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System Restore for Our Lives
November 20, 2011 — Pat Bertram
When it works right, System Restore is a wonderful computer feature. If something goes wrong, if your computer gets a virus or starts acting abnormally, you can choose a restore point, and go back in time to the way your computer was on a previous day.
My computer got a virus of some sort that generated hundreds of tiny .png files that looked like the French flag. I have Trend Micro, but the full scan takes more than a couple of hours, so I most often do a quick scan, and somehow that virus snuck through. Anyway, since it seemed to elude the program, I did a system restore and voila! All of a sudden it is October 11, 2011 again. At least in my computer.
This made me think: if I had system restore for my life, would I use it? And if so, what restore point would I use? I’d choose a point before he (my life mate) got sick, of course, but he was sick for so very long, we’d have to choose a point many years ago, and I’m not sure I’d want to relive all those years. Would we do anything different to prevent his dying? I doubt it — he always took care of himself — eating healthy, exercising, taking various supplements that improved his situation. I don’t know what else we could have done (especially since, once we were restored to that point, we probably wouldn’t know that we had been living in the future, and hence wouldn’t know to try anything else).
Instead of condemning him to relive all those years, maybe I could choose a restore point closer to his death, but that would be so unfair of me to put him through that again just so I’d get to see him one more time.
And, here’s the kicker. System Restore doesn’t always restore exactly. (Firefox stopped working, and my Trend Micro crashed when I tried to do a full scan.) These computer problems are fixable — I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it, and I’ll probably do the same with Trend Micro — but what if we, after life’s system restore, weren’t exactly restored to the condition we were back then? What if we picked up a glitch, with one of our organs deciding not to work properly? The thought makes me shudder — it was hard enough living those years the first time.
I guess, in the end, I would choose to leave things as they are. Perhaps he’s better where he is, assuming he is anywhere, and me? Well, I have enough glitches in my computer. I don’t need any more of them in my life.
Proving I Am Human
November 14, 2011 — Pat Bertram
My email provider has apparently decided I am not human. Every time I try to send an email, it posts strangely twisted letters for me to identify to prove that I am not a machine. Since I have a hard time seeing some of the twists and turns, occasionally this email provider kicks me off its site for not being human.
Does anyone else see the irony of trying to prove to a computer that I am other than it? And losing?
Perhaps the computer should be trying to prove to me that it exists. Or at least that it knows what it’s doing. My email provider says there has been too much spam being sent from my IP address, which is why they need this proof of humanity (as if humans never send junk email) but the IP address they say is mine, the email address all that spam is originating from is in Kansas City. Huh? What does that have to do with me? I am more than a thousand miles away from Kansas, though maybe I fell down a rabbit hole without being aware of it? No, wait . . . rabbit holes have to do with Wonderland, not Kansas. Must be all this email jabberwocky that’s confusing me. Or perhaps to a computer — which I may or may not be — Wonderland and Oz are the same place.
I do understand the rationale behind the captchas — spam is getting way out of control. In the last few weeks, three people I know had their email accounts hacked, and two lost the accounts and everything in them. At least a dozen Facebook friends had their profiles hacked in the past couple of days and naked photos were posted through their accounts (photos that have over five hundred thousand likes, I might add — apparently I’m going about social networking all wrong. I’m lucky to get five likes per post).
And on top of all this, every few minute a png file tries to open itself on my computer, files with bizarre names such as jkjsylddw.png or qwxxcvjks.png. Perhaps a computer or two has decided I’m one of them and they are coming on to me?
Ah, well, I’ll just have to continue traveling the twisted path of trying to prove I am human. But I still think it’s bizarre I have to continually prove it. I mean, whatever happened to “I think, therefore I am”? Shouldn’t that be proof enough?
