock staring at me as I drove past. The rainbow of sparkling color on the starlings’ black feathers. The lone pair of Barrow’s goldeneyes among the flock of common goldeneyes. The pair of ravens that always seemed to appear near the curve in the six-mile causeway to the island.

And not just birds. There were bison, which sometimes blocked the road, and  prong-horn antelope that kept their distance, and the porcupine asleep in a tree, and especially the lone coyote that followed me across the causeway one morning.

Rereading my words from over 20 years ago, while sitting here over 800 miles away in Tucson on a cold, but sunny morning, drinking my cream-laced coffee, I smile. It’s a good way to start Superbowl Sunday.

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.

Posted in aging, Birds, Dogs, Journeys, Uncategorized | Tagged | 8 Comments »

The Red Bird

February 8, 2023 by Pat Bean

A quick painting of a Northern Cardinal I made in a sketchbook 10 years ago. I see I drew the leaves better than the bird, but I did capture the familiar bird’s flamboyance.

Aging My Way

Looking out my bedroom sliding glass door, I saw a red bird sitting on the fence, exactly where mourning doves sit almost daily, and where once in a while a Cooper’s Hawk perches, quickly frightening the doves to scatter.fla

One of the hawk’s favorite meals is smaller birds.

And that includes the Northern Cardinal, the male red bird that graced me with his presence as I drank my cream-laced coffee this morning. I suspected the less colorful female was nearby, but I see her far less often.

The cardinal is one of the birds I grew up with, for a long time knowing it only as the red bird. It’s now become one of the few birds whose voice I can recognize. Sometimes it sounds like cheer-cheer-cheer, other times like pre-tty, pre-tty, pre-tty. Since it doesn’t migrate from season to season, it’s always around, although it’s often called the winter bird.

Photographers and artists love to capture its brilliant red feathers against a snowy background, and Christmas cards abound with such images. Another example of this red bird’s popularity is that seven states – Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia – call it their state bird.

And it’s the mascot for Arizona’s NFL football team. I note this last because since I have now lived in Tucson for 10 years, it’s something I should know.

But what I like best about the cardinal is that it was my grandmother’s favorite bird. And seeing one always reminds me of her.

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.

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys | 2 Comments »

What I know at 83

February 1, 2023 by Pat Bean

Art by Pat Bean

“My mother always used to say: The older you get, the better you get – unless you’re a banana.” Betty White, as Rose in The Golden Girls.

Aging My Way

I’m about as far from perfect as you can get. Even so, I automatically resist following advice. The words “you should” have my brain saying “No” before the next words are spoken. Just ask my friends.

But having spent 83 years living a roller coaster life full of experiences and emotions, I have learned a few things along the way.  

Like not to waste time on excuses, but just to do whatever it is I should or want to do. OK, of course, I don’t always do it – but I know I should.  

Another thing I’ve learned over the years is to treasure my friends and family – and to take nothing personal because it almost always isn’t.

I’ve discovered that making decisions doesn’t have to be scary, because you can always change them. Wrong decisions and mistakes are how one grows. Or as Leonard Cohen said: “There are cracks in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”   

I’ve also finally figured out that you can’t learn anything when you’re the one talking. And at 83, I know how important it is to never stop learning or trying something new every day. Another hard lesson for me was to not regret or worry about the past, just try to live today the best way I know how.

But the best thing I’ve learned over the years is to wake up every morning counting my blessings. It always puts life’s little nags in perspective.

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.

Posted in aging, Art, Journeys | 14 Comments »

Forest Gump Point

January 31, 2023 by Pat Bean

Forest Gump Point — Monument Valley from Scenic Byway 163

“There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives.” — Josephine Hart  

You know how you see something, and your mind gets stuck on it, and then you keep seeing the same thing over and over again.

That happened to me this past month. It started when I read an Atlas Obscura story about Forest Gump Point. The story was accompanied by a photo which showed a scene I had passed by at least a dozen times and had even stopped to explore a few of those times.

The Point, illustrated in the article, is the view one gets when traveling the 64 miles of Scenic Highway163 through Arizona and Utah, 44 miles of which goes through Navajo Nation land and Monument Valley. I purposely took this route many times — simple because the magnificence of the views awed me.

