I recently went to a dark place in my life for the first time. It came about because of pain and the drugs I was taking to rid myself of it. The drugs really didn’t help, and for the first time in my life I lost my belief that a silver lining was just around the corner.
The darkness in my life only lasted two weeks before a loving granddaughter and her wife helped pick me up and put me on a new path. While not everything is perfect now, I’m back to believing in silver linings and managing to both conquer and live with some pain.
And I awoke this morning with a heart full of thankfulness for the 83 years of life that I lived pain free — and that I didn’t waste those days.
I’m also thankful this morning for my morning coffee, the overcast day outside my window, a visiting friend, the soft bed I slept in last night, children who have helped and encouraged me, my faithful canine companion Scamp, the hummingbird at my bird feeder outside my window, and so very much more.
It feels good to start the day with thankfulness – and my cream laced coffee. It now tops my daily to-do list.
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 learning to age gracefully.
A Sandhill Crane family at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge
I just started reading The Birds of Heaven by Peter Matthiessen. The birds he refers to are cranes, of which there are 15 species, 11 of which are considered threatened or endangered. While the book was published in 2001, nothing seems to have changed much since then.
I have seen three of the crane species: Whooping and Sandhill cranes found in North America and the Grey-Crowned Crane, which I saw in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater.
Where I live here in Tucson, Sandhill Cranes can easily be seen. They gather at a place just two hours away from me at a place called Whitewater Draw, where they spend the winters. I’m also seen Sandhill Cranes in Texas and in Utah, where I was privileged to see them conduct their mating dance. And I once had several fly overhead just a few feet above me. It was magical.
The Grey-Crowned Crane sighting in Africa was a one-time thing but I’ve been privileged to see Whooping Cranes twice on the Texas Gulf Coast, where they winter. The first sighting was at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and the second was from a boat out of Port Aransas.
It was in Port Aransas that I met George Archibald, who wrote the forward in Matthiessen’s book. George is the co-founder of the International Crane Foundation and is considered the Quixote of craniacs. I attended a workshop of his in which he entered wearing a crane outfit, which we learned he used in raising crane chicks so they would not become used to humans before being released in the wild.
I can’t help but think I’m going to enjoy reading The Birds of Heaven. Cranes are magnificent birds.
Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion. 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 learning to age gracefully.
I recently came across the phrase, “…that good book you read for the journey and not the ending,” which sent my mind scurrying in two directions
The first thought related to my memories of the many books I have read in which I couldn’t wait to get to the end to find out how everything turned out, and that includes most of the mystery books I have read over my lifetime. And then there were the books that I never wanted to end. Usually those were ones that made me think and opened new doors in my brain.
The second place my mind scurried to was about bird watching, which I didn’t become addicted to until I was 60. Before one fateful 1999 April day, I was seldom aware of the bird life around me, even though all my life I’ve been an avid nature lover. After that day I couldn’t not see birds everywhere and wondered how I had missed them.
And since that April day, I have also faithfully kept a bird list of all the birds I have seen. It’s a common habit among bird watchers.
The thoughts that crystalized while I was reading Neil Hayward’s book, Lost Among the Birders, included the two kinds of birders I’ve come across while bird watching. The vast majority were birders who enjoyed the journey, but I’ve also met a few birders who were more interested in adding a new bird to their list then again watching common birds like house sparrows and their antics.
While I sort of pity the latter, I realize it’s a personal choice and just as valuable to them, as my choice is to me. Perhaps they pity me,
Because time has become so precious to me in my 8th decade on planet earth, I’m carefully weighing my choices these days. The years have shown me that almost all choices – except those that do harm to someone – are right ones. We just have to find what works best for ourselves, and hopefully come to respect the different choices others make.
I’ve also learned that if you make a bad choice, you can always reverse your direction. That little bit of wisdom comes from all the wrong choices I have made in life.
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 learning to age gracefully.
Passing scenery while floating down the Black River in Jamaica, just one of the many places my wanderlust has taken me. — Photo by Pat Bean
The older I get the more I realize that it’s not the big events in one’s life that give meaning to our lives, but the small ones. Hugs from a great-grandchild can be as precious as a pay raise at work, or getting down on one’s knees and closely observing draba blossoms that sparkle in the morning dew as delightful as floating unscathed through a Colorado River roaring rapid at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
That’s not to say I would have wanted to miss a pay raise, or those Grand Canyon rapids, but those things are not everyday occurrences and their excitement wanes, especially when you’re 83, the milestone birthday I passed this year.
