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Happy Hippy Advice

July 6, 2025 by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“The mind is its own place, and in it self can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.” — William Henry Hudson, from Paradise Lost

I follow a group called Happy Hippies on Face Book, which posts things old broad octogenarians like me can relate to. For example, I came across this one this morning: Don’t mess with me. I’m a wooden spoon, lead paint, no car seat, no bike helmet, pickup bed riding, garden hose drinking survivor.

Yup! That’s me.

And then there was this Happy Hippy post that I came across a while back. It described me so well that I copied it down in my journal: “Maybe the happy ending is that you fall in love with your life, eat your favorite foods, admire sunrises and sunsets, pick up the book you’ve been meaning to finish, dance to your favorite songs, buy yourself flowers and bring your mind back to how truly blessed you are,”

I think what it comes down to, as William Henry Hudson said, is choosing joy, no matter what is going on in your life — or whatever is going on around you. That’s wise advice for these times.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Art | Tagged , | 6 Comments »

A Wondering-Wanderer Memory

July 4, 2025 by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

”Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw.

Fourteen years ago, I was driving along the Columbia River on the Washington side. I know this because of a photo I took, and which was dropped into my email as a memory.

I get these reminders daily – and they delight me. Many of these photos are similar in nature to the one above of the Selah Cliffs information sign near Yakima, where I took a hike on an interpretive loop, and a bit beyond with my canine companion Maggie.

I looked for, and found the basalt daisy that grows only in this area, and where other plants find it hard to survive. According to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, the Selah Cliffs is situated in one of the driest parts of the state, in a landscape of bedrock and talus formed from the approximately 12-million-year-old Pomona basalt flow. This basalt lava flow traveled from west-central Idaho to the Pacific Ocean about 373 miles, making it the longest known lava flow on earth.

As a wondering wanderer who now is mostly nesting, the memory of this day from my past enriched my present day, as good memories always do.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Travel, Writing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

Beauty and Birds: Look Around You

June 19, 2025 by Pat Bean

Add Tucson’s Agua Calliente Park, where I saw this green heron, to the list of places to visit for beauty and birds. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” – Confucius

Aging My Way

During the nine years I was traveling around America in a small RV with my canine companion Maggie, I was often asked what place I liked best. The question always had me stumbling for an answer. To name just one and leave out all the rest of Nature and man’s wonders just seemed wrong.

Everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, I went had its own kind of beauty. This was brought home to me at an overcrowded El Paso RV Park where I was parked on a cement slab with large RV rigs hooked up six feet away to both my right and left.

I was bemoaning the fact that I had been stuck here because nothing greener was close enough to reach before dark.  And then I happened to glance outside my RV window.

Strutting across the cement was a California Quail with six young chicks following her. The sight made me rethink my idea of beauty, especially since one goal of my RVing years was to see as many species of birds as I could.

Meanwhile, here are a few other special places I’ve visited that have impressed me in one way or another – and where I got a new bird for my life list.  

Maine: Acadia National Park, where one can stand on the top of Cadillac Mountain and be the first person in the United States to have the sun touch their face. I saw a black-billed cuckoo here.

New Hampshire: Flume Gorge, for an unforgettable hike and birds like an ovenbird and a black-throated blue warbler.

Oregon: Brandon National Wildlife Refuge, where my bird list grew by a pelagic cormorant, black turnstone and a whimbrel.  

Utah: Zion National Park, a longtime special place for me, and where I saw a California condor flying overhead. These birds were brought back from the edge of extinction and I wrote about their recovery several times.

Texas: Brazos Bend State Park, even if an alligator sometimes required me to detour off a favorite hiking trail. It was here where I saw my first pileated woodpecker, a close look-alike of the extinct ivory-billed woodpecker.

And I could easily list another 100 sites without much thought. Look around you. Beauty is everywhere.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Birds, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Tucson Points of Interest | 2 Comments »

An Old Broad’s Ponderings

June 11, 2025 by Pat Bean

“We are necessarily influenced by those who have come before us.” – Elizabeth Strout, Tell Me Everything.

Aging My Way

The above sentence stood out to me like a yellow sunflower growing among rose bushes. Perhaps because I’ve come to realize how much I’ve been influenced by people and things that have gone before me.

