Pat Bertram

Gardening is certainly a strange avocation. What has happened year after year isn’t guaranteed to happen again this year, and what has never happened isn’t guaranteed to continue never happening. This year, a few years after the seeds had been planted, hollyhocks suddenly decided to grow. Why? I don’t know. Snapdragons survived the winter intact, and at a time when they should just be getting…

Daily writing promptDo you believe in minimalism?View all responses I’m not sure I believe in minimalism. I mean, I know it’s a “thing,” so I believe in its reality. I just don’t know how important it is as a universal lifestyle. Nor do I think it’s something I want to believe in for myself. Minimalism, by definition, is a philosophy centered on living intentionally with only what is essential.…

There are a lot of topics I stay away from mostly because . . . well, because I don’t welcome backlash. I’m just too sensitive. But sometimes a topic keeps staring at me, which makes it impossible not to face it. For example, every time I opened my internet browser the past couple of days, I had Google reminding me about pride month (small letters are my subtle rebellion), which reminds me that…

Daily writing promptGo on a walk today and share a photo of something that catches your eye.View all responses I thought I’d respond to this blog prompt by actually doing what it asked. I went on a walk! First time in I don’t know how long, though it must have been a very long time because the neighbors have been waiting outside for me to stop by, and well, as you can see, that didn’t have a…

Daily writing promptIf you had an unlimited budget for 24 hours, what would you do?View all responses This blog prompt should have been a no brainer. Unfortunately, because I overthink everything, I have a hard time with hypothetical questions, this one most of all. For example, I started out wondering what it means by “budget.” To me (and to the dictionary), a budget is basically a financial…

You’d think that someone who says she writes for herself would write whatever she wants, and that would be true if I saved the writing for myself alone as I did with the journal I kept after Jeff died. Once a piece is written, however, and I go to post it, things change. Suddenly, it’s not just for me but for anyone who wants to take a peek into my life and thoughts and emotions. For example, I…

Daily writing promptWhat’s the most profound piece of advice you’ve been given? Did you take it?View all responses WordPress, the host of my blog, is starting to pull out all sorts of tricks to get us more involved, or so I imagine, since people tend not to like long-form blogging anymore, seeming to prefer the photos, quick clips, and brief comments posted on most social networking sites. Some…

I live in a town with a unique atmospheric configuration: a donut. Sometimes storms that punish surrounding areas gently move around the town as if to spare us good folk. Other times, it says “Oops, made a mistake,” and dumps the months of missed rain all at once while sparing others. It rained almost all day yesterday, from about 11:00am to 8:00pm. Part of that was a beginning and an ending…

This is not another “ideal life” post, but it comes close. For sure, though, it’s a post about gratitude. I am utterly and sincerely grateful for my simple life. I just talked to a woman who has a four-hour daily commute for work, an Australian fiancé, a young son she has sole custody of, all of which turns her life into a logistical . . . well, not nightmare, because her son and her soon-to-be…

During the past fifteen years or so, I’ve had to make a lot of decisions. Life and death type decisions. (Other people’s deaths, my continued life.) Decisions such as how to get through the next minute, hour, year. Decisions such as where to go, what to do. My decisions today are trivial compared to those decisions that had such far-reaching consequences. In fact, these current decisions don’t…

After the thrill of seeing what plants return from their winter hiatus comes the payback. A seedy garden. Not seedy as in disreputable or sleazy. Literally seedy. As in going to seed. There are still a few columbines blooming, particularly the bright late-blooming ones, but the blue/purple columbines are already past their first bloom and are going to seed. The orange wallflower stopped…

Daily writing promptHow do you plan the perfect road trip?View all responses The perfect road trip, obviously, is the one that’s perfect for you, so my experience might not be applicable. For one thing, I had years to plan since I was taking care of my aged father at the time and couldn’t take off even if I had wanted to. For another thing, grief still lay heavily on me, so I wouldn’t have…

Daily writing promptWhat’s a moment that made you question reality?View all responses A moment that made me question reality? There never was such a moment in my life, nothing like seeing someone out of time or out of place, seeing an alien or ghosts, finding gaps in my personal timeline. Nothing fun or lighthearted like that. But there are a couple of current events with historical overlays…

Daily writing promptWhat’s a word or phrase that annoys you?View all responses There used to be many words and phrases that annoyed me, constructions such as “110%” and “intestinal fortitude,” but those instances seem so innocuous now that other words have begun to be used half to death (to the death of the word, that is), words like fascist and nazi and racist and whatever happens to be the…

Well, this is an interesting — and utterly amusing — turn of events. WordPress, the company that hosts this blog, seems to have started listing blog achievements. It’s not public, only I can see my badges of achievements (unless, of course, I take a screen shot as I did below). As you can see, I have been awarded a badge, just an electronic image, but still . . . World Domination!! Yay!!…

Daily writing promptIf you could erase one movie from your memory and watch it again for the first time, which one would it be?View all responses I found this blog prompt amusing because except for a few movies that I’ve seen multiple times, such as “Let it Ride” and “The Princess Bride,” I’ve pretty much erased every movie I’ve ever seen from memory, so seeing any of them again would be seeing…

Daily writing promptWhat’s a simple pleasure in life that brings you joy?View all responses I looked up the meaning of joy because I was curious if my personal meaning matched the prevalent meaning, and it appears to be the same. To me, joy is an intense feeling, a kinetic emotion of delight and elation and even jubilation. I call it a kinetic emotion because it seems to be one of movement, an…