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2018 Thanksgiving

November 21, 2018 by Pat Bean

{‘m thankful for rainbows. — Photo by Pat Bean 

This is my annual 100 things I am thankful for list, in no particular order. I wake up every day with gratitude in my heart, and you should know that this list is far from complete. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, so to say, but thinking about my blessings keep me sane in today’s chaotic world.

1, That I can laugh at myself

2, Soft flannel pajamas.

3, A snail-mail letter

  1. The view of the Catalina Mountains’ from my third-floor apartment.

    I’m thankful for a white-winged dove on top of a blooming saguaro. — Photo by Pat Bean

  2. The smell of the Sonoran Desert after a rainstorm.
  3. Sweet kisses from Pepper, my canine companion.
  4. That my back this year is not hurting like it was last Thanksgiving.
  5. The 29 stair steps that I go up and down at least a half dozen times a day because they help keep this soon-to-be-80-year-old-broad moving.
  6. That I finally have time to sit a bit and simply think, to connect all the dots of my life together so that there is meaning.
  7. Advil
  8. Good friends who know me – and still like me.
  9. Authors who write the books I love to read.
  10. Sunrises and sunsets.
  11. The great horned owls that are residents of my apartment complex.
  12. Road trips.
  13. My new 10-inch Kindle to watch TV and movies on.
  14. Art.
  15. That my book, Travels with Maggie, was finally published.
  16. The hummingbirds that scrabble at my nectar feeder.
  17. My Tucson daughter’s washing machine and dryer.
  18. Recently discovered old family photos
  19. That I have good, if barely affordable, health insurance.
  20. My 37-year journalism career that ended in 2004.

    I’m thankful for my canine companion Pepper. — Photo by Pat Bean

  21. My joy in learning new things.
  22. The unending support of My Story Circle Network writing colleagues.
  23. Readers of my blog.
  24. That I remember way more of the good things of my life than the bad.
  25. A good pair of comfortable shoes.
  26. Hot baths.
  27. That I can almost always find a silver lining when shit happens.
  28. Good blank journals to fill with my daily thoughts.
  29. Jean and Dusty, my apartment complex loving and supportive friend and her dog, who is my dog’s best friend.
  30. The Internet, which quickly helps answer most of my many curious questions.
  31. Hugs.
  32. The readers who reviewed Travels with Maggie.
  33. Trees and their shade on a hot Tucson day.
  34. Butterflies.,
  35. Board and card games.
  36. Ice Cream.
  37. That life still holds surprises,
  38. A good pen.
  39. Air conditioning.
  40. A good cup of cream-laced coffee to start my days.
  41. Wildflowers.
  42. Bright colors that radiate cheerfulness.
  43. Wolves that have returned to Yellowstone.
  44. Smiles and belly laughs.
  45. A comfortable bed and soft blankets.
  46. Skin moisturizers.
  47. The Writer2Writer online forum I moderate for Story Circle members.
  48. Interesting and meaningful conversations with pleasant people.
  49. My dabbling with watercolor painting.
  50. British mysteries, both books and TV shows.
  51. Sitting on my balcony and watching a summer storm as it waters the desert.
  52. National and state parks.
  53. Rainbows.
  54. Staying up until 2 a.m. with an old friend and reliving good times.
  55. The magic moment between night and dawn when the world is all shades of gray.