Like all of life, some of the people and things I’ve experienced have been positive influences toward my becoming a better person — and some of my life’s experiences would have been better going straight into the garbage.

Now, at 86, I have this egotistical belief that I can mostly tell the difference. But then my still-with-it brain laughs at myself for even thinking such a thought. Rarely a day goes by that I don’t realize I still have much to learn. Morning chats with a granddaughter assures me of this.

But I have been fortunate enough over the years to have been exposed to a wide view of the world. First, because I read a bit of everything, including polarized versions of the same events; and second, because I was a journalist for 37 years during which time I saw both good and bad. 

Now, as I read the news and try to relate to the world from an old-broad’s point of view, I worry for young people who are denied such exposure because of such things as banned books, religious isolation and histories written by the victors.

Unless one sticks one’s head in the sand — which by the way ostriches do not do — one can’t help but wonder about the things young minds are being filled with today.  

Will these children be influenced by what their parents and friends and politicians say and believe all their lives, or will they begin to draw their own conclusions at some point? It’s something an 86-year-old with eight great-grandchildren ponders from time to time.

Meanwhile, I just hope my grandchildren all just grow up to be kind, regardless of what they believe. But then that’s my hope for all of us.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

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

That’s How the Cookie Crumbles

May 31, 2025 by Pat Bean

Old age means you don’t have to set your alarm clock anymore. — Art by Pat Bean

After 30, a body has a mind of its own. – Bette Midler

Aging My Way

As a 30-year-old editor, I would have changed that to read: After 30, a mind has a body of its own. But as an 86-year-old editor, the only change I would make to Bette’s quote would be to change 30 to 70.

Accurate, or not by medical standards, my body and my mind felt most alive and healthy when I was between the ages of 40 and 60, perhaps because those were the years when I was most active – both physically and mentally. I was quite a late bloomer in all departments.

My body continued to mostly behave itself until I hit my 70s. By the 80s, however, all I can say about my body is it’s in the toilet, which makes me want to repeat, at least a dozen times, my favorite word: Shit!

But life goes on. That’s how the cookie crumbles.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

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

For the Love of a Tree

May 29, 2025 by Pat Bean

Trees have long been a subject of my art. I’m a tree hugger.

Aging My Way

“Over the past twelve years I have learned that a tree needs space to grow, that coyotes sing down by the creek in January, that I can drive a nail into oak only when it is green, that bees know more about making honey than I do, that love can become sadness, and that there are more questions than answers.”—Sue Hubbell, A Country Year: Living the Questions.

These words in the opening of Sue’s book, not only made me want to read more of her words, but also made me question what I have learned the past 438 days. That’s how long since I suffered a major heart attack. Although thanks to modern medicine, a good cardiologist and three stents later, I am in much better health than I was before, it was still a life-changing event.

The biggest thing I learned was that I didn’t fancy at all being taken care of. I acted, sometimes still do, like a two-year-old stamping her feet and saying: “I can do it myself.”

The second thing I learned is that I’m loved, because loved ones have been with me every step of the past 438 days. No one could be more blessed than this, and despite my continued feet stomping I am beyond thankful.

This said, Sue’s words resonated with me in another way. It’s about the tree.

Since I moved into my current apartment almost three years ago, the cottonwood tree in my small patio yard has grown more majestic. As I stared at it this morning, I wondered if my love for it had been the fertilizer because nothing else has changed.

But now, because of its spreading roots, which are destroying my gate and fence, I may lose it. Just the thought brings wetness to my eyes. Sue nailed it when she said love can become sadness.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

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

Life is Like That

May 16, 2025 by Pat Bean

Life is also full of birds if you just look. I didn’t start looking until I was 60. — Art by Pat Bean

“If you are too careful, you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.” — Gertrude Stein

That’s exactly what happened to me this morning when I opened a new bag of coffee and poured it into a canister.

I always get a few grounds scattered about when I do this, but was determined it wasn’t going to happen this time.

Yup! You guessed it. I didn’t spill a few grounds; I spilled about half a cup of them.

Life is like that the years have taught me. So, after cleaning up the mess, I did the only logical thing to do. I laughed at myself.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Art, Birds | 3 Comments »

Two Mornings

May 14, 2025 by Pat Bean

Yellow warblers sometimes visit my small yard. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“Old age is something only the lucky get to do.”

