Skip to main content

Untethered

Finding yourself without a computer makes you strangely giddy, untethered, though any normal person would feel frantic at the potential of losing three novels, countless other writings, and years of photos. Instead, you danced in the kitchen this morning. You canned tomatoes. You renewed your acquaintance with your drawing pencils. You made muffins.

You feel seventeen again.

Perhaps because when you were seventeen, people didn't have computers. Well, some people did, but there was no email, no internet, no Facebook, no time wasters. You couldn't read someone's blog from Tennessee, because there were no blogs. No vlogs, no podcasts, no technobabble.

In fact, there was not much babble of any kind in your life yet, either. You hadn't started writing fiction.

Now, without a computer, you cannot work. You are on an enforced vacation.

The computer shop said they might have the computer for as long as six days. The bad news is that it might be kaput. The good news is that at least the important stuff is backed up.

Maybe tomorrow you'll slide down the bannister. Or make a cheesecake. Or read a book from cover to cover. Or paint your toenails. Or do any number of things you did as a seventeen-year old.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream

Each morning, you stand by the window watching your boys until they're on the bus or picked up. You watch them leave your circle of safety and hope for the best. You can't know what that day will bring. Nothing, maybe. Or maybe a bomb threat. Maybe a math test. Maybe a lockdown drill. Or maybe a real lockdown. But on this day, there is something different. A rally. A walk-out. A demonstration. Your oldest son asked if you'd call to have him dismissed and bring him downtown to attend the demonstration. You want your voice to be heard, and even more, you want your son's voice to be heard, so you call the school, you pick him up, you drive downtown. You don't know what to expect, but the reality makes you weepy. A crowd of teenagers, many carrying hand-drawn signs stand gathered in front of the church, chanting. Adults congregate around the edges. A band plays, keeping time for the chants. Horns honk as their drivers show support. One man in a truck wags his fi...

The Clothesline

Once upon a time, back when there were only three of you, you packed up all your stuff, loaded it in a truck, and drove (westward ho!), landing yourselves in Michigan. It was time for a Life Adventure. The Gingerbread Man had finished an MBA, and together, you decided more graduate school was in your future. So you sold your house, ending up five-seven-nine hours away from your respective families. Faced with your situation, most women would get a job with a paycheck, but you are not most women. You had a job, a full-time job and then some: the gingerbread boy. He just didn't come with a paycheck. You know some would be quick to criticize that choice, calling you selfish or stupid or a drain on society. But you weren't. Instead of making money, you made do. You knew the difference between want and need . You owned your car. You owned a house. There was no cell phone, no cable. You had dial-up internet, but no consumer debt. You had a Kitchen Aid. You knew how to make brea...

The Greening

Sadness spreads like a sower scattering seeds. The seeds find fertile ground in her and land there, burrowing into her skin, into the deep down places where they sprout, nurtured unwittingly by blood and bone. Shoots spread forth growing both inward and outward, and she wonders if she will ever be able to root them all out. It is like pulling at a dandelion only to have stem detach from root and downy fluff fly off, enabling dozens more dandelions to take root. There is no cause for the sadness; it just is, like cold in winter, like leaves in fall, like rain in April. It sits there, within her, growing bigger each day, a pregnancy gone horribly wrong, and she feels the shame of it. But a breeze blows by, bringing different seeds, renegade seeds, hopeful seeds. They sprout in the midst of all the sadness; they choke it out. When she looks out the window today, she realizes that the world around her is greening. She decides that she will too. She will choose joy.