The red-rock mesas, buttes and spires are the remnants of rock formations that were over 25-million years in the making, according to geologists. Some of these wonders can be seen in the background where Forest Gump stopped running.

But long before Tom Hanks portrayed Forest Gump in the 1994 movie, Monument Valley was a favorite of movie directors. Probably the most famous use of the spectacular scenery was in the 1939 film Stagecoach starring John Wayne. It can also be seen in movies like The Searchers, The Eiger Sanction and Easy Rider and has even been featured in the popular television series Dr. Who.

In recent weeks, I’ve seen images of the scenic valley more than half a dozen times. Each time made me want to take a road trip – enough so that I looked at a map and discovered that it’s only 462 miles away from my home in Tucson.

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.

Posted in aging, Favorite Places, Journeys, road trip, Travel | Tagged , | 1 Comment »

Today is Pooh’s Favorite Day, Mine Too

January 18, 2023 by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“Today is my favorite day,” said Winnie the Pooh.”

Well, since today, Jan. 18, is Winnie the Pooh Day, it’s a good day for him to say that. But I think this is how this loveable cartoon character begins every day.

          It’s a great way to look at life, and one I’m striving to adopt for 2023, even if I’m had to make a few recent changes in my lifestyle, like moving from a third-floor to a ground floor apartment and using a rollator if I’m going to walk more than half a block.

Pride, be damned, I would rather walk, which the rollator allows me to do pain-free, than be a couch potato. So, yes, today is a very good day.

But looking back — which is something you do a lot of when you’re 83 – I realize I’ve had thousands of great days, like the ones each of my five children were born, and the grands and the greats in the years following.

Then there was the day I walked into a newspaper newsroom, and truly felt at home for the first time in my life. It would continue to feel that way for the next 37 years. I was truly blessed for finding work and a career that made me happy.

I delighted in the days that I took grandkids on their first roller coaster rides. And how can I ever forget my first ride down a river through white-water rapids, something that would continue to give me unrestrained joy for the next 25 years.

And the days I bounced around in an open-to-the-sky Land Rover chasing African wildlife across Kenya and Tanzania with my forever friend Kim.

 And all the days I traveled around this country in a small RV with my canine companion Maggie. And the day my book, Travels with Maggie, came off the press.

They were all favorite days. As were all the days I spent birdwatching. Each was a favorite day, even if the birds were scarce.

And I’m thankful for all the friends I’ve made and the good times we’ve had since I settled in Tucson in 2013. I’m thankful for every one of those past days, and for those that I know are still ahead of me, too.  

So today, to echo Pooh, is my favorite day. And it will be my favorite day tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.

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.  

Posted in aging, Journeys | Tagged | 3 Comments »

And Why the Hell Not?

January 11, 2023 by Pat Bean

Jungle Aviary by Pat Bean — Sometimes my thoughts are as jumbled as this charcoal sketch

Aging My Way

“Frequently, while I’m reading, a sentence will grab me; and force me to stop and think. And then I reach for a special notebook where I record every Damn Fine Sentence that’s made me stop,” wrote Dawn Downey

When I read that statement, I immediately identified with the writer. This is me, I thought. I’m often copying down sentences that are examples of great writing, or sentences that make me stop and think, or ones that make me search out more information on a subject.

The truth is I’ve copied down a lot of what other writers have to say over the years; sometimes because the writing itself sings to me, sometimes because it makes me rethink ideas past their time, and sometimes just because I find the writer’s thoughts interesting or meaningful.

But I’ve usually written these things down in my daily journal, and then they get lost in the written jetsam and flotsam of an unorganized brain that hops around and around from one varied thought to another.

Dawn’s words, however, spurred me to consider keeping a similar journal to the one she wrote about. As I was mulling this idea over, I came across a sentence I had recently written down in my current journal, one that posed a simple question: “And why the hell not?”

It struck me that this was a sentence with a lot of strength in it. The outcome of all this dazzling brain work was that I did start my own Every-Damn Fine-Sentence Journal.