I was surprised on a recent morning to realize I was sitting in my small patio yard – doing nothing. I had gone out to sit in a cool breeze and watch birds as I drank my morning cream-laced coffee.

But the wind was not gentle, typical for Tucson, and the birds had gone into sheltered hiding somewhere. Their absence barely resonated with me, until I finally realized how comfortable and peaceful I was just sitting there, a state of mind that is fairly new to me.

But I guess that is what happens when one is an 86-year-old broad. In my younger years there was a time I was so impatient to get from one place to another that I ran instead of walked. And my mind was always racing.

This morning when I sat outside with my coffee, birds were twittering all over the place. Amy Tan’s The Backyard Bird Chronicles, which I’m currently reading – and enjoying – inspired me to go inside and get a notebook and start my own chronicles. While my small patio yard doesn’t compare to Tan’s bird haven, I do have a tall cottonwood and two tall oleander bushes in it, plus a couple of bird feeders and one for hummingbird nectar.

As I watched and listened, house sparrows, verdins, lesser goldfinches, house finches, mourning and white-winged doves, Europeans starlings and a spotted grosbeak made their presence known. The bonus was a rose-breasted grosbeak that as far as I know was a first to visit my backyard.

I enjoyed this morning, too, — but not more I think then I did the one in which I simply sat quietly, with only my mind wandering about. It has never stopped racing.

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Books, Journeys, Writing | Tagged , | 5 Comments »

It’s Too Early Scamp!

April 2, 2025 by Pat Bean

Scamp: What do you mean we can’t go for a walk at sunrise?

Aging My Way

“Old age is not so bad when you consider the alternative.” —Maurice Chevalier

I’ve always been a morning person, but things are changing. Instead of popping up out of bed bright and cheery and ready to tackle the world as I have done almost all my life, I stumble out of bed with a stiff achy body of an 85-year-old. Perhaps that is because I am 85 (86 in just a couple of weeks) and have the arthritis to prove it.

It takes a while for my body to warm up for the day ahead, something I keep trying to tell my canine companion Scamp, who is ready for a walk as soon as the sun creeps into our bedroom.

I’ve told him that I’m an old broad and suggested that all he needed the first thing in the morning was a quick pee, and that I would take him for a longer walk a little later, like 10 a.m.

He readily agreed to the quick pee, but still grumbles a bit about waiting until 10, preferring a nice long 9 a.m. walk. So, I compromised. We now usually get out for that good walk around 9:30 a.m., which gives my body time to slowly enjoy a bowl of oatmeal, which is good for my cholesterol, and two cups of coffee, which is good for my heart.

 You think about these things when you’re 85.

And if you’re lucky, you’ll have a companion like my Scamp to talk it over with.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Dogs, Journeys | Leave a Comment »

The Rabbit Hole of Web Surfing

March 27, 2025 by Pat Bean

A beach in South Goa — Image from a Goan government travel brochure

Aging My Way

It all started with a word I had never heard before: Vindaloo. From how the word was used in the sentence I was reading in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, I determined vindaloo was some kind of food, as the book’s protagonist was heating it up in a microwave for dinner.

But what kind of food, I wondered, and thus begin my journey down the internet rabbit hole, a place I visit almost daily. My surfing told me that vindaloo is a spicy Indian curry. To be more exact, a Goan curry dish, according to Wikipedia.

So, what is Goan, my curious brain asked – and Wikipedia answered: Goan is the demonym used to describe the people native to Goa, India.

So, where is Goa? India’s Southwestern Coast, and additionally it is the country’s smallest state.

And since I’m into travel, even if it’s just from an armchair, I spent a bit of time researching Goa. The Indian state is nicknamed the Pearl of the Orient and its motto, according to the Goan government, is: “May everyone see goodness, may none suffer any pain.” I like that.

Among the other trivia tidbits I learned along the way is that vindaloo is based on a Portuguese dish called vinha d’alhos, which caused my rambling brain to remember that my great-great grandfather was a Portuguese sailor who jumped ship on America’s East Coast.

And with that, I jumped out of the rabbit hole and got back to my day’s activities, which a little bit later found me reading Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, in which he encourages writers like me to stop procrastinating and write. And as if Steven had been peeking at me through a window, he wrote: “Resistance mounts to a pitch that becomes unendurable. At this point vices sink in. Dope, adultery, web surfing…

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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