    I’m thankful for dandelions and butterflies. — Photo by Pat Bean

  56. Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park, which is my most special place in the whole world.
  57. Landscaped gardens with the work all done by someone else.
  58. Museums.
  59. A gurgling stream to sit by and simply enjoy.
  60. Electricity.
  61. Audible books.
  62. Old, gnarly live oak trees.
  63. Honking geese.
  64. Clean water to drink. Not everybody has it.
  65. The right to vote, and drive, and be independent, which all women in the world should have.
  66. That there’s enough undeveloped land nearby so that I occasionally hear coyotes howl at night.
  67. My GPS, which I only have had for the past four years – and maps, which I still use.
  68. A good haircut, both for myself and my dog Pepper.
  69. Happy hour on my balcony with a good friend and a Jack and Coke.
  70. My favorite stainless-steel cooking pot.
  71. Mexican food.
  72. Being called Nana by grandkids and great-grandkids.
  73. That I finally like myself.
  74. The black ravens that perch on the red tile roof and are visible when I sit at my bedroom desk.
  75. Scented candles.
  76. My computer.
  77. Funky earrings.
  78. Tucson’s offering of live community playhouses.
  79. Making a new friend.
  80. Bra-less days, which get more numerous with each passing year.
  81. Jean’s chocolate chip cookies.
  82. Memories of my mother and grandmother.
  83. Fireworks that light up a night sky.
  84. Hiking trails – short ones these days,
  85. Nature, travel and wildlife photographers who brings the beauty of the world to my living room.
  86. My daily walks with my dog Pepper.
  87. Tucson’s late falls, winters, and early springs, when the weather is almost always perfect.
  88. Old friends and family members who visit me in Tucson.

    I’m thankful for good friends.

  89. A dependable car and that I am comfortable driving.
  90. An occasional manicure and pedicure.
  91. Facebook, because I get to see photos of distant family.
  92. A comfortable recliner and good lamp to read by.
  93. Full-moon nights.
  94. The New York Times, which I read every morning.
  95. My easy-to-use digital camera that takes great photos.
  96. The public library.
  97. And last, but certainly not least, each and every member of my large family who give meaning to my life and make me feel loved. At latest count, my family includes five children and their spouses, 15 grandchildren and their spouses or partners, and six great-grandchildren (soon to be seven). I am indeed blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!   

 

 

Posted in Journeys | Tagged | 10 Comments »

Howling with Wolves

November 19, 2018 by Pat Bean

“…on a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over the rimrocks, sit quietly and listen for a wolf to howl, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it – a vast pulsing harmony – its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.” – From Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac.

There is something of magic in a wolf’s howl that speaks to my soul. — Wikimedia photo

A Moment to Remember

My fascination with wolves began at a young age, triggered when I read for the first time, but not the last, Jack London’s “Call of the Wild.” I discovered the book when I about eight years old among my late grandfather’s book collection.

Down through the years I read many more books that encouraged this love affair, including “Never Cry Wolf,” that details the summer the author spent observing wild wolves in the Arctic tundra. I longed see one of these wild creatures outside of a zoo. But given the way we humans had been eradicating these animals for decades, it was a miracle I doubted would ever happen. Then it did, in 2005.

I was traveling in Yellowstone with my youngest son. We had stopped at an overlook to check out an unkindness of ravens in some trees, as were other visitors to the park. Or so we thought. We finally noticed that humans and birds alike were focused on something moving on the far side of the small pond below. When I saw it was a wolf, I was almost afraid to breathe. Here was nature at its purest.

One of the wolves at Wolf Park in Battle Ground, Indiana.

The overlook placed the wolf center stage while the morning sun, just capping a ridge to our east, spotlighted it.  The wolf ignored our presence until a small dog, left in a vehicle by its owner, began yapping. Only then did the wolf tilt its head in our direction. It clearly knew we pitiful humans were watching.  The barking dog, as if feeling the heat from that glance, became silent, and the wolf again continued its ground-covering stride.  Through my birding telescope I could almost count the hairs on the wolf’s back.

In comparison to seeing a wolf in the wild, which I would rate 20-plus on a 10-point scale, Wolf Park in Battle Ground, Indiana, was a mere 10.

I arrived at the park just in time for an afternoon guided tour of the 75-acre grounds. While much more than a zoo, the wolves here were not free and only half wild. Wolf Park is a research facility, created to allow researchers to make closer observations of these animals than would be possible in the wild.

While the wolves are kept in large enclosures that encourage them to form, and live, in packs as they would in the wild, they have been conditioned to human contact to facilitate researchers. This begins when they are only a couple of weeks old, at which time they are removed from their wolf mothers and given to human mothers to continue raising. At about four months old, the cubs are returned to their packs.

A tour guide explained all this as he walked us around the park. His spiel included a genealogy of the pack affiliations, and stories about the personalities of each of the park’s 24 wolves. I was fascinated.