I came across a quote this morning that got me thinking. It was: “Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.” With a bit of online research, I learned the quote could most likely be attributed to the prolific English author Kathy Hopkins, but then I also learned there is also a book by Gary Wood with the title Don’t Wait for Your Ship to Come In … Swim out to Meet it.”
When I went back in my own memory, the quote reminded me of what my grandmother would tell me when I expressed a want for something. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to wait for your ship to come in because we don’t have the money for that foolishness,” she would say.
Of course, that never sat well with me. Perhaps that is why, when I suddenly found myself in a new place where I knew nobody, and nobody knew me, I decided I wouldn’t wait for the world to come to my door.
What I truly wanted was to be doing exciting things in the outdoors. But activities like that, well at least the way I was brought up, were always associated with having a male partner by your side. That was also the way it was in one of my favorite books, I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson, which I read when I was only 10, and which was the start of my lifelong wanderlust.
One of the biggest steps in my life was buying a canoe –, something I considered a man toy — and then inviting others to go canoeing with me.
From that simple step, I then bought a raft, a sailboat and a few other man-toys, and there were always people excited to join me in my outings, especially women who admitted they would never have gotten out on their own.
I think swimming out to meet your ship is a very good idea.
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
It’s not wise do deny dragons exist when you live near one. — Art by Pat Bean
It’s been exactly a month and two days since I spent most of a day in a hospital emergency room because of atomic leg pain. It seems like a zillion years, because the pain is still coming and going daily.
I’m back to the doctor this Thursday to ask for painkillers, for the first time in my life, and thinking he better give me something strong. I don’t think all these new rules because of people abusing pain-killing drugs should apply to an 83-year-old in pain.
Meanwhile, I’m struggling to end each day by having done at least one thing to give me a sense of accomplishment, a trait that this old broad Type A personality still requires in her life.
When I was younger, the daily goals might be climbing a mountain, writing a story that topped the front page of the newspaper I worked for, or building a small picket fence to finish enclosing the backyard of my new home.
Today’s goals are much simpler. I get pleasure out of writing a long snail letter to a friend, painting a watercolor, cooking a tasty dinner for my granddaughter and her wife, getting together with friends, daily moderating my online writer’s chat group, journaling and reading, posting a new blog, or simply sitting still and watching the sunset as I try and connect the dots in my life.
All these things, many of which I didn’t have time for when younger, do make my life still very enjoyable and rich. So even though I’m sniveling now, don’t feel sorry for me.
But since my leg pain began, it’s been a struggle to end my days with that needed sense of accomplishment.
One of the changes forced on me because of my damn leg pain has been a move to a ground-floor apartment because I can no longer continue to walk my canine companion Scamp up and down three flights of stairs four times a day. This has been my fool-proof exercise plan for the past 10 years, and I’ve stubbornly refused to give it up. Now I have no choice.
Thankfully, I found a nearby place, with trees and an enclosed area for Scamp. This move, which will take place this coming weekend, has prompted me to set a goal of packing up at least two boxes of my belongings every day. Accomplishing this gives me a sense of rightness at the end of the day, even if I haven’t done anything else except play computer games, which keep me from thinking about my leg.
While life isn’t perfect, I’m still committed to ending each day feeling like I’ve accomplished something – and always with gratitude for my family and friends who have been here for me during this difficult time.
I wish every old broad is this world could be as blessed.
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.
Great horned owlets hanging in during a storm. — Photo by Pat Bean
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been spending an extra amount of time hanging out on my living room third-floor balcony, where I always see hummingbirds and often great horned owls during the day and a spectacular sunset almost every evening.
The views have become especially precious since I know I will be leaving them behind when I move to a new place mid-August. We humans are quite funny in that we tend to value more what we don’t have than what we do have. And that certainly includes more than just a pleasant view.
My new place offers me things I need, like a fenced patio for my dog, and it does have trees and birds and brilliant red and orange desert bird of paradise plants which make me happy. So, I will be receiving new gifts for my eyes, for which I’m thankful.
But in the meantime, I’m enjoying my tree-house view with more appreciation, knowing that I’m going to be leaving it behind. The attention I’ve given it let me take the owl photo above of this year’s great-horned owl siblings. During the 10 years I’ve spent in my apartment here, I’ve watched newly fledged owls learn their way around for seven.
I’ve also listened to their parents courting hoots early on in the year, but these more mature birds are more aloof and don’t hang around in full view as often as their young – who haven’t yet learned that man is the most dangerous beast on earth.
