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Between the Lines

            “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” – Charles Farmer

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Yesterday’s view from my balcony window. — Photo by Pat Bean

A Full Moon to Start my Day

I stood out on my balcony in my pajamas before dawn yesterday, where I was fully awakened by the morning’s crisp chill air, and wallowed in the beauty of a full moon.

Stepping back inside and grabbing my camera, I came out to capture its glow for future enjoyment. The picture, I decided, was flawed by the utility lines that marred the landscape.

Looking at this picture on my computer again this morning, I still didn’t like the lines that broke up the image. But then a thought struck me about how the photo was a symbol of how so many of us try to live our lives between the lines.

For the first half of my life that meant being perfect, an impossible goal. Thankfully, I’ve learned that not only was I never going to be perfect, deep down I knew I never wanted to be perfect. .

If I thought about it, and I did, the moon was just as awesome with the lines as it would be without them. And with that, one of my favorite quotes popped into my mind.

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen.

Suddenly, I didn’t mind those dookie utility lines as much.

Bean’s Pat: Back on the Possumhaw Trail http://tinyurl.com/bjuznlh You don’t have to be a flower to have beauty. I love Steven’s Blog because I learn the names of plants, and not always just flowers. His photos make even weeds look awesome, although in this case it’s a winter tree.

A Change in my Blogging Voice

One of the few pieces of art that I did while living in Gypsy Lee. I painted it during a 10-day stay at Zion National Park, which is one of my favorite places to visit.

One of the few pieces of art that I did while living in Gypsy Lee. I painted it during a 10-day stay at Zion National Park, which is one of my favorite places to visit.

      “…The whole part of a journal is to catch events on the wing.” May Sarton

From the Road to at least Temporary Roots

            My dookie beginning to 2013, thanks to the flu-crud and a broken foot, has slowed this wondering-wandering old broad down.

But I was slowing down even before that. Today marks the first day of the second month in which I traded life on the road in a 22-foot RV called Gypsy Lee for a 600-square foot apartment in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains.

A canyon wren that I saw, and painted, in Zion National Park.

A canyon wren that I saw, and painted, in Zion National Park.

I spent almost nine years in Gypsy Lee, which I realized is more time than I lived in any one home with roots in my life. These past years were the culmination of a lifetime of dreams, and I’m proud of myself that I made them come true. They were the ones in which I truly felt I was living the life I was supposed to lead.            I hope travel will continue to be a part of my life, well as soon as my foot heals and lets me once again handle the three flights of stairs up to my apartment. But for now I am enjoying my choice of a temporary home base.

And I can’t help but think that perhaps being slowed down for a while isn’t even going to turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Yes, I’m still a Pollyanna kind of girl who will never give up looking for that rainbow after the storm.

Zion, River Walk 2

My inspiration for my tree and canyon wall painting — Photo by Pat Bean

One of the silver linings to have magically appeared has been Betty Ann, a neighbor who now gives my energetic canine companion, Pepper, her daily four walks. She’s turned out to be a kindred soul, who shares my love of books, writing and animals. If not for her I would either have had to move in with my gracious, Tucson daughter, who is currently doing my laundry and shopping, or sent Pepper home with her until my foot healed. I wasn’t fond of either of those choices.

The second bit of silver is that my forced inside time has me once again dragging out my art supplies. I carried them around with me in Gypsy Lee, but except for a rare occasion they stayed packed away. Now I have room to keep them handy and hope to return to being artsy fartsy, as I call my amateur endeavors. I’m even going to be brave enough to start sharing them with you.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling my way as to what this blog will be all about in the coming year. The best I can tell you is it’s going to be eclectic and “my life on the wing.” Hopefully it will once again be daily as well. I think I have my blogging mojo back. But don’t hold your breath.

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Relax – Go with the flow http://tinyurl.com/abhdxpv Since I’m been doing this since breaking my foot, I liked this post for making me feel better about myself.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Love

            “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”

My first great-grandchild is just one of the many forms of love that fill my life. -- Photo by Baron Marsh

My first great-grandchild is just one of the many forms of love that fill my life. — Photo by Baron Marsh

I hungered 

            I grew up feeling unloved, not that I actually was, I now realize. It was just that my father was never around, and my mother was overburdened with taking care of my three younger brothers and her own mother while fretting over finances because her husband gambled away his pay checks.