The pack I would late howl with was led by Tristan.  As wolves do in the wild, he had gained his position by asserting his dominance over higher-ranking wolves. This pack in-fighting, unless death of an animal seems imminent, is not interfered with by the park staff. Fights for the alpha female role, our guide said, tended to be more vicious than those of the male wolves, probably because the right to breed belongs only to the female alpha.        ,

I returned to the park later that night for the weekly Friday Night Howl, and found myself sitting on bleachers in front of a large fenced enclosure. A couple of staff members entered the compound and were greeted enthusiastically by the wolves, much as my daughter’s Great Dane, Tara, greets me. She is extremely loving, but if I’m not careful of my stance, she could easily bowl me over.

With the greeting between humans and animals completed, the staffers talked a bit about the work at the park, and then invited us to start howling to encourage the wolves’ response. I found the howling a bit weird at first. I didn’t sound at all like a wolf. Tristan seemed to agree – and looked at us humans as if we were missing our brains. But just then, somewhere in the background, one of the wolves from a different pack howled.  Tristan answered the wild night song. Other members of his pack quickly joined him. The chorus of human and wolf howls went on for a while, but at some point, I stopped howling and simply listened, feeling a freedom in my soul that I find hard to describe. It’s a writer’s block that actually gives me pleasure.

When I began my human, screechy imitation of a wolf’s howls again, Tristan gave me a disdainful stare. Then, never taking his eyes from mine, he decided to take pity on this mere human and howled with me. Shivers of delight rolled up my spine. It is a moment I will never forget.

Now available on Amazon

The above essay is a short piece from my book Travels with Maggie, which — to toot my own horn – would make a great Christmas gift for travel enthusiasts, especially RVers. You can get it on Amazon.

            Bean Pat: Window into the woods https://awindowintothewoods.com/2018/11/19/really/#like-11871 Brave little chickadee.

            Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Currently, she is writing a book, she is calling Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

Posted in Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Travel, Travels With Maggie | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

One-Gallus

November 16, 2018 by Pat Bean

When I’m watching birds, like this common yellowthroat, I forget all about one-gallus creatures. — Watercolor by Pat Bean

 

“If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.” Richard Dawkins

Wishful Thinking

I recently came across the word one-gallus while rereading Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac. I had no idea what it meant, so I looked up the meaning. When I found it, I laughed out loud.  Leopold had called people who didn’t respect wildlife “low-class, ignorant and backward.”

I used to read with a dictionary beside me, but these days it’s my Kindle because it gives me quick access to the internet. I love this modern highway of information, although like almost every change in life, it comes with a dark side – those one-gallus creatures who use it maliciously.

Does the good in life always have to be countered with a dark side? This is a question I ask myself often. I would like the answer to be no, but the longer I live on this planet the more saddened I become that my wished-for answer is never going to come to pass.

And this brings me to one of my favorite quotes: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Or in my case, asking the same thing over and over and expecting a different answer.

I did get a different answer, however, when I went online to double-check the name of the author of the quote. It’s usually attributed to Albert Einstein, but now someone is saying it might have been Benjamin Franklin, or Mark Twain, or none of the above.

If made me think that perhaps nothing is set in concrete, and that perhaps there is still a chance, slight though it will be, that we can eliminate the word one-gallus from the dictionary.

But I suspect this is simply wishful thinking.

            Bean Pat: Bluebirds to cheer your day https://pinolaphoto.com/2018/11/16/a-bluebird-day-at-the-celery-bog/  A photo blog that makes me happy

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, she is calling Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

Posted in Art, Birds, Journeys | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

Logic Has Nothing to Do with It

November 3, 2018 by Pat Bean

Logically, this should have something to do with my post — but it doesn’t. It’s simply my latest watercolor, which I was doing as a workbook exercise.

“Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn’t. It ain’t. That’s logic.” – Lewis Carroll

A Page from My Journals

July 14, 1996, “At one time in my life, I sought logic in everything. Now I know better.” – Pat Bean

And this is simply a quick sketch I did of a great blue heron. I think I gave the bird an attitude. Is that logical?

