Mourning my Mac

Please say a prayer with me this morning for I may have drowned my Mac.  I am attempting not to panic or to think of the hefty price-tag that accompanies such a drowning.  I am attempting not to add it to my list of "one more thing" that isn't exactly turning in my favor.  I am attempting not to think of the few things that I didn't save to dropbox but were hanging out on my desktop.  Like the vaporous list of items lost in the fire, I can't quite recall what was there.  It happened in a foggy moment, I was stumbling to get some airflow in the Airstream, opening a curtain, knocked something with my elbow and it didn't register quickly enough just what had happened.  It didn't seem like a lot of water, it coated the bottom of my Mac and I wiped it dry.  But then I opened the lid and a little water was on the inside too.  Again, I really thought it was fine - and my additional early morning errors continued.  I began to attempt to boot it up.  Thinking that the battery was dead, I plugged it in and hit the power button.  Thinking it was in a loop due to a lack of charge, I gave it a few minutes then tried again.  Apparently, that's the wrong thing to do if your computer gets wet as David told me much too late.  For the first couple attempts, it sounded like a fan was running, then some sort of screen image flashed a few times, then nothing.  Nothing.  Nothing.  I should have let it dry out first, perhaps even broken out the hairdryer.  Starting it wet can short the whole system.  Apparently that's what I have done. 

And, I wonder, seriously?  Seriously?  My Mac?  My lifeline to the world, my outlet for my writing, my connection to you?  Seriously?  Did I need another "lesson"?  And, an expensive one at that?  I have a small Netbook that I travel with - turning to that to write, I realized that either I have misplaced the power cord or I never carried it out of my house...you know, the one that burned...  So no go there.  I then thank the good Lord above for my other Apple product, my iPad.  Never sure where a file actually gets saved on my iPad, I have not tended to use it to do much writing.  Yet write I must, so I click away at my bluetooth keyboard as I pray silently for the resurrection of my Mac.  Tomorrow I will stop at Apple on the way to the airport to determine it's fate - and the fate of my pocketbook. 

It feels better to write about it - as everything has - along this journey.  My acceptance level is much higher after those few short paragraphs then it was lying in bed and thinking of my stupidity.  How could I have done that?  How did I ruin my precious computer?  Why oh why didn't I let it dry out first?  Why did I leave the water there in the first place?  Can I go back in time and change that outcome?  Please????  Writing the upset gives me space to breathe.  For those who have ruined precious pieces of equipment, you sigh with me.  For those who are overly attached to their computing devices, you shed a tear for me.  For those who are the proud owners of Apple products, you wail from the mountain tops.  Oh no, now I have started a turf war...

The thing about Apple is it's not that cheap.  I could run out and get a perfectly adequate laptop for around a grand yet to replace my Mac it will be three times that.  Yet once you have gone Apple, you can't go back.  Ahhhh.  Breathe with me.  Inhale that number... At this point, I can't help but think what $3k would buy me in the re-build of my house.  When replacing everything and starting over it is out of one fund and into another. 

What I really want to talk about today is resilience.  I have been thinking a lot about my first real teacher on the road of recovery.  Susan Hansen, a powerhouse of a human being whose wise words I can still hear whispering in my ears.  "Stop scaring yourself, honey."  Oh, Susan.  I am trying.  And, I keep trying.  One particularly impactful lesson was Susan's teachings on Resilience.  Resilience is our capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.  Toughness.  An ability to bounce back.  Now, "quickly" is a relative term.  I have been touting the importance of being where I am and not hurrying through this process - and I still am sticking with my guns.  So the way I interpret this is the knowing that we will bounce back.  And, I will bounce back - eventually. 

I am able to dance on the brink of the abyss because deep down in my bones, I know I will be ok.  And, the knowing doesn't mean I always know.  There are many moments where I forget.  Yet, the knowing remains.  I return to it.  It's a quiet voice, or simply a sensation.  I know I can and will walk through anything.  Please don't test me on that though.  I am certainly not asking for any more fabulous life lessons for the near future.  This morning as I was mourning my Mac, I rolled over in bed and looked first at my sleeping dogs, one at my feet and the other curled up on his bed.  Then I looked at David.  These creatures are all that really matter.  My Mac is replaceable.  They are not. 


Even having lost so many "things", I still have a few favorites that would test my mettle.  My Mac was certainly on that list.  My stuffed leopard (that yes, at 46, I sleep with nightly), my woven blankets that I carried out - and now I have a light down jacket that I particularly like, my cozy pajama bottoms, a certain pair of chandelier earrings, a knitted beanie cap, Jessica's green scarf - of course my most fabulous purple purse.  The list could add up.  If my house burned again, I would carry at least these things out.  Yet, if I didn't have any of them, I would be ok.  Even if I didn't have my dogs and David - ultimately, someday in the far, distant future, I would be ok.  Can I really say that?  Do I really believe that?  Therein lies the depth of the human spirit.  We are resilient creatures.  Our minds will tell us otherwise, but in our bones we know that.  We have to nurture this part of ourselves.  My eclectic spiritual path is my way of nurturing this. 

The will to survive, for most of us, is greater than the desire to annihilate.  It is born into us and has been the reason our species has continued to thrive.  And "survive" can look like different things for different people.  Merely surviving is not enough.  That could look like a life of victimhood and 'woe is me'.  For those that hear the echoes of something bigger, something greater than just us alone even if we don't know who or what it is and even if we curse it by any name - we won't settle for mere survival.  We demand to thrive.  To me, thriving is seeing the great mysteries of life.  Hearing the early morning call of the dove, seeing golden streaks as the sun sets through a forest, enjoying the first sip of coffee, stopping to talk to a stranger - as well as weeping deeply about yet another loss, railing against the apparent injustice in the world (whether it's my small world, or the world at large) and, of course, questioning the meaning of it all. 

I heard a partial tale of another great spiritual leader who was diagnosed with a disease and then absolutely decided he wasn't going to have that.  I cheer him on - but I find no room for all of humanity in these kind of tales.  It leaves me thinking that we mere mortals who stumble and fall are doing it wrong.  One day we will be able to cure all that ails us by the mere change of a thought.  And, maybe if we ALL believed this to be true, we could do it right now.  I am not bashing the power of prayer or of positive thinking.  But I want to hang with the dark angels for a little while longer.  I want to stay in the trenches - all the while, knowing on a deep deep level who we all really are.  I will not abandon the grapplers.  I will no longer make myself wrong for being one.  I will give voice to those who struggle while at the same time shining the light of who we really are. 

And, right now, I am missing that great piece of modern technology, my Macintosh.  I shed a tear for it and for myself for the one more loss that this tired human has to process through.  I turn my head towards the blue sky that I glimpse through the skylight in Flame and see eternity, then I turn my head back to my silent Mac and wish it weren't so.