Contact!

Forces have conspired to keep me from blogging. The computer at home suffered the loss of its monitor. The kids tell me, don't worry, Santa can bring you a laptop for Christmas. I am not counting on Santa, but hope that by that time I can manage a Mini, at least.

Worse than that, though: the Watchguard service at the office is blocking all blogs and forums. Too awful, but true. We'll see how long that lasts, as I know some people are being prevented from doing actual work, and the logic in the code is far from reliable. It won't allow access to an msn article on "Finding Your Soulmate" for references to "Lingerie & Swimwear" but seems to have no problem at all with full articles on Yahoo! about... well, the Girl's Guide to certain sex practices. I was, of course, only testing the restrictions...

Meanwhile, the kids are off to a week of sleepaway camp! It is hard not to show my excitement when I'm packing them up, as they take it very personally. But I can take all the time in the world to get this computer running and access the web by dialup, reset the security features for cookies so I can blog... because I don't have parenting duties! How exciting.

How to catch up? or to start over? I had quickly written a bit a few weeks ago on poetry for fun, which drove me to find my copy of Ntozake Shange's Nappy Edges.

poetry is unavoidable connection/
some people get married/others join the Church
i carry notebooks so i can tell us what happened
-- "inquiry"

If, as Adrienne Rich wrote, "the moment of change is the only poem," it is hard to find the poetry in the changes of this life. I have been reading Brenda Sheaffer's book Is it Love? Or is it Addiction? Through it I am seeing an intellectual map for everything I have been learning viscerally over several years - getting the Smart Notes version. But the change has been more along the lines of tectonic plates shifting than moments of change. That observation may evolve with some distance in perspective.

When you're in the middle of it, a story is not a story at all but a blind wreckage [...] It only becomes a story when you tell it to someone, to yourself or to another person. -- Margaret Atwood, in Alias Grace

I am only beginning to feel that I've climbed free of the wreckage. With time and with distance I will be able to come back, come to "explore the wreck." I will come "to see the damage that was done/and the treasures that prevail." (Adrienne Rich, "Diving into the Wreck")