I collect quotes, 99 percent of them from people who better put into words my own thoughts. Occasionally, however, I surprise myself and find the exact words to perfectly express what I think. Like the one I recorded in my journal, and which I’m sure came to me in a flash of insight because of something in my then life.

I kind of stole the last half of the quote from Maya Angelou, who is quoted many times in my journals. “When you know better, you do better,” she wrote. This thought always soothed me when I thought of the many mistakes I had made my life.

But to get back to the matter of logic, and my own words. I was already in my 50s, when I wrote the quote in my book on that 1996 summer day. It stands alone as the only words I wrote for this date. And as I reread it this morning, my first thought was how come it took me so long to reach such a painfully clear conclusion,.

The next thought had me wondering, what was the event that prompted me to come to that conclusion.

The answer to the first is easy. I truly am a very late bloomer – even though I precede the baby boomers.

I have no answer for the second, but I suspect I’m going to lose a few hours of sleep for the next few days pondering the answer, which will probably still elude me.

And that’s not logical at all.

Bean Pat: To be or not to be. https://interestingliterature.com/2018/11/03/a-short-analysis-of-shakespeares-to-be-or-not-to-be-soliloquy-from-hamlet/   I found this to be quite interesting, especially since I was thinking about popular quotes when I read it.

Blog pick of the day.

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, she is calling Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

Posted in Art, Journeys, Uncategorized | Tagged | 4 Comments »

Winklepickers

October 26, 2018 by Pat Bean

These flowers aren’t periwinkles, but their color is about the right hue. — Art by Pat Bean

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go.” — Dr. Seuss
The Word Stumped Me

I was reading Eric Brown’s Murder Takes a Turn, which is set in England shortly after the end of World War II, when I came across the word winklepickers. I love British mysteries set in this era, before DNA and other scientific methods changed the tone of modern-day crime solving; and I love reading books that teach me something and introduce me to new words.

They call these shoes Winklepickers. But they’re more of a cobalt blue than periwinkle blue, don’t you think?

Wunklepickers was one of these, and stopped me in my reading tracks. My Kindle was on the table beside me, so I used it to look up a definition of the word, and discovered that it is a boot or shoe with a pointed toe that became popular with British rock and roll fans in the 1950s.

The name is related to periwinkle snails, which I had also never heard of, but which are a popular snack across the ocean. The only periwinkle I’m familiar with is a five-petaled flower that is mostly purple or blue. Periwinkle is also a watercolor hue that I sometimes use.

The shoe moniker, however, refers to the sharp-pointed object that is needed by snail eaters to extract the soft snail flesh from the shell.

But then perhaps you already knew this. I asked my friend Jean this morning, when she dropped off her canine friend Dusty for me to watch while she went to work, if she had heard of winklepickers. She immediately thought of the snails, but then she’s a chef and spent many years working in Europe.

Stores are still selling winklepickers today, I discovered when I went online to research the word – but I think I’ll stick to my tennies. I’m sure they are way more comfortable.

Now available on Amazon

Bean Pat: A fall walk https://pinolaphoto.com/2018/10/26/a-fall-walk-through-the-miami-whitewater-forest/?wref=pil Enjoy. I did.

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, she is calling Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

Posted in Art, Books, Journeys | Tagged , | 8 Comments »

Aldo Leopold Got Me Thinking

October 24, 2018 by Pat Bean

The “Big Tree” on Texas’s Goose Island is one of the world’s largest live oak trees. It was considered to be Texas’ largest until a bigger one was found in Brazoria County, where I lived for 15 years. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.” – Aldo Leopold

About Trees…and Life

I’m rereading Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, a thoughtful philosopher and naturalist who wrote about the environment. It’s well worth rereading, and I do so every few years.

A first edition cover of Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

Aldo wrote that he loved all trees, but that he was in love with pines. I also love all trees so naturally his words got me asking myself what was my favorite tree. It only took me a second to conclude that it was a live oak.

While it can’t compare to the giant redwoods, it does get mighty big. If it lives long enough, its winding, crooked branches can be wider than the trees height. It stays green in winter, and I often see it with graceful lengths of moss hanging from its limbs.