I married young because I thought I had found the first person who ever loved me — and I was convinced no one else ever would. The love proved false, but I hung on far too many years because I still thought no one else would ever love me.  I left when even that alternative was better than what I had.

What happened after that is that I did find love. While not exactly the ever-lasting romantic love I had longed for, I discovered love had many forms. Family, friends, colleagues and love for my job and my life was love.

I consider my passion for writing, for birds, for life a fulfilling kind of love. Seeing my grandchildren grow up and have children of their own is love. The neighbor, like the one I have now who is keeping watch over me while I recuperate from a broken ankle, is an expression of love.

Love fills my world. I’m so glad I finally recognized it.

Bean’s Pat: An Elephant Can’t  http://anelephantcant.me/   This one’s for those who lived through the ‘60s. This is a fun blog I recently came across. Go back a bit and look for the cats.

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” — Albert Einstein

The Gold That Lies Beyond

This golden meadow beyond Chalk River reminded me of the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. -- Photo by Pat Bean

This golden meadow beyond Chalk River reminded me of the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Update on the  Sprained Ankle

The doctor had the audacity to laugh after skeptically agreeing my foot should be re-X-rayed.

“Oh you were right to trust your instincts,” he said, a big smile on your face.  “It is broken.”

She-ee-et was my response. My grandmother said if you could say the manure word using three syllables, you would remain a lady.

I wonder just how many times you can say it before the lady loses her standing, because I repeated the word quite a few times when he said that I would most likely be in a cast for eight weeks.

I want my life back, and so I’m trying hard to look beyond the next eight weeks.

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Winged Display http://tinyurl.com/a5u5esn Fantastic photo of a great horned owl. 

 

 

 

 

            “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” – Carl Jung

Just as this gorgeous great blue heron sits behind a bramble of thorny branches, I'm hoping for the silver lining behind my sprained ankle. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Just as this gorgeous great blue heron sits behind a bramble of thorny branches, I’m hoping for the silver lining behind my sprained ankle. — Photo by Pat Bean

  I Hate Whiners, and Now I Am One

My sprained ankle is not one bit better. In fact, I think it is worse, perhaps because of the three flights of stairs I have to go up and down daily to walk Pepper. I’m thinking of getting a dog walker for a few days in hopes if I let my foot rest, it will begin healing. When I’m on it for more than a few minutes it swells up like a grapefruit.

I did finally go to the doctor, and X-rays showed nothing broken. They gave me a gel brace to wear, which sometimes helps and sometimes doesn’t. Meanwhile I am not getting much writing done, mostly just my weekly three blogs for American Profile magazine in which I get to write about this country’s many sight-seeing opportunities. http://blogs.americanprofile.com/

I’m simply not one of those people who can work through a painful distraction, perhaps because I have been blessed to have had very few sick or painful days in my life.  Even now I feel ashamed for whining.

Perhaps this incident will help me more patient of those who do. I mean there’s got to be a silver lining somewhere. I’ve always found it before.

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat:  http://tinyurl.com/b5gdsy9 Angel’s Rest, where unwanted animals find sanctuary. If you’re ever in this awesome area of Southern Utah, you should drop by.

 

“The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experiences of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.”  — Moses Hadas

A Tree — and Just a Few of my Many Favorite Books

Simply a tree that grows in the front yard of my son, Lewis, who lies on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Simply a tree that grows in the front yard of my son, Lewis, who lives on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The Farseer Trilogies  by Robin Hobb

Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer

Road Fever by Tim Cahill

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Through Wolf’s Eyes by Jane Lindskold

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Arrows of the Queen and all the rest of the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey

The Deep Blue Good-Bye and the 20 other Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald

Anything by Agatha Christie

And Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Now, please share some of your favorite books.

Just a Photo

Wouldn’t you rather be fishing?