The favorite roosting spot of this year’s owlets is a tall Ponderosa Pine that stands in perfect view of my balcony They are a brother and sister, easily told apart because the female is quite a bit bigger than the male, a trait of just about all predator birds.
Recently I watched the pair during a rain and wind storm, one strong enough that it crashed down another large Ponderosa Pine here. As I watched the owlets, the female actually seemed to hover over her brother as they stood high on a large branch right next to the tree trunk as smaller limbs and tree needles tossed to and fro around them. This was when I took the photo.
Last year, there were three owlets adjusting to the world here in Tucson’s Catalina Foothills. Their favorite hangout was usually the rooftops, and I usually only saw them when walking my canine companion, Scamp.
But for days and days, one of them spent many hours in what sounded like literal crying. It was quite an unpleasant screech. I suspect that it began after their parents stopped feeding them because it was time for them to be off on their own.
Shortly after this happens, the new crop of owls disappear, and the courting songs begin again soon after.
I feel quite blessed to have had the past years with these owls. But it’s time for me to move on and start making new memories to cherish. I can do that, too.
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.
Nothing like a day spent at a hospital emergency room after being woke up at 3 a.m. with crippling leg pain to set you on a path of new beginnings. I swear it was worse than childbirth, and I have five children.
Thankfully, it wasn’t a blood clot, or something else life-threatening. After tests, it turned out to be related to the back pain I’ve been fighting for a few years – just on an atomic bomb level.
It clearly called, however, for a major change in my life, one family members have been pestering me to take for a few years now, a move to a ground-floor apartment. I know I’ve been a stubborn bitch for not heeding their advice, but I loved my apartment, and I wasn’t interested in a change, even if it meant continuing to walk my dog up and down three flights of stairs four or five times a day, not to mention laundry and errand trips.
I’ve been calling it my fool-proof exercise plan. But dang-it, the plan was no longer working.
So, while recovering this week at home, with family and friends taking on my dog-walking duties, I came across a quote by Stephanie Raffelock, which I found in her book, “A Delightful Little Book on Aging.”
“We should all take a little more time to cry and wail, allowing tears to baptize us into fresh starts,” she wrote.
Well, I certainly did that Friday. I wailed and sniveled practically all day about my horrid, bad, no-good dilemma. Then on the weekend, I begin online searches for a new apartment. It wasn’t looking good, until my granddaughter Shanna and her wife Dawn, remembered a small nearby apartment complex that they had looked at for themselves a few months ago.
Its office was closed until Monday, but with them carefully ushering me down the stairs, we drove by to take a look at the apartment that was for listed to rent on their web site. It was just about 10 minutes away, a location near the top of my priority list because I wanted to stay in Tucson’s Catalina Foothills, which I’ve come to love since moving to Arizona in 2013.
While I still haven’t looked at the inside, I immediately fell in love with the soon-to-be-vacated outside’s large, fenced-in patio that had doors leading to it from both the bedroom and living areas. It would be perfect for simply letting my canine companion Scamp in and out, an amenity that topped my list of must haves, given that I’m 83 and my back pain is likely to recur.
The clincher for me was the huge tree growing in the middle of the patio. You should know that I once bought a house almost solely because I fell in love with its huge backyard tree.
The new neighborhood is older but nice, and the small apartment complex grounds abounded with flowers and greenery. And within minutes I was looking at birds, including nesting doves above the office door. I can already envision a small fountain and bird feeders beneath that patio tree.
All of the above gave me the confidence that I can meld the inside to fit my needs. Age has let me know that no one can ever simply have everything they want, but it looks like I will have all I need for a happy life.
I cinched the deal Monday and will be moving in around the middle of August. I’m so excited about this new beginning that I’m not even thinking about all the tasks involved in a move. Not yet anyway.
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.
Viewing Niagara Falls from the bow of the Maid of the Mist
In The Beautiful Mystery, book eight of Louise Penny’s Inspector Garmache series, one of the homicide investigators is sitting at the bow of a boat as it speeds across the water, reveling in the spray of water peppering his face.
The writing reminded me of all the times in my life that I, too, have claimed the bow of a boat.
My first experiences were simply sitting up front as someone else drove a motorboat around a lake. Then I discovered white-water rafting when I was 40. From the first, I wanted to be up front.
Never was I happier than facing an oncoming wild wave with only a paddle to defend myself. If I plunged the paddle just right into the oncoming torrent, I would both be able to help pull the raft through the onslaught and be held firmly in the raft.
Misjudge, and the wave would eat you and not so gently toss you around in a maelstrom of fast-running water and currents. If you were lucky, it would finally let your life jacket float you to the life-giving air above. I lost the wave battle a few times during my white-water days – but I was lucky.
