I am working from home today. I am a few weeks into my new routine. I work for RMI from home on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. My desk is the antique gate-leg table I stole from my mother three weeks ago when I needed a larger work surface. This table originally belonged to Grandpa Sanford, my father’s grandfather. It is one of several pieces of furniture that are traded back and forth between my family as need dictates, but never let go. It now occupies the majority of my small dining room cum office. Arrayed atop it are three computer screens. To my left is my PC laptop and to my right my MacBook laptop. Between the two is a 22” flat screen monitor, which I alternately plug into either. Beside and behind me are large windows which face towards the State Capitol Building, the broad-limbed oak trees, and busy 16th Street.
I have spent the morning editing images on my PC. After lunch I shifted over to my Mac to start inserting the correct graphics in the book layout. Suddenly, I found myself gazing on the ice of Lake Michigan, the clouds over Marpa Point, skyscrapers of Toronto, family and friends I miss, especially one in particular. After a moment, the sun came out from where it had been hiding all day behind the clouds and I found myself gazing at my reflection, there in the shiny computer screen, layered behind the flickering images of my life conjured up by my PC's screen saver.
I miss those places. I even miss the ones I only spent a day or two in. I would have liked to stay longer. I would like to go back. It's so much more exciting there, wherever "there" is. Of course, most of the pictures are of pine-covered mountains. I was looking forward to seeing them again. I am terribly disappointed that my trip back to Boulder this weekend was cancelled in favor of a video conference. I’m going to be “Skyped-in.” (And what is it with this language that anything can be "verbed?") Somehow, I it's just not the same as real human interaction. Wonder why.
I feel out of the loop and a little lonely. No big surprise there. And I gaze wistfully as the photographs moving through my computer screen. Then the sun comes back out and my cat comes to sit on the desk beside me, gazing out the window chattering her teeth at the pigeons on the wire. I have to laugh. And we think humans have evolved so much from their fellow mammals! What a pair we are!
We’re both sitting here chattering our teeth at what’s untouchable just on the other side of the glass!
2 comments:
wonderful post.
Six years ago my husband and I would sit on the couch, watching our tuxedo cat having a ball with "CatTV" I kind you not, I can, and have spent several hours blissfully laughing at him as he ran from window to window, to the sliding glass doors out to the patio. Charged up and chasing things on "CatTV" for hours at a time.
Two days ago I started writing an e-mail, and got drawn into watching "CatTV" myself. Suddenly it was just so funny. Here I was laughing at myself and wondering if I'd hurt Bubba's feelings all those year ago laughing at him.
I'm blessed to be living in a place that I can afford. I'm doubly blessed because I'm on the second floor and all I see are trees and sky. The wind in the trees, leaves moving, birds and squirrels oh my! It's a feast for the soul!
Yup, I'm a living breathing "vidiot" of sorts. I can get lost in "CatTV" for hours. Mind you I don't even HAVE a "people" TV or cable. I can't seem to bring myself to bring that kind of suffering and pain into my sanctuary.
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