our passion and our despair

This past Monday, after a subdued, sad day, I was just about to settle in with some BBC Dallas-slash-Downton Crest, when I discovered that, WOE, my internets were broken! Twenty-three hours later, from my work computer, I was happy to report to my invisible internet friends that not only was I not dead, although I'd thought I might die, but I also had the cleanest house in the North End. And several meals assembled. And! overnight "refreshed and brightened" skin — thanks to my enthusiastic sister who continually sends me packages filled with a bewildering quantity of product samples, "product" singular, mind you, from her work at some kind of potion place. 

This must be what it was like in the olden days, I thought, before electricity.  

Despite the fact that I was able to laugh at myself, and even though I was productive, it was a lonely evening.  I wondered if the internets might be the opiate of the masses.  Well. Not really.  But kinda.

At least I had my audiobook, Bring Up the Bodies.  Listening distracted me just enough during my downtime this week that I was able to put off the horror of actually calling my internet provider on the phone.  I so loathe talking on the telephone that I took my son to a coffee shop so he could do his online math coursework on Tuesday.  But the WiFi was shoddy there, and the music so unbearable ("My boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble..."). I realized I would have to call.  Yesterday I did.

"Hello, Brian, my internets are broken!"

"Oh, no! Broken!"

The poor man must talk to dumb-dumbs like me all day.  

"You'll have to tell me what kind of modem you have."

"Well, I'm on a corded phone, tethered to the wall, but I can see it."

"Okay, ma'am, what color is it?"

My son was so disgusted by what he could hear of this conversation, he hustled over and called out the model number.

"You think it's the modem?" I asked.  

"Oh, ma'am, I know it's the modem."

So.  We went downtown to get a new modem.

As we drove past the symphony office where I worked back when I was a youngster, fresh out of college, I pointed it out to my son.  Just down the block I showed him the first Starbucks in town, where, in 1989, we felt underdressed and were dismayed at the idea of paying three bucks for coffee.  I remember laughing with a friend, who told me, "It's not coffee, Nicole.  It's a latte."  Oh.  Right!  "But you could buy a loaf of bread for that!"  

A sad, lonely week, and I remember life before Starbucks.  That made me feel even more old than talking on a corded landline telephone.  

We finally found the internet office place, and after we collected the modem, just as we were leaving, Brian started to tell me how to plug it in and how to troubleshoot if it didn't work right away.  Started to, but then shifted his gaze directly to my son. I wasn't sure whether to be delighted and amused or chagrined or insulted. So I went with all those emotions.  I mean, I knew that Brian knew that the kid would be setting the thing up, let's ditch the pretense, and he was right, dammit.

Home again, home again, modem connected, math lessons rolling, voila!  But then I had to scoot to work for a long night, so, still, no Downton Crest.  (I was assured that no one died this week.  So there's that.)  No boob tube, but at least I had my book.  Onstage, while I fiddled with microphones and the speaker's lectern, and set out the sign language interpreters' chairs, I listened.  So close to the end!  Anne's men were on trial.  

I had to stop listening when the audience started rolling in.  Just thirty minutes left, and, surprisingly, Anne Boleyn still had her head.  I was anticipating, longing, to listen to that last bit at home, when WOE!  Another technology failure.  My ostensibly smart phone froze.

Listening to the ending this morning, after a magic reawakening of the device, I didn't so much think about the role of technology in our little lives, but I did wonder about the life of the mind.  I have a job that affords me quite a lot of freedom.  There are many tasks I can accomplish, and in a timely fashion, while listening to books, or Teaching Company lectures, or NPR.  Eventually I will have a job that will require me to concentrate on the tasks at hand, focus.  Won't that be satisfying!  Perhaps.  With the right kind of work.  I am excited about that possibility, yes.  But this morning I wondered, when would I read?  How does that work for folks with "real" jobs?

Then, too, those long days or evenings I am at home alone when my son is with his father, I am so keenly aware that one day soon there will be no one in the house to read aloud to or to read aloud to me.  I try not to die in advance about it, and I'm not afraid of being alone, but I am aware that the day will come.

And then I remembered the line from William Golding's Free Fall:  "To communicate is our passion and our despair."  It's the only thing I remember from that book, and the only line I ever memorized from any novel.

These technological glitches are annoying, yes, and we are dependent, foolishly, perhaps, yes.  But we ourselves are hardwired to connect, so these tools are important.  Reading "with my ears," as my little boys used to say, is nearly as essential to me as breathing.  It connects me to a world of thinkers and to the world of the imagination.  I'd like a smidgen more passion, and less despair, but since it seems to be a package deal, okay.  Okay.