“And why the hell not?” became its first sentence.

This same sentence has gone on to become a mantra for me, one that reminds me to both make better use of my time, and as a dare to do something new or different.

I think it’s a damn fine sentence. 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, 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.

Posted in aging, Art, Journeys, Writing | 7 Comments »

The Quandary of Life and Work

January 9, 2023 by Pat Bean

Saw-Whet Owl — The silver lining of aging is that I have more time to observe birds and paint them. — Art by Pat Bean

As An Old Broad Sees It

I married young, had five children, then joined the work force a month before I turned 28. I was lucky. I fell into a job that I loved so much that I overlooked how hard I struggled to make it all come together as a working mom. I actually believed I could have it all. That makes me laugh now. Today’s women are wiser.

I joined the work force in 1967, long before the much-needed Me-Too Revolution took place. It was also a time in history when women, in large numbers, were finally speaking up for equal opportunities and equal rights and pay as men.

We women have come a long way since then. Just one example is that in the 1960s, women accounted for only 3 percent of the nation’s lawyers. Today that number is over 40 percent. Ruth Baden Ginsburg pointed out the growing numbers of female lawyers in her book My Own Words.

But on a more personal level, I see my granddaughters struggle with finding jobs that they enjoy, but also jobs that let them have a life outside of work. And they are not alone. Just this morning I came across two articles, one in the N.Y. Times, and one that just popped up because I was reading the Times piece. (Sometimes I think the computer gods know more about what I should want than I do.)

Wrote Roxane Gay in the Times article: “… People want something different, something more. They want more satisfaction or more money or more respect. They want to feel as if they’re making a difference. They want to feel valued or seen or heard. They want the man in the next cubicle to chew less loudly so they are afforded more peace … They want to have more time for themselves and interests beyond how they spend their professional lives. They want and want and want and worry that they will never receive the satisfaction they seek.

I’ve heard the same thoughts from my granddaughters.

These are thoughts this old broad, raised by parents who lived through the Great Depression, is only now beginning to hear. During my parents’ era, the main concern was simply for the man of the family to have a job, hopefully one that the family could survive on, never mind if he liked the job or not.

I remember hearing my father say, when my mother finally went to work after the children were all gone, “her salary only pays for what the IRS now charges me in taxes.” This wasn’t true but it salvaged his pride that his wife was working. She, actually, was a better provider than he had ever been.

Now retired, I have time to reflect on all the advances we women, and men, have made over the years. l think having a life outside of work is a worthy idea, especially, since as a journalist of my era, I met hundreds of people who hated their jobs but didn’t have the advantage of quitting, or so they thought.

If I hadn’t fallen into a job I loved, and which gave me all the satisfaction I needed, I could have been one of them.

Now, I’m just an old broad enjoying her retirement, and having time to look at the world a bit differently. I find this quandary of life and its many changes fascinating – but glad I’m not in the middle of the quandary. Being an old broad does have its silver linings.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, 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.

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Books, Journeys | Tagged , | 4 Comments »

When Ideas Collide

January 3, 2023 by Pat Bean

Sunflowers in a fish bowl? Now that’s a debateable idea. — art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

I’m reading My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom I’ve admired ever since hearing her answer to the question: How many women do you think should be on the Supreme Court? “Nine” was her reply, noting that nobody thought anything was wrong about having nine men on the court.

But although I admire her for that statement and looked at her as one of my feminine role models, I kind of disagree. If nothing else my 83 years on this planet has given me, I’ve learned that women and men think differently.

And in my opinion, as a former journalist, that’s not a bad thing. It provides a greater scope of possibilities for coming up with the best solutions to problems or situations. Or as the saying goes: “Two heads are better than one.”

My personal fight over the years has simply been one to have the same opportunities, and the same pay for the same work as men. And the opposite, as well.

And that brings me to Ruth’s tribute to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was often on the opposite side of an issue than Ruth. Even so, the two were best friends.

Wrote Ruth about this dichotomy: “I attack ideas, I don’t attack people. Some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can’t separate the two, you gotta get another day job.”

These words console me in my own life, because like so many other people these days, I have friends and loved ones on the opposite sides of the political polarization that has Americans at odds these days.

