Another One of Those Storms
We had storms last week – trees uprooted, roofs shattered, houses flooded. And what was my major concern – no internet.
The phone worked, the power was on, TV and cable – all okay. No internet.
It’s very sad that my whole life revolves around this technology, but it does. Without that connection to the outside world, I have no real life. This connection enables me to put my stories out ‘there’; to connect with friends and family regardless of distance; to order whatever I need (and some things I don’t need). It’s sad, because I don’t get out much. The fold-art issues with arfa-ritis (yes, I give it a name that is childish and non-harmful) and pain associated with such means I spend too much time in my mind, and not enough time outside.
The big tree that crashed to the ground outside my ‘writer’ window made a sound of deathness – a boom and crash and shudder – that I ignored until branches hit the roof above my head. ‘Oh, shit’ I said, when I saw how close it had come to causing some serious problems, but then I went back inside and back to work on my ‘other’ world.
No internet – catastrophe! What can I do?
This is the time when all the things I’ve put off because there are so many other important things to be done – they get to be first cab off the rank, highest priority. The things I don’t like doing, are hard work, or simply things I can’t quite figure out (need more time to cogitate in the mind first – lots of time).
The worst thing for me is: Pictures!! Slightly colour-blind (yeh, yeh, I know – but I choose how to ‘adapt’ to this and I can call it how I like), can’t draw a straight line to save my life (or a bent one, for that matter), don’t understand depth or scale or any of those things picturely people talk about. If I like it, I can’t figure out why I like it; if I don’t like it, I move on to find something else. If I decide to go out and take pictures of things – blurry, furry, fuzzy (always – I blame thyroid, but it’s been like that my whole life).
Is it because I was extremely short-sighted as a kid? Didn’t see the world the way everyone else did? Can’t be – what about Claude Monet (the reason I like his works is because that’s how I saw the world as a child – so he must have been ever so slightly short-sighted)? So I get pictures from friends and family and others (through the connection to the internet) so that I can have the same beauty, the same level of joy, from the things out there in the world.
My world is cut off like a skink’s tail when there’s no internet. The patience it takes to wait while it regrows, to go on, to do other things that matter – now, that can teach me something. To value the time, embark on things difficult and consuming, to see beyond my own needs and desires, to be FREE.
But only until it comes back.