I lived on the Texas Gulf Coast in 1961, when Hurricane Carla came roaring through. It was two weeks after it struck before we evacuees were allowed back to our homes. Fortunately, ours, inland a bit in the town of Lake Jackson, only had a few roof shingles missing.

What was missing, however, was all of the moss from the live oak trees. The hurricane blew the moss off all the trees, taking with it the landscapes southern charm.          Now, here are a few more of Aldo Leopold’s quotes that make me think:

           “Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays.”
The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: ‘What good is it?”

  “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.” — said Aldo Leopold, about his book.

Sand County Almanac, which has had many printings, was first published in 1949, a year after Leopold’s death at the age of 61.

          Bean Pat: Books of the 1970s https://lithub.com/a-century-of-reading-the-10-books-that-defined-the-1970s/

Now available on Amazon

Of the top 10, I had read seven, and many of the others as well. What about you?

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, she is calling Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

Posted in Books, Journeys | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments »

A Flawed Sense of Direction

October 22, 2018 by Pat Bean

Evidently, as usual, I took a wrong turn somewhere. — Photo by Pat Bean

“I think what is interesting in life is all the cracks and all the flaws and all the moments that are not perfect.” — Clemence Poesy

My GPS Has It Too

I have no sense of direction. Without a familiar mountain that never moves within my sight, I will almost always turn in the opposite direction of my desired destination.

For 25 years, I got around Ogden, Utah quite well because the magnificent Wasatch Mountains never moved/ They always stood tall and proud to the east. — Photo by Pat Bean

My usual method for getting to where I want to go when I’m driving, and the one I used for the nine years in which I traveled this country full time in a small RV, is to study a map before I head out, and carefully create a written cheat sheet of where to turn right or left.

The last few years, however, I have learned to use a GPS that a thoughtful daughter gave me. But it and I don’t always communicate well.

For example, I took a friend to the airport last week at o-dark-hundred. I knew the way to the airport but used my GPS because my night vision is no longer great, and the device tells me the names of streets coming up.

As usual, because, as I said,  the GPS and I don’t communicate well, the device wanted to take me to the airport on a route different from the way I wanted to go. As a result, because I thought the street the GPS wanted me to turn on was before the street I wanted to turn on, but it was after, I passed it by. OK. I’ll just follow the darn GPS directions, I decided. That would have been just fine if the GPS hadn’t told me to turn right when it should have said turn left.

 

These days, I live in the shadow of the Catalina Mountains, which when I’m in Tucson never move from their northern position. Above is a sunrise view from my bedroom balcony. — Photo by Pat Bean

Thankfully, after a couple more wrong turns, I got my friend to the airport on time. That’s because I always give myself plenty of time to get lost when I’m going somewhere – even when I have a GPS.

And there’s even a silver lining behind my flawed sense of direction. I’ve gotten to see a lot more of this beautiful country because of my many unintentional detours.

Bean Pat:  Garden of Verse https://argumentativeoldgit.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/for-love-of-unforgotten-times-a-childs-garden-of-verses-by-robert-louis-stevenson/  I, too, read Robert Louis Stevenson as a child.

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, tentatively titled Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

Posted in Journeys, Travel | Tagged | 2 Comments »

Laughter

October 14, 2018 by Pat Bean

            “A Day without laughter is a day wasted.” – Charlie Chaplin

These flowers and butterfly I saw at the Botanical Gardens in Phoenix didn’t make me laugh, but they certainly put a smile on my face. — Photo by Pat Bean

Giggling is Good for the Soul

The more I live on this planet, the more I enjoy, and am thankful for, anyone and anything that makes me laugh. I’ve even begun recording things that bring a smile to my face in my journals so I can smile a second time down the road a bit.

But my friend, Kris, who always makes me laugh, brought a big smile to my face as turned into a butterfly during our visit to the gardens. — Photo by Pat Bean

As I do so, I’ve begun noticing that the kind of things that make me laugh the loudest – belly laughing I call it — are more likely to be things that have me laughing at myself.

For example, the quote: “Writer’s block is only a problem for those who can afford it.”  This made me laugh because while I occasionally suffer from writer’s block these days, I never once had it before I retired when I wrote for a living.