Blogging Day #49 — Hard Rock Cafe
November 12, 2011 — Pat BertramThis is not my 49th day of blogging, of course. I’ve been blogging since September 24, 2007, and I’ve written 684 posts, but this is my 49th straight day of posting. I’ve been wanting the discipline of writing every day, and since I have no focus for fiction, I decided that recommitting myself to blogging is a good way of getting back into writing. Luckily, I usually can find something interesting to say (interesting to me, that is. I can only hope it’s interesting to you). But today, I’ve been out gallivanting with friends and got back late, which leaves me little time and no inclination to pontificate. (I hear your sounds of relief!!)
So here is something I hope will amuse you as much as it did me. This was an exhibit in the Route 66 Museum we visited today:
Here is a close-up of the menu:
Is It Necessary to Want Something?
November 11, 2011 — Pat Bertram
The other day I told a friend about the feeling of expectation that accompanied my grief and how empty I felt when nothing wonderful happened to me. She said we have to make wonderful things happen, we can’t just wait. Then she started quizzing me on things I wanted to do. I couldn’t come up with anything. I’ve never really wanted much, never had big dreams or wild fancies. I do want to want something, though. It would give me a goal, a reason to be hopeful, an investment in the future.
But here’s the conundrum:
We’re told that we have to want something, have to try to reach beyond our comfort zone so that perhaps wonderful things will happen to us. At the same time, we’re told that all things come to those who wait.
We’re told that dreams are important, that we need to have something to live for. At the same time, we’re told to be grateful for what we have, to live for the day.
We live in a society with an economy that is built on the principal of wanting. The more we want, the more we buy, the more we use, the more we help the economy. At the same time we’re told to be frugal, not to waste, but more trash automatically accompanies more goods. I had to get rid of so much of our stuff when I moved out of our house, that it makes no sense to buy more stuff. So, where does wanting to want something fit in with that situation? I sure don’t want more stuff to eventually have to get rid of!
And then, there’s the Zen philosophy that we should neither want nor not want.
So what is the answer? Wanting? Or not wanting? Going after something or waiting till it comes to you? Having dreams, or being satisfied with what you have?
(After the conversation with my friend, I did think of something I wanted. I always wanted to make a gingerbread house, so I made a little one. I don’t want to eat it, though. But still, I can cross it off my list.)
Hurrying Through Grief To See What is On the Other Side
November 10, 2011 — Pat Bertram
During the first months of wild grief after the death of my life mate, I occasionally had the feeling that something wonderful was going to happen to me. I don’t know why I had that feeling — perhaps my sense of fairness dictated that a great good was needed to balance a great grief. Or perhaps such a cataclysmic closing of one segment of my life demanded an earthshaking opening of another segment. Or perhaps after years of waiting for his suffering to be over, I felt deep down that it was time for me to live.
I wasn’t the only one who thought his death might bring good changes to my life. Shortly before he died, he himself told me that everything would come together for me after he was gone. (He never explained what he meant, though, and foolishly, I never asked.) And afterward, my sister, who witnessed my grief and saw it as life affirming, told me that I could be entering the happiest time of my life.
Whatever the truth of it, I held on to the feeling because . . . well, because it was all I had to hold on to. In fact, the feeling was so strong at times that I wanted to hurry through my grief to see what was waiting for me on the other side. But here it is, nineteen months of grief later, and whatever that wonderful thing I expected to happen, didn’t.
Part of me is still waiting (just as an ever-diminishing part of me still waits for his phone call to tell me I can come home), but mostly, the feeling that something wonderful was going to happen to me is gone. Oddly, this is not an uncommon feeling for us bereft, and those who had the feeling of expectation also felt let down when nothing wonderful happened, which leads me to believe that the feeling is a survival mechanism, or perhaps another one of the many stages of grief nobody ever talks about. (Those who did have something wonderful happen in their lives weren’t able to feel the wonder of it, which left them feeling empty, and that is almost as bad as having nothing wonderful happen.)
