Sometimes I take my limbs for granted. I forget how much they do for me, how much they mean to me, how they effect me and other people. Once I really was within an actual window of possibility as far as losing an arm. One of the nights in the hospital a loved one had a conversation with my arm over the phone. Since I moved the phone to the area just above my elbow and I don't have speakerphone I couldn't hear what was said-- but I imagine it was something along the lines of "I love you, arm. I love all that you are, arm. Get well soon, arm... so you can go back to being your true arm self." Maybe?
I lost my whole hard drive this week. I actually am in mourning. I haven't been able to fall asleep at night as I think of all the things I lost. I wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night with an image in my head of a photo that I took-- that is gone now. Or some writing I have been working on. Some video. Actually about 1200 photos... I think I am freaked out because the past means a lot to me-- maybe more than is normal or it should. I pride myself on remembering things, moments, experiences-- but I notice my memory is a lot foggier than it was a couple years ago.
Also, because the past nine months have been so important to me. I am sad to have lost almost all documentation of my adventures, projects, etc.
I don't want to be one of those people who has to check in with the electronic device in their pocket every time there is a moment of idleness. I don't want to be a pack rat or someone who doesn't have perspective about material possessions. At the moment though, it's still raw.
And the great irony, well-- wouldn't you know what I was doing when my old pal gave out-- the hard drive had just started sending my whole nine months over to the external hard drive... when, KAPUT.
RIP my first new wave Mac. I will miss you. I appreciate all that you held for me-- even if it was ephemeral.
Anyway though, it's not so bad. On New Year's Eve an older couple who lived near my aunt and uncle lost the last 50 years of their life. It all went up in a blaze.
Happy New Year everyone.
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Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel, 1901
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I will try to add something almost every day. It is a challenge to me to engage, to observe more actively, to document, to share, and hopefully, to provoke you, who might be reading this, to do the same ... a give and take I hope
feel this
who I am
going up or going down?
I like to look at:
- A Field Guide to the North American Family
- Adbusters
- big man getting smaller
- Collapsable Giraffe
- Colt Coeur
- Found magazine
- Harper's magazine
- Learning to Love You More
- Lifting the Curtain
- McSweeney's
- National Theater of the United States of America
- RADIOHOLE
- Sippican Cottage
- the borderline sociopathic blog for boys
- The New Yorker
- The Onion
- This American Life
- Wake Up Mr. Sleepy (Richard Foreman show)
- Young Jean Lee
doesn't this look like an old-fashioned camera?
Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel, 1901
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1 comment:
It's funny. I read this and the other new posts yesterday (you've been pretty productive in 2009, apparently!) and then I happened to wander into church this morning. (Yes, I do realize this is strange behavior for a 28 year-old philosophy student who grew up in JP.) Point being, something about your post echoes one of Paul's letters to the Corinthians. The letter's about unity in diversity and about how everyone's different but we all have something to contribute to the same great end -- which isn't really your point here -- but his metaphor is also with body parts. I'm not sure I can quite buy it, because sometimes it seems to me that some folks get all the talents and others get very few, but I suppose it's a nice idea. But maybe, in your context, it means there are lots of ways of preserving and accessing the past other than your lost hard drive. Maybe you'll be like a blind person who gets really good at hearing, or something like that. Anyway, strange to come across these two pieces of writing (yours and Paul's) in the same 24 hours:
"Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant... There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
"Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
"Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!' On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor... But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
"Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?..."
Hope you're enjoying home.
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