A small grey file on a white screen, blinking with a question mark on it, can not be a good sign. I wanted to think my computer was crinkling its nose, scrunching its eyebrows, and would soon be able to make a decision, as in, turn all the way on.
No. The small grey file blinks at you. Then stares at you. Then tells you what you dread.
I lost all my files. From about the last two years, every new photo, every new song, every new written piece that wasn't emailed or uploaded to various places: gone. Poof. Like wind. Like fog lifting. Like the defroster kicking in on your front windshield.
At the Apple genius bar, young Peru, in his uber bright blue shirt, remarked on my calm (apparently a man lost his shit the day before). Really, it's the most calm I have felt in weeks. I felt swaddled in cotton. I knew this should be a distraught, devastating experience, but I couldn't get myself there.
And I can't help but feel like it is a lesson in letting go.
Sure. I am sad my Scotland and Portland trip pictures vanished... but there are ways to get my favorites. Homemade movies? Also gone. Taxes, bill files, finance spreadsheets, a comic book I made my nieces, my christmas card addresses... poof. My writings during the past two years -- including a short story and a few vignettes --- gone and gone. But all these things feel transient anyway. Some of them were uploaded to this blog, some of them to facebook, but even if they weren't... it's not like my brain had a flashing grey file. And in my memories, there is movement and everything is in 3D.
So, here's to you, little grey flashing folder. I tip my glass. And crinkle my nose.