Yesterday at the grocery store, I saw one of the hospice social workers who occasionally moderated the grief group I used to attend, and I thanked her for helping me through such a terrible time. During our conversation, I mentioned the odd feeling of anticipation I’d had during my months of grief. She replied, “Something wonderful did happen to you. You got through it.”
Is that wonderful enough to account for all those months of expectation? Maybe is has to be.
The Symphony of a Life Gone By
November 9, 2011 — Pat Bertram
It is impossible to freeze a single moment of music — what you get is a chord that means little by itself. It only gains meaning by what went before it and what comes after, by existing as part of a whole.
Ever since the death of my life mate, I’ve been haunted by images of him at various stages of his life — when I first met him, when we were in the fullness of our relationship, and then at the end, when there was nothing left but a body depleted of life. Which of these moments was him? Were any of them him? Or, like music, were each a single meaningless chord in the symphony of his life?
This might seem a foolish reflection, but it is one that echoes now that his life has been silenced. When a person is alive, the person you know is the culmination of a life, with everything — every note and chord of his existence — leading up to that very moment and foreshadowing the song of his future. When the person is gone from this earth, there is no more culmination. The man I knew at the end — the man who had spent his last breath — is gone, burned into a pile of ashes and crushed bone. The man I knew at the beginning, the radiant man with half of his life still ahead of him is also gone, burned by the fires of living and dying. So which is the real person? How do you remember a life — a man — when all you have are bits of the whole?
We were not picture takers, and I have but a single photo of him. Although it looked exactly like him when it was taken fifteen years ago, it doesn’t look at all like him at the end of his life. For months after his death, I refused to look at the photo, afraid that the image of him in my mind would be supplanted by the image of the photo. Recently I decided it doesn’t matter if the image in my head is not of him. No image is “him.” He is gone, his moments forever broken into meaningless chords. I know I cannot hold the whole of him in my mind — it took 63 years of living to play his entire repertoire, parts of which I never heard.
And so, I look at the photo, this single chord of his life, and remember the symphony of a life gone by.
Have You Ever Felt as if the World Were Backward and Upside Down?
November 7, 2011 — Pat Bertram
?drawkcab saw dlrow ruoy fi sa tlef reve uoy evaH
Hɐʌǝ ʎon ǝʌǝɹ ɟǝlʇ ɐs ıɟ ʎonɹ ʍoɹlp ʍɐs ndsıpǝ poʍu¿
¿uʍop ǝpısdn puɐ pɹɐʍʞɔɐq ɥʇoq sɐʍ plɹoʍ ɹnoʎ ɟı sɐ ʇlǝɟ ɹǝʌǝ noʎ ǝʌɐH
At times, we’ve all felt as if the world was backward and upside down, felt as if we needed to stand on our heads to make sense of life. In truth, the world is upside down all the time, or at least half of it is, though I doubt anyone knows which half is upright and which half is upside down. Does space have an orientation? Is there a top and a bottom? A right and a left? An east and a west? We know the east is where our sun rises (at least, that’s what we’ve been taught) but in space, with no rising suns, with not much of anything in fact, is there an east?
We live on a small ball, careening around in space, twirling and tumbling at unimaginable speeds. And yet, for the most part, we manage to deal with each sluggish day as it comes without a thought to our precarious situation. Some days, we feel as if we are on top of the world even when there’s nothing to prove to ourselves that we are on top. Other days, by definition, we have to be at the bottom of the world because, in a globe situation, there is no way for everyone to be on top all the time.
There are some things one cannot make sense of, even when you and the world are both upright. Electrons, for example. We live in an electronic world, with billions of electrons careening around in mostly empty space (hmmm. Too obvious a metaphor, perhaps?). Or maybe there is only one electron zinging around so fast it creates the whole shebang. (Not my idea about there being a single electron, though with the way my mind is working tonight, it might as well be. As for shebang — that’s something no one seems to be able to make sense of — apparently it appeared out of nowhere like the big bang.)
Now, don’t you feel so much better about your problems? Life may not always make sense, but it muddles along whether we understand it or not.
