GOOD RIDANCE TO 2025! This is the LAST day of a very long year!

Summary of 2025- what a pissy year! 

First, I must apologize to all my followers and people who have commented in the past.  I just realized I had dozens of comments waiting for my approval.  I am going through them now.  I am so sorry I never noticed sooner.  Now...

I woke this morning feeling motivated to write but by the time I sat down to do so, I had lost my train of thought.  At 81, that seems to happen more frequently.  I have lost not only that, but motivation and muscle strength.  It is no wonder people give up and die.  When you look back on what has been and what you wish had been, and what may be and what you wish would be… it can be depressing as hell.  But why pretend it is not so? What is the point?  My very long Bucket List seems somehow to have shortened itself to two items: Get the biography/autobiography done.  Get the Genealogy preserved and shipped off to archives.  Is that all there is?  What happened to being the grandma to my grandchildren, like the Grandma I had?  What happened to growing old with David Swankie and sharing our collective of a dozen or so grandkids?  Is this all there is????  I guess so!

“To the people in my life who support me, make me smile and bring me joy, I am thankful for you.”  (stolen from internet-The Cinchy Cowgirl) 

On this last day of 2025, I am taking a deep breath and trying to continue to believe in myself, with grace.  Maybe I am stronger than I think?  Maybe the best chapters of my story are still waiting to be written… I know the older chapters are still waiting to be written.  My “biographer” (my nephew Chris S. Beaty) and I are all the way up to 1973, with only six more decades to go!   Turning 82 in 2026, I keep wondering if there is enough time left to accomplish that ONE single item on my Bucket List!  Revised Bucket List on 12/31/2025 - Modified Bucket List : Rent kayak in Baja and on California Coast and other places, Make jewelry in Quartzsite, Ride horse on a beach, work on a Habitat for Humanity project, Visit Tuscany, Italy, Buy land, go watch wild horses and paint them, COMPLETE GENEALOGY.

Check out Chris' first book - http://www.csbeaty.com/loser  .

In the past I have made the mistake of being so understanding and forgiving that I overlooked the fact that I was being disrespected… until I reached a point I could no longer… and I walked away.  I walked out of the lives of the people I loved the most, because it hurt too much to stay.  Maybe, I deserved to be disrespected?  I am not sure I will ever know the answer to that question.  I do know for some reason, at 81, I seem younger, more vital, more agile, than others my age AND I have outlived many folk younger.  Genetics?  I have nine living half-siblings, ranging in age from 9-21 years younger than me.  They should all outlive me.  But I can pretty well still keep up with even the youngest ones.  This past summer, I kayaked a lake in Utah with one of them, 14 years younger than me… and I had no trouble holding my own, except the part of manhandling my kayak back to my truck.  He had to give me a hand with that.

The kayaking is the major change in my Bucket List. Since having bilateral “reverse” total shoulder replacements, I have gradually lost muscle mass… and those surgeries do limit the amount and type of lifting you do.  There is no way I want to risk damaging those prosthetics.  I have almost full range of motion now and have few limitations, only as regards “lifting.”  And that 53lb boat seems to weigh much much more now, than it did when I got it in 2009.  It is time to set that aside, a fact that would have been heartbreaking before this moment, but I am at peace with it now, especially since my nephew/biographer, Chris Beaty, wants to “keep it in the family – because it was in the movie Nomadland.”  He offered to buy it, but I am happy to gift it to him and honored that he wants it!  I am humbled and even more honored that I can share it with his 3 lovely children!  I hope they will all have many more adventures with my kayak, that has been on water in all the lower 48 states, plus been in an Oscar-winning movie (the swallows scene in Nomadland - my video footage by the way!).

So, in spite of the pissiness of 2025… there is that to look forward to in 2026… going to Nebraska to deliver the kayak to Chris, attending Beaty family gathering, getting to know my lovely great nieces and nephew, getting reacquainted with my half-siblings and all their kids and meeting some new in-laws… and who knows what after that! 

I have no plans beyond that gathering… except to continue working with Chris to complete the biography.  Hopefully, we can wrap it up in 2026.  Then, I will move on to my last task in this life… securing and archiving my 6 decades of genealogical research.  Then I am done.

