Footnotes from my Week

What happens when my computer took a swan dive

In my last post I mentioned I do Saturday writing sessions with Karla Portch which I will again say is one of the highpoints of my week.

Anyway, last Saturday when I logged on, Karla was busy with a digital spring clean of some computing bits and bobs which included external hard drives. This prompted me to a bit too, well not really, but I did run the backup I had meant to do the week before.

You wonder where this is going? My thought now is that I was heading towards a surprisingly serendipitous moment, not that I would have believed it at the time.¹

For that very night while I was editing a post I had worked on during our writing session² my computer went dark. Yep, it had taken a swan dive and there was no coaxing it back. At least not by me, but that’s another good fortune story of still being under warranty and a repair done within a week. You could say there was a whole lot of serendipity happening for me over the last week.

An unexpected consequence of this week has been that I returned to my trusty fountain pen and an old notebook.³ It is rather lovely to allow my pen to wander across the page in ways that are different to when I’m on screen. The pen to paper encourages play. I can’t quite articulate what I mean by this, but I think it’s the lack of a delete key and my hand wavering over the page that I am more likely just to let the ideas flow.⁴ I’m less likely to worry about structure especially with my weak spots of spelling and grammar (I’d be mortified if any of you readers saw my technical flaws up on screen).

Beyond writing I’ve had some fun doodling ideas for other works; things like snails and shells, and streets I imagine as labyrinths⁵ that run around my home. I’ve played with colour, with pens and pencils and soft, messy pastels. I drew and redrew, and smudged, and I stopped thought and considered. What if I did some collage? It was that simple.

I also moved away from my office. I sat outside on the verandah, with my dog Daisy.⁶

I watched her snooze with one ear cocked to the world beyond our fenceline. I caught the occasional flash of a tail, as the golden fish circled a weathered Buddha in the pond just beyond my feet. I enjoyed the turning, not of time but of the sky as it cooled into the late of an afternoon. I sat with my notepad and a coffee in hand and noticed the little things from the corner of my eye. ⁷

All in all I have to say it’s been a good week.

1. Spoiler alert: My computer stopped working. I tried all the recommended fixes before drifting into a fitful sleep in which I did little but agonise over the unexpected (and imagined) cost of fixing or replacing it.

2. Did we ever decide on a name for our writing group of two, Karla Portch ?

3. Of which I have a collection. I sometimes think my children will be able build a pyre out of my numerous notebooks (something that may have amused my Indian husband if he had survived me).

4. What you think?

5. An idea for some poetics I have been playing around with for a while

6. My ever-watchful British Bulldog, and like most bullies full of bluff and blunder.

7. I also notice that the cane setting was in dire need of a good clean and reoiling – so I did that too and I’m so pleased with the result.