Time To Catch My Breath

I don’t mind telling you that I feel like I have been on a roller coaster for 2 months now. It began with the realization in February that I absolutely HAD to get a new computer if I wanted to continue to earn a living with one. This lead to WEEKS of software-loading, password-recovering, file-transferring, email-sorting, and version-adjustments --- endless encounters with my own stupidity and low tolerance for frustration. In the midst of all that the Defonseca Hoax surfaced and that occupied way too much time as well. Then there were a couple of encounters with my own ineptitude at business and --- well --- all in all I’m ready for some R&R.

Throughout much of my adult life I have had a few reliable “refuges”, places I could go to escape reality. Reading was chief among them followed by writing, sewing and knitting. Recently I have been trouble finding the time, and the focus, for those and that is not good. Every time I sat down to read my mind was racing with things I should be taking care of. Every time I tried to write my own stuff I found myself writing about the Defonseca Hoax. I have not done much sewing for months now for the simple reason that I need to go into my sewing room and give it a good reorganization and tidying up and I haven’t found the time to do that. Which brings me to knitting --- thank goodness I had time for that.

All of this makes me think about how crazy life has become and, at least in my case, every single bit of what I went through for the past couple months could be traced back to one thing --- computers and the internet. I had to replace my computer, had it not been for the internet the Defonseca story would have taken months and months to unfold, and my business problems always center around computer snafus. But, of course, that is the wonder of the digital age.

And yet computers have given us such amazing wonders, too. I am stupefied by the awareness that I can do so much more with this new computer than I could with the old one. This one is smaller, thinner, lighter, and MUCH cheaper and it does so much more it is unbelievable. I’ve discovered access to the world in ways I never dreamed of --- better web cams, Google Earth, internet radio stations, all kinds of movies on demand. You could stay glued to this thing 24/7 which is a danger unto itself. I have to make sure I get up and away --- now that the weather is warming up it is good to get out for a walk on a regular basis. I’m beginning to understand those people who live their lives in front of the monitor. I’ve always looked forward to the end of the work day when I could log off and go do other things. I’d check back late in the evening to see if I had any interesting emails but most of my evenings are computer free. That isn’t happening now.

Well, I’m trying to adjust to what is now “normal”. Normal has a bad habit of changing too often for my tastes these days. But there are good things too. I am working on the screenplay for “My Last Romance” (on the computer) and planning the re-design of my professional web site (on the computer) and getting Each Angel Burns ready to publish (on the computer). I need to spend a day in the sewing room and get it tidied up and organized! At least there are no computers in there.

Life just keeps on happening. That’s a good thing. Thank God for friends and prayer and pots of hyacinths blooming in the kitchen window and the current crop of red grapefruit, and, always, ideas of things to write about. And then there are the evenings when I am at the computer and I’ve opened the windows a crack and the fresh sea air is blowing in and I can hear foghorns out on Dogbar Breakwater and ships coming into the harbor and the trains coming and going from the railroad station up the hill. And then the digital age gets put in its place and the salt air and the cries of gulls resume their ascendancy.

Thanks for reading.