Today is Monday, January 13, 2014.
This blog post is late, but it will most likely be published “on time” as long as it is still Monday when I publish. Yesterday I wrote that I considered the incident with my computer as a possible waking dream. The fact that the computer turned out to be just fine kind of reinforces that idea, because my experience has been that, whenever I need to be made aware of something, Life hands me an experience that tends to be a “near accident” rather than a full-blown, head-on crash, or a dangerous incident that I manage, miraculously, to walk away from without any major injuries or damage to property. I consider these incidents to be a warning shot across the bow, as it were. As long as I pay attention to them and try in good faith to figure out the message, I can generally avoid a worst-case scenario.
Apparently, the chai latte didn’t get all over the logic board, so it was relatively easy to clean up, and it didn’t seem to pool anywhere or clog anything. The tech who worked on my computer didn’t charge me anything more than the basic “bench fee,” which was reasonable. The fact is that, this month, I couldn’t really have afforded to pay much more than that without compromising my budget. Needless to say, there will be no more discretionary spending for the rest of January. Fortunately, I have lots of writing to do, a whole stack of unread books, and Season 1 of “Downton Abbey” to fill my time, not to mention giving flute lessons to a grand-niece, English lessons to an employee of a French-Canadian company in the area, and chatting with my dear friends on Facebook.
I invested in a nice zippered case with handle, to keep my precious computer safe while away from home, and I ordered a plastic keyboard cover, which I’m hoping will be useful.
When I imagined retirement, one of the pictures in my head was of myself at a local coffee shop, happily typing away on my laptop. I didn’t actually invest in this laptop until only a month or so before I actually retired, and given the health setbacks I had right after retirement, I didn’t actually have time – or money – to spend my days at coffee shops, anyway. However, when the chai latte spill happened a couple of days ago, that’s what I was doing – visiting a cafe and planning to spend the afternoon drinking coffee and writing.
Perhaps the message is simply that my dream will have to be altered to fit reality. The result of spilling chai on my computer was that my writing came to a grinding halt. It occurred to me that if I attempt to follow my dream according to the original visualization, I may end up in a dead-end life. Hmmm…. certainly something to think about. My next seed for contemplation is this: What is my next step? Not my will, but Thy will, O Lord. 🙂
Reaching for The Sky 