I think it couldn’t help but be a more pleasant world if more people thought like Ruth – and attacked ideas instead of people.

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, 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.

Posted in aging, Art, Books, journalism, Journeys | Tagged , | 6 Comments »

My Favorite 4-letter Word Begins with an S

December 23, 2022 by Pat Bean

If you looked in the mirror and saw this, you would say the S-word too. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

I moderate a small Story Circle Network writing forum, and often provide a writing prompt for the group, suggesting they write about it for 20 minutes.

A recent prompt was “Four-letter Words.’ I added that mine started with an S.

The prompt brought about the following email conversation, which made me smile. Maybe you will too.

Lucy:  I did write the prompt about 4 letter words, and I use the S one too.  Sometimes it best describes what I need it to.

Me: Just now answering email Lucy. I feel closer to you knowing you use the S-word too. For me it’s all about frustration. I started using it in the early days of computers – when the Mergenthal computer I used at work would eat my copy.

Vicky: The s* word rules. It’s so fluid and close to “O crap” enough that it serves when nothing else does! Shit, shet, shit!

Nancilynn: I’ll never forget hearing old Sister Pat, the Board Chair walk past my desk with a sheaf of papers as she uttered “Oh Shit” and not under her breath. It goes to show how a well- used phrase can imprint a memory on you!

Me: Someone once told me that you can say shit and still remain a lady if you pronounce it with a Texas accent and use three syllables. That was shortly after I moved to Utah from Texas. I still sometimes pronounce it sh-ie-et! Loving this conversation

Lucy: My mother never cursed or allowed us to.  One morning I was upstairs getting ready for school when I heard her downstairs let out a very loud SHIT!!  She immediately rushed up the stairs to tell me she was sorry and then showed me her burned hand.  We both laughed and the S word was from then on allowed, except when Grandma came over.

Nancilynn: Well, that just goes to show you.

So, what’s your favorite four-letter word?

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, 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.

Posted in aging, Art, Journeys, Writing | 2 Comments »

The Magic of Written Words

December 3, 2022 by Pat Bean

Written words meaningful to me often find their way even into my sketchbook. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

In the 1980s, I became a big fan of Dorothy Gilman’s books and many of the words spoken by her unlikely heroine Mrs. Pollifax, ended up in my journals. Her telling someone that we can’t live our lives the way we set a table especially spoke to me, because that was exactly how I was trying to live my life at that time.

While knives and forks may be arranged in perfect order, I was learning that it would be a cold day in hell before my life would work like that. Mrs. Pollifax helped me accept this, and was also a rung for me to hang on to as I passed through a messy season full of challenges, love, heartbreak, and almost too many changes to count.

While my life is more peaceful and calm these days, I still treasure the written word. Perhaps it is because I, too, am a writer. Whatever, I just know I’m thankful for the inspiration and enlightenment printed words have given me.

It seems as if for every emotion, every passage (Gail Sheehy’s Passages. 1976) I pass through, some writer had the same thoughts, the same emotions. Their words let me know I’m not alone. Which is why my journals are full of quotes that were meaningful to me.

The first quote I remember striking my fancy happened in high school when the class was studying Shakespeare. “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” Those words mean even more to me today than when I first wrote them down.

I’ve learned that certain writers touch my inner thoughts time and time again. Dorothy Gilman, John MacDonald, Robert Frost, Louise Penny, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Sandburg, Gloria Steinem, Mercedes Lackey, Edward Abby, John Irving, Rod McKuen, Jan Morris, even Hunter Thompson in my crazy moments. And so many, many more.

Once, during a period of insecurity, I came upon the words of Edna St. Vincent Millay that cheered me onward. “Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand. Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand,” she wrote. I didn’t read these words in a book by Millay, but rather in a biography of Margaret Mead, who had also found meaning in the quote.

Meanwhile, the words of Rod McKuen were, and still are, one of my favorite quotes. “Nobody’s perfect, and that’s one of the best things that can be said about man.”   

 Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, 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.

Posted in aging, Art, Books, Journeys, Writing | Tagged | 2 Comments »

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