Happy Birthday, Roy Rogers!!
November 5, 2011 — Pat Bertram
Today is the 100th anniversary of Roy Rogers’s birth. (Actually, it’s the 100th anniversary of Leonard Slye’s birth. Leonard Slye didn’t legally become Roy Rogers until 1942, so this is only the 69th anniversary of Roy Roger’s birth. Or rebirth?) I didn’t grow up watching television or going to the movies, but even I had heard of Roy Rogers and Tigger. Oops. I mean Trigger. Not wanting to spend another sad Saturday hiding away, I hied away to the park to listen to Roy Rogers Jr and the High Riders sing his daddy’s songs.
After a few sets, he talked about his father and about the difference between country songs and
western songs. He said country singers sing about lyin’ and cryin’ and cheatin’ and dyin’ but he didn’t say what western singers wailed about. Wide open spaces, I guess. And loneliness. Hmmm. I know something about that!!
He went on to say that we don’t want western music to disappear, and at that very moment, his voice disappeared. At first, I thought he was making a point, but it turns out the batteries on his microphone decided to die right then. Cracked me up. But no one else seemed to catch the irony. Not a single person but me smiled. Apparently the thought of the demise of western music is not to be taken lightly in certain circles. Or perhaps everyone’s face was too frozen to move. The day was bright and sunny, but the winds were icy.
Still, it was a perfect setting for the centennial. And for taking photos. The fellow in the photo below seemed to fit the scene perfectly, and I couldn’t help taking his picture. Turns out it was a day for irony — he was there to take photos of the event!! (Maybe taking a photo of someone who was there to take photos isn’t ironic, but it did amuse me.)
I Am Not Grieving Inappropriately
November 2, 2011 — Pat Bertram
I recently received a message from a woman who is concerned that I’m still counting sad Saturdays — she’s worried that my grief for my dead mate is going on too long and keeping me from living. I appreciate her concern and her continued prayers (just as I appreciate the concern and prayers from all of you), but the truth is, except for readers of this blog, no one knows I still have my sad times. I don’t hide myself away from life, I’m not missing from life, and I’m not missing life. I miss him, of course, and I hate that he is missing from this life, but that particular sorrow is something I accept as part of my life.
There is nothing wrong with sad times, and there is no reason to fear sadness. Depression is dangerous, but not all sadness is depression, nor does all sadness lead to depression. Sometimes sadness is melancholic or nostalgic — a seasoning of life rather than a banishment of life, a reminder not to take life for granted. For several months now I’ve been hesitant to continue posting about grief since such posts show me (perhaps) in a pathetic or needy light, but there are too many misconceptions about grief that we accept as truth, and I want people who have lost the most significant person in their life to know that they do not need to put aside their sorrow simply to placate others. It is their grief and they need to feel the sorrow, not ignore it. Experiencing grief and processing it are how we learn to be whole again (or as whole as is possible).
The first year after such a traumatic loss, one struggles to survive the psychic shock. The second year one deals with the effects of the ongoing loss and begins to look ahead more often than one looks behind. Since I am still in my second year, I don’t know what the third and fourth year bring — perhaps occasional upsurges of grief or a continual (though diminishing) struggle to comprehend life and death and loss. People who have been on this journey and come out of it mostly intact, tell me that it takes four years before one completely gets back the joy of living. So I am still within the normal bounds of grief.
For some people, grief is a time of shutting themselves away, of forgetting that they have other people in their life who need them, and if this goes on too long, they might need to seek professional help, especially if there are children involved. For me, though, and for others who are grieving appropriately, this is a time of opening up, of showing our vulnerability, of admitting that life is not always happy or fun. And in doing so, we make connections to help us rebuild our lives.
If I had hidden my sadness, if I had followed my natural inclination to bear my pain in silence, my life would have been much diminished. You and all the people I met since I began this journey nineteen months ago have added so much to my life that it tells me what I already know: I am not grieving inappropriately.
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