Taken through the underwater windows aboard the Seaworld Explorer off Cozumel.  -- Photo by Pat Bean

Taken through the underwater windows aboard the Seaworld Explorer off Cozumel.                                   — Photo by Pat Bean

Do you have a favorite underwater photo?

Life Lessons

     “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” Aldous Huxley

Don’t Believe Everything You Read

As a wet-behind-the-ears journalist, I learned not to believe everything I was told. The lesson came the first time I wrote about a stranded family in town with a dying child. The article I wrote poured money into their pockets. And then, after they had fled the area, I learned it was all a scam, one they had also pulled in a town the next daily newspaper away.

Will the real Regina Brett please stand up.

Will the real Regina Brett please stand up.

I was never taken in again because I learned the art of double checking, and double checking again. It’s a habit that’s proved more valuable than ever since the Internet came along.Now while I love the web, it’s not the purveyor of truth that a good, investigative reporter is. Anyone can say just about anything – and does.

That fact was jammed home to me this morning when I read a great blog by Soul Writings, which quoted 90-year-old Regina Brett, Plains Dealer newspaper columnist, about the lessons she had learned in life.

There were 42 of them, and I found every one of them to be great advice. The blog was accompanied by a photo of the 90-year-old Regina wearing large black spectacles. I loved the image of her wearing gaudy jewelry and bright colors.  I think old broads, perhaps because I am one, rock.

But something didn’t ring true in this old journalist’s head. So I started double-checking.

There really is a Regina Brett, I discovered, and she really is a columnist for the Plains Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio. But she’s nowhere near 90, although she really did write a column called Life’s Lesson. There were 45 of them, not just 42, however. And she recently updated the column to include 50, as that is the age she is turning.

You really can’t believe everything you read, you know.

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Soul Writings http://tinyurl.com/aoqzwen It’s still a
good column, but here’s the real one. http://tinyurl.com/yzl3szz .

            “Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.” – Brad Paisley

An American sunrise starts the day. -- Photo by Pat Bean

An American sunrise starts the day. — Photo by Pat Bean

Perhaps my next 364 Days will be Better   

I started the New Year off being sick. That statement is followed by the 4-letter S word that I tend to shout out when the computer crashes or Pepper eats my favorite slipper. I have a slight fever and a throat that feels like Darth Vader is sucking it dry.

Dookie, Dookie, Dookie!

Who out there has seen the movie “Sordid Lives?”  A very funny movie but it can also be offensive to some people. I don’t offend easily so I loved it. I wonder if I can find it on Netflix. I need to get my mind off my body.

OK. My brain is not working either. I can’t write two connected sentences. So it’s time to sign off and hit the bed again. Oh but I have to walk Pepper first. S!

 Bean’s Pat: Alex Autin http://tinyurl.com/bk24vkb Fantastic, “out-of-this-world” blog by one of my favorite bloggers. She helped me forget for a while that I was sick.

2012 in review

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” — Abraham Lincoln.

Happy New Year Everyone

I just want to say a big “Thank You” to my readers.  I’ve taken a break from blogging since Christmas as I have been making a big lifestyle change, one that will  be reflected, I’m sure, in the blogs I will post in 2013.

Pepper and I wish everyone a Happy New Year. This is Pepper the day I rescued her. She's a bit bigger today.

Pepper and I wish everyone a Happy New Year. This is Pepper the day I rescued her. She’s a bit bigger today.

Meanwhile, since this is New Year’s Eve, here are my resolutions for this blog in the coming year.Post five times a week. This is part of another resolution to not touch a computer one day a week. The other missing day is to get out in Mother Nature’s realm so I can continue telling you about her wonders.

Tell readers at least once a week about a book I’m enjoying reading.

Finish writing “Travels with Maggie,” so I can go on to a new writing project that I can share with you.

Keep you updated on Pepper, the lively Scottie-mix canine that I’ve lived with for the past eight months who has stolen my heart.

Continue providing a link to another daily blog that I’ve enjoyed,

I also commit to responding to everyone who makes a comment on my blog, and hope that in the coming year I will get to know many of you better.

Thanks to all of you for making this a great blogging year for me. Now here’s what WordPress had to say about Pat Bean’s Blog.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 48,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 11 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.