I laugh at the who-walked-into-a- bar jokes that one son is always telling me, and the knock-knock jokes a young grandson has discovered, or the corny jokes told in a melodrama a friend and I recently saw here in Tucson at the Gaslight Theater. It was called “The Vampire” and the show had me giggling throughout the night.

Meanwhile, I’ve also come to notice that I’m not laughing at the late-night comedians – you know who they are — who mock people and what’s going on in the world today. For one thing, I don’t consider this kind of material something to laugh about.

For another, it seems like such rhetoric is a kind of bullying, certainly not the kind of laughter that will help a polarized nation come together, encourage people to practice kindness or set good examples to young people who make fun of or bully any kid who is different.

Am I alone in feeling this way? I really want to know.

Bean Pat: Another Unscheduled Interruption: Michael   https://1writeway.com/2018/10/10/another-unscheduled-interruption-hurricanemichael/#like-19323  Hope we learn what happened next.

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, tentatively titled Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

Posted in Journeys | Tagged | 1 Comment »

Autumn Back Roads

October 8, 2018 by Pat Bean

A 2015 road trip to the north rim of the Grand Canyon to see aspens in the fall. — Photo by Pat Bean

“You can’t travel the back roads very long without discovering a multitude of gentle people doing good for others with no expectation of gain or recognition.  The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.: — Charles Kuralt. 

A fall hike in Maine’s Scarborough Marsh. — Photo by Pat Bean

A Break from the Chaos

Fall along Texas’ Gulf Coast. — Photo by Pat Bean

I don’t know about you, but I need a break from hearing people being unkind and downright nasty to each other. I’m tired of people who are rudely unaccepting of anyone or anything that is different from them or theirs.

I don’t expect everyone to think the way I think, or the way you think, but that doesn’t mean we can’t at least be civil to one another. Being different or thinking different is not a crime.

I think I need to take a back road road trip to remind me of all the good people in this world. And what better time of year to do it than in autumn, when Mother Nature showers the vistas with color.

Anyone want to join me?

Colorado’s Cumbres Pass in the autumn. — Photo by Pat Bean

Bean Pat: Breezes at  Dawn https://breezesatdawn.wordpress.com/2018/10/08/a-monday-meander-surprise-adventures/ Another blogger who likes to wander.

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, tentatively titled Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

Fall at Idaho’s Lake Walcott State Park. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

 

Posted in Journeys, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments »

Life is Not a Table Setting

October 4, 2018 by Pat Bean

 

Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Polifax in the 1999 TV movie The Unexpected Mrs. Polifax. Other actors have also played this character, but Angela is how I always pictured the character when I read Dorothy Gilman’s books.Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us. – Boris Pasternak

The Write Words

One of my favorite authors back when I was trying to figure out life, which of course I still am, was Dorothy Gilman and her Mrs. Polifax series. For those of you who haven’t read any of the books, Mrs. Emily Polifax is a white-haired widow who adored hats, had a brown belt in karate and worked for the CIA as a spy.

Life”s surprises are a gift, like a butterfly that unexpectedly appears. — Art by Pat Besn.

What I liked about Gilman’s heroine was that no matter how difficult a situation she found herself in, she was always hopeful she would find a surprising way out of her difficulties.

Reading back journals, I discovered I often used the character’s dialog as quotes. The gist of the one I remember best is that life is not like setting a table where everything can be placed exactly like you want. I thought about this on reading this month’s prompt from my online writing circle, which is:  Write about a journey you’ve been on where you got sidetracked and ended up with a much more fulfilling outcome.

My second thought was: just my whole life.  

            Dreams I had of how my life would go – to quote one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings – went to hell in a handbasket. Other dreams turned out better than I could ever have imagined, even though they bumped forward on a rocky path with many detours along the way.

Looking back, I’m glad life didn’t go the way I had planned. It wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting.

Bean Pat:  https://lithub.com/alice-walker-on-writing-dancing-and-bursting-into-song/  I  loved this.

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, tentatively titled Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

Posted in Art, Journeys, The Write Words, Writing | Tagged , , | 3 Comments »

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