Being DONE is not a bad thing.  It does not make me sad, or happy, or afraid.  I guess I don’t believe in an “after” only a “now!”  I will strive to make the best of my NOW til I am done!  And don’t any of you be sad when that day comes.  Be happy with your NOW!

What is remembered, lives! (Fern (aka Frances McDormand) in Nomadland)

Next post - Utah 2025!

SWANKIE'S BACK - Returning to the Wilderness

 They offered me diamonds on loan at Oscars, but I chose to honor my friend,
 Judy Crawford and wear the lovely hummingbird she made for me. 

My apologies for my absence. 2022 was a difficult year and 2023 not much better. Had my second shoulder replacement surgery. Just prior to that I assisted my "last best friend forever" move back into a sticks and bricks as he, with declining health, was no longer able to boondock alone.  I over-did it myself in breaking camp and helping him move and ended up on crutches due to hip pain. Then I had a long drive from AZ to CO (where my doctors and surgeons were located) and had to get past that big fire in New Mexico, the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon Fires.

But finally got my surgery and while in recovery, I learned the camper trailer I was interested in was for sale, so I bought over the phone, with the understanding I could not take delivery until surgeon released me and I was able to drive again. The day came and I returned to AZ to get it... during a very very hot spell. While transferring things over from the old van, a task I had to pace myself on as I was still under lifting restrictions on the shoulder, I got Covid, Shingles and Vertigo. Eventually, I got moved in, gave my cargo trailer to HOWA and sold my old van and bought a truck. I felt I needed a 1Ton truck instead of the small cargo van. A few other health issues and tweaking of the trailer kept me grounded at my son's until Sept. 2024. At last, I was able to return to the wild, where I belong. I'll catch you up a little.

Earlier post from May 2024. 

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, I thought I could not live without my husband, my children, or my grandchildren. I felt surely I would loose my mind. Then I decided I needed a goal/a dream bigger than life itself. I began a bucket list and put the wildest things on it, things that seemed impossible, hoping something would light my fire and motivate me to "go on living," a promise I made to my last-forever-husband, David Swankie, on his death bed! (He meant, to date and marry again, but once you have had the best, why bother with the rest?)

Finally, I started on the Bucket List, got a kayak (2009) and learned to paddle. Then I asked myself... now what? From somewhere, a voice said... "Kayak America" (you can Google that and probably find something). And so I did... took 5 years, finishing with Hawaii as my 50th state in my 70th Birthday (2014). Inadvertently, because of that... and camping full time all those years, movie producers/actors (Peter Spears/Francis McDormand) learned about me and recruited me for the movie Nomadland (ha ha, becoming an actor was NOT on my Bucket list) and I ended up on the Red Carpet at the Oscars in Hollywood in 2021. Nomadland won 3 Oscars, Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actress. 

All true, I never could have dreamed up a scenario that crazy. Still pinching myself.

Now, after almost two years off the road, I am back out in the wild and hope to re-kayak the Western States and camp and travel the rest of my life, or until I can no longer drive, whichever comes first!

Dream big, find a goal or purpose bigger than life itself!

Last thought, a friend of mine who was considered for Nomadland, but turned down because producers felt she was too fragile... she was wheelchair bound in 2018, has since lost 100 pounds by 2024, is walking and jogging outside daily now and just bought a 2nd hand van to build out herself as a camper. She plans to buy a teardrop trailer for her adult handicapped son to use as "home" while she uses the van as her space... and they will hit the road when it is done, hopefully by 2025-26 winter AZ camping season. I would have thought that was impossible too. But she did it!

Dream Big! Go for it! And to all of you who have helped me along the way... your responses remind me of how many others have been a part of this journey! I kayaked with some, camped with others, hiked with a few. All of you matter! I love you all!

More stories to come. What was it like to be at the Oscars and be treated like a star? How did I feel after having my van broken into in Hollywood, in a "secure" parking lot, the night before the Oscars? What does it feel like to be in my 81st year with four bionic joints, 2 fake shoulders, 2 fake knees?? I will tell you all about it.

NEVER GIVE UP!