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Posts Tagged ‘wondering’

A Past Day Without Politics or Covid

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Journeys, tagged , , on November 6, 2020| 5 Comments »

Rest stop after a wandering-wondering day without stress. — Photo by Pat Bean

          “Not all those who wander are lost.” J.R.R. Tolkien

A Page From My Journal

          It was my 22nd day on the road in a slow meandering adventure from Idaho, where I had spent the summer, to Nashville, Indiana, where I had stopped for two days while Mother Nature weeped her blessings.

          It was still drizzling when I began the day’s journey to North Bend Ohio, about 100 miles away. This was my preferred daily mileage as it allowed me start my day leisurely with cream-laced coffee, do some writing, and then take my dog, Pepper, for a long walk before we got on the road in our RV, Gypsy Lee.

           The first town we passed was a tiny one called Gnaw Bone. Why, I wondered, would somebody name a town Gnaw Bone?

          Perhaps they didn’t. It was originally a French settlement called Narbonne, which we Americans might have mistranslated as Gnaw Bone.

          But the question filled my head with nonsense for a while as I traveled down several Indiana backroads. Usually I have these to myself, but not today.

           The narrow tree-lined roads I had chosen were not untraveled roads.  I had plenty of vehicular company, including a lavender semi that passed me in a swirl of blowing autumn leaves. Now I’ve seen purple semis but never a lavender one before.

          Was a man or woman driving? I hadn’t been able to look because the large truck passed me on a curve, and I had wisely kept my eyes on the road.  

          And then I found myself quoting out loud to Pepper: “I never saw a purple cow. I never hope to see one. But I would rather see, than be one.”

          It was just that kind of day.

          Then a few miles farther down the road, there was a green farm truck with a rear sticker asking: “Who is John Galt?”

          It started my brain thinking about Ayn Rand’s book, Atlas Shrugged, and from there to how we seem to live our lives at either end of a pendulum swing.

          And so. this wandering-wondering day went, with my brain circuits traveling ever so much faster than Gypsy Lee.

Pat Bean is a retired 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, and is always searching for life’s silver lining.   

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Monday Morning Wondering

Posted in Books, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , , on July 15, 2013| 6 Comments »

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” – Richard Wright

            “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows:  he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” — Vita Sackville-West

This is the view of the Catalina Mountains from my third-floor bedroom balcony. The sliver of rock between the two larger humps is called finger rock. I've adopted it as a finger pointing at me, asking: "So have you met your writing goal today." -- Photo by Pat Bean

This is the view of the Catalina Mountains from my third-floor bedroom balcony. The sliver of rock between the two larger humps is called finger rock. I’ve adopted it as a finger pointing at me, asking: “So have you met your writing goal today?” — Photo by Pat Bean

Is it Good Enough?

            I’ve been a writer for half a century, although I didn’t call myself one for many years. It seems to be a failing with writers. Many of us think that unless we’ve written a best-selling book, we’re just a piddler of words.

I recently met such a person, a retired history professor who read a chapter of his book in progress. He started it by saying “I’m not a writer.” But he was. His words were richer and more readable than those of many a published author. I later told him he was a writer, and should call himself just that

The place where I spend many hours a week. Sometimes I simply open the shutters and gaze out the windows, wondering. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The place where I spend many hours a week. Sometimes I simply open the shutters and gaze out the windows, wondering. — Photo by Pat Bean

Yet, even as I accept that my book, “Travels with Maggie”  — which  is undergoing a final editing — contains some of my best work,  this Monday morning I found  myself asking: “Is it good enough” – good enough to throw out to the public and risk it not being good enough?

Perhaps I’m still thinking about the words contained in a blog I read this past week: “The fine line between creativity and crap.”

Why do writers have such a hard time admitting they are writers when asked their occupations?  What’s the proper usage of passed and past? Do I write my book in first or third person? Will what I write offend a loved one? What will someone think if they read my journals and learn my true feelings? Why can’t I find an agent for my book, is it not good enough?

The questions are endless, and writers seem to have too many of them rattling around in their heads, like a poisonous snake coiled and ready to kill their ability to write. Some call it writer’s block.

I’m learning to call it simply wondering.

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Lime Bird Writers http://tinyurl.com/nv7mrs6  One of the writing blogs I follow regularly. This day’s  blog offers some market opportunities.

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A Wondering Day for this Wanderer

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Books, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on October 12, 2012| 8 Comments »

            “It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” – Mark Twain

Adventures with Pepper: Day 22

I didn’t wonder at all about this willow tree. I just enjoyed how it gracefully hung over the pond at the Indian Springs Campground near North Bend, Ohio. — Photo by Pat Bean

Today’s drive, mostly on Highway 50, was a wondering one for this wanderer.

The first city I passed through, a tiny town called Gnaw Bone that had lots of flea markets, got me wondering how a town got to be named Gnaw Bone.

Perhaps it wasn’t.

I learned that the area was originally a French settlement called Narbonne, which English settlers might have mistranslated as Gnaw Bone.

I didn’t stop at any of the flea markets, just in case you wondered.  No room in Gypsy Lee for stuff.