Why would somebody do something so stupid, you might ask? I think, back then, I might have said because it’s fun, exhilarating. Thinking on it now, I know it was more than that. I don’t consider myself brave, as my ski instructors well knew from my fear of pointing my skis downhill. I don’t try to beat red lights and these days I always hold on to railings when I walk up or down stairs.
But I think each of us might need just a little something to let us know we’re truly alive. For me, it was sitting up front in a boat and being drenched with spray, or as close to that as I could get.
I also remember a time when I scrambled my way through a crowd of tourists to grab a front-row view on the Maid of Mist for a water-drenching view at the bottom of Niagara Falls. The ferry, which has operated since the mid 1800s, takes passengers quite close to the falls. I got so drenched that the blue plastic poncho handed to me as I boarded the boat was totally useless. But the exhilaration lasted for hours – as did my wet jeans.
Louise Penny’s words brought back all those magical memories so clearly that I suspect she might have sat at the bow of a boat a time or two herself.
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.
Even the chairs are bigger in Texas. Me, Savannah and Charlotte. — Photo by David Bean
I grew up being properly indoctrinated to the belief, according to my beloved grandmother, that if you weren’t born in Texas, you didn’t deserve to be. That way of thinking was not challenged for the first 30 years of my life – not until I moved out of the state and was perceived to be that obnoxious, loudmouth girl from Texas who didn’t know how to speak properly –right on all accounts.
I dropped the y’all,s and fixing tos, and sure things, until I no longer sound Texan, although, every once in a while, a person with an educated ear picks up on it. Or I become a bragging blabbermouth, just one more Lone Star trait I inherited.
But it’s hard to dig up one’s roots when they grow deep, as mine do. There’s a part of me that is proud of being a Texan, just as I’m proud of being an American, though politics and history’s lies have tarnished my Pollyannish image of both in my later years.
I recently spent three weeks in Texas, where much of my family lives, and came away with a few observations that let me know I could have been nowhere else. For one, I rarely got out of sight of huge, side-by-side red, white and blue flags, one representing America, and the other Texas.
Pickup trucks, boots, cowboy hats, cattle and country western music abounded. Pumping oil rigs and summer wildflowers (courtesy of Lady Bird Johnson’s encouragement to dump flower seeds along highways) were common sights as I drove around.
Among the people I visited on my rounds were my third-oldest grandchild David and his wife Sheila, who are the parents of my two great-granddaughters seven-year-old Savannah and five-year-old Charlotte. They had recently returned from a trip to Disney World, where David said they attended a show in which the emcee asked how many in the audience were from a different country.
“Savannah raised her hand and shouted out, ‘Texas,’” David told me.
And she never even got to know my grandmother.
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.
Smart phones and bugs are not on my favorable list. — Art by Pat Bean
Sometimes I fling myself into the future and hug technology close to my bosom, afraid I’ll be left behind or miss something if I don’t take that step forward. And sometimes I stubbornly balk and cling to old ways.
As a writer, I fell in love with computers quickly. It just took me realizing how much easier they were to use when I needed to correct mistakes or rethink a sentence. Instead of having to start over, or use a product called Wite-Out tape or liquid to conceal the errors, all I had to do was push a button labeled delete.
While I was far from expert at dealing with computer quirks – and there were and are many – my best friend is a techie. And there are backup geeks when my own logic fails me. In my own way, I understand computers. We get along.
Yet, when it comes to smart phones, I seem to have a phobia. I didn’t even come into the cell phone age until my work demanded I get one – and they paid for it. From the very first, those danged things have felt like a ball and chain.
It was with great reluctance that I finally joined the age of smart phones – and the danged thing has plagued me ever since. If it is not one thing going wrong with it, it’s another. A phantom is always turning the sound to mute, I hit the dismiss button when I mean to answer a call, or things go wrong that I don’t understand.
But my recent three-week road trip to Texas did finally give this stubborn, balky old broad a sudden appreciation for it.
Lost in Austin, after my outdated Garmin GPS gave up the ghost, I was forced to use my phone – for the very first time — for directions. I hate to admit it, but the danged “smartie” saved my bacon. I got to my Story Circle Network board meeting on time. And it later guided me through San Antonio, which I believe must have the worst traffic in the world, and then though Houston and Dallas.
Now if I can just figure out how to make it give me notifications for when I receive a text message, I’ll apologize for all the times I’ve cussed it out. Maybe…
Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.
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“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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