It was an overcast drizzly day, and although 50 was certainly a backroad, it wasn’t untraveled. My brain wasn’t untraveled either. My thoughts were all over the place.

Just as a storm of leaves blew across the highway east of North Vernon, a lavender semi drove through them. Now I’ve seen purple semis but never a lavender one. It left me wondering about the driver. Man or woman? I couldn’t tell as the large vehicle passed me on a curve.

But then I found myself wondering why one of these geese on the pond wasn’t like the others. — Photo by Pat Bean

And then I found myself quoting out loud to my canine traveling companion, Pepper. “I never saw a purple cow. I never hope to see one. But I would rather see, than be one.”

Well, OK. It was just that kind of day.

And then there was the old green truck with a rear sticker that asked: “Who is John Galt?” That question got me thinking about how life is lived at either end of the pendulum. I read Ayn Rand’s book, “Atlas Shrugged” at a pivotal time in my life, and got a lot from it. It wouldn’t mean the same thing to me these days.

And so the day went until I finally pulled into the Indian Springs Campground near North Bend, Ohio.

Then I spent the evening wondering which side of the Ohio River I was going to travel down tomorrow. Tune in Monday to find out..

Book Report: I was up before 6 a.m. to work on it, but most of the time was spent unraveling the back roads I took from Brimfield, Massachusetts, to Monroe, New York. But I got it done. Travels with Maggie is now up to 55,617 words.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Live to Write http://tinyurl.com/9efoarz Tarzan or Jane? A fun question to make you think. My answer is Jane, because she got to experience two worlds.

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Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Dogs, Journeys, Travel, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on August 17, 2012| 13 Comments »

Hello World – Again

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” – Ray Bradbury.

Discovering My Voice as a Wondering/Wandering Old Broad 

This is an illustration that Laura Hulka helped me come up with for my Bean’s Pat, my way of paying back all the reader awards my blog has received. What do you think? Is it a go?

This is my 645th blog since I started my WordPress blogging journey with a blog called “Hello World” in November of 2009. I was taking that Gotham travel writing class I mentioned in my last two blogs, and the instructor said I needed to have a blog.

That first year, I blogged about 10 times a month, mostly about the places I had visited as a full-time RV-er.  Then in 2011, WordPress began its post-a-day challenge and I accepted. I’m so glad I did. .

Writing daily has given me the voice that the first draft of my travel book needed, improved both my writing and thinking skills, and garnered me worldwide friends.

At first I tried to disguise that I was an old broad when writing my blog, which was the same thing I did in the first draft of my book, “Travels with Maggie.” Maggie, as many of my readers know, was my canine traveling companion for eight years. She died earlier this year, and now I travel with an energetic, fun-loving Scottie mix named Pepper.

Don’t forget to smell all the flowers and be amazed at all the butterflies you come across. — Photo by Pat Bean

Recently, as I continued blogging and struggling with the rewrite of my travel book, I realized that being an old broad was one of the best things I had going for me. It set me apart from all those young travel writers out there in search of love. It’s not that I have anything against such a search. I certainly did my share of that. But that’s not me today. The person I am today, and which is my voice, is that of a wondering/wandering old broad.  It’s exactly what I do and who I am.

I wonder a lot about things but seldom have answers to the questions. The only advice you’ll ever get from me is to live in the moment and take time to smell as many of life’s flowers as you can.

I wonder if I would have ever recognized my true self without my daily blogging?

Book Report: Good rewriting morning. Travels with Maggie is now up to 35,726 words

Bean’s Pat:  Baroness Trumpington http://tinyurl.com/br6r7p2 Not a blog but a newspaper story about a great old broad I admire. I think society underrates us old pussies, as Agatha Christie called Miss Marple and others of such an age.

 

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OK: Let’s Get a Bit Scientific

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 23, 2012| 16 Comments »

 “Read, every day something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.” – Christopher Morley

200 million years are missing from this landscape. — Photo by Pat Bean

Unconformity Along Route 66

It’s amazing how much you can learn from stopping to read roadside markers. I rarely pass one by, usually only because it’s on the wrong sign of a busy highway, and I value my life more than my curiosity.

It’s amazing what one can learn from roadside markers. — Photo by Pat Bean

That was no problem during my recent loop through the Petrified Forest National Park, where I’m not sure I even saw a dozen other cars.

The educational marker shown here notes that the basalt cap on the top layer of the cliffs was deposited five to eight million years ago. The lower valley layer, however, was deposited about 225 million years ago. What happened to the 200 million years in between?

The scientist have only guesses.

During the 1990s, I saw similar unconformities in the landscape in the Grand Canyon, when I rafted the Colorado River through it. There was a fun discussion around the campfire later that night about the missing landscape.

But just like the scientists, we rafters could only speculate. Meanwhile, this wandering old broad is left in her familiar state of wondering.

Bean’s Pat: Don’t Follow the Lights http://tinyurl.com/7avfh7v I’ve gotta visit Marfa, Texas – so I can wonder some more.

*This award is this wandering/wondering old broad’s way of bringing attention to a blog I enjoyed – and thought perhaps my readers might, too.

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