Floating

It is nearly 4 months since my mother passed away. In many ways, she has been as present as when she was alive. I know that isn't a popular sentiment or something one is supposed to say, but my days have been filled with the detritus of what was left behind. The garage is filled with clothes and artifacts of her life; the living room has her beloved china hutch filled with her objects and some of ours. And at last, I can say that I have a system that appears to be forming - the things that will be given away, the things that will be sold, and the things that will be kept.  The garage doesn't look much different than it did before, but at least I know what things are where. Or at least I did. I spent much of the past two days organizing, sorting and labeling, and then that system was thrown into a cocked hat (what does that mean anyway?) by the pending hurricane. I decided that I had better get my car into the garage and so everything was moved again so I could make enough room.  It is pretty much the nature of life these days--moving things only to have to move them again. The mavens of organization say that you should only move things once. I do it three or four times. Doesn't make a lot of organizational sense, but it isn't efficiency that is lacking exactly.

I spent last week on Fire Island at the beach house, packing and posting and putting aside the things that needed to come back to the mainland. There shouldn't have been much stuff but because we are selling the places, I assumed we needed to clean everything out, so I packed for emptied houses, leaving only  the small dressers and beds. A carter was due to come on Saturday to move everything onto his truck and then get it to the mainland and then to Vermont. So everything was piled in the middle of the living room floor and on the porch. Some of it was pre-wrapped to protect it from dings and dents. My mother's beloved teak coffee table was on its side because I had failed to remove the screws that held top to the legs, and I thought it would be easier to wrap if it was so upended. There were two large boxes of fabrics and linens, a suitcase that I almost brought with me by car, but decided to leave for those more capable of doing the heavy lifting.  It had a very large bread board, and the whale bone I mentioned before and a box of drinking glasses. There were the bottoms of the hurricane lanterns ( I asked a friend to transport the globes to my car on the mainland when she left, sure that they were too fragile to be "carted" off). There was a wall-hung bathroom cabinet that would work in our laundry room.  There were several rocking chairs. There were two ladders, a hammock, some art carefully packed in cardboard. There were some photos and dishes and our beloved wood wagon with our late-dog's name etched in its back.Oddly, I decided to bring the wood frog that was partly decayed from living on the back deck. I don't know why that was the thing I chose to bring with me on the boat, but it is. I garbage-bag-wrapped a rusty dog sculpture that several people on the beach had been eyeing: "You taking that?" There was a handful of shells that I had packed with my phone and computer chargers and brought with me.  My spare clothes wrapped much of the fragile dishware and were packed in stacked milk crates..

Sometime during that week, the man who wants to buy the houses came by with his wife. He said he wants everything. I could have left it all there (except for the wagon and the frog). He will probably tear the houses down to build his "dream house" but he says he wants to live in one while he builds the other, and "it is sooooo hard to get things here. You can leave it all!"  But by then, I was in far too deep.

Cut to the present....Hurricane Sandy is coming with 70 mile an hour winds and storm surges on the coast up to 12 feet. The houses are at sea level. Thirty six hours ago, a friend said there was already a foot of water on the paths, and his electric cart was up four feet where the garbage trucks are kept. He can't go anywhere, but he isn't planning to evacuate. The carter called on Friday and babbled about not wanting to take the risk of carting everything when it could rain....Saturday and Sunday were beautiful days. Then he said something about wanting to protect his own equipment.

I imagine that the wagon, that my mother used as a kind of coffee table in her bedroom, is now floating. Perhaps it will land on my mother's bed when the waters recede.

On the day before I left the island, I walked to the beach. I sat at a spot that my mother liked between two communities, and a place where there are no houses. I sat there until the sun began to set. The tide was going out, leaving a small sandbar parallel to the beach and an inlet separating it from the beach itself. There were seagulls and sandpipers that I haven't seen since I was a child. Their habitat is being restored and they are making a come-back. I talked for a few minutes with someone I barely knew over these years, but who had been friendly. I have a vague sense that I like him though I barely know him, and I was glad to have had the chance to pet his dogs.

The sun set further, and I distributed the remainder of my mother's ashes at sea. At dusk.

EE RIP

The Paperless Office

I've worked for the same college for over six years, and had the same computer since I first arrived.  I don't do the same kinds of high-powered graphics and animations that some of my colleagues (and almost all of my students) create for their daily work, so my 2005 Dell workstation keeps up with me just fine.  (I got a new keyboard yesterday, which is like getting new tires for the car — everything feels just a little bit sharper.)  At home, I'm using a 2009 MacBook, a dinky little laptop.  Both are more than adequate, though I must say that I've gotten VERY comfortable with the addition of an oversized monitor both at home and at work.  It's a real luxury to have two windows open on two different monitors, since I'm always working on data reports in Word from data stored in Excel or Access.  No more toggling back and forth between documents.

I back up both machines about once a month or so, onto a little shirt-pocket-sized hard drive that cost less than $70 but holds six thousand times as much data as my first computer.  Most of my working archives would be well protected in case of disasters like computer theft or network failure.

But still, although almost all of my work takes its native form in either spoken language or in electronic pulsations, the output is often mediated through sheets of paper.  Many, many sheets of paper.  And the inputs!  Every day, I get catalogs for publishers, brochures for conferences, flyers for assessment services or software, invitations to join some group of college administrators or another.  Every week, I get 49 pieces of student homework, agendas for a dozen meetings, handouts of other people's progress, policy proposals.  I get letters from accreditation agencies, forms to complete, bills.

At home it's no better.  I get The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, bills from National Grid gas and National Grid electric and Verizon Wireless and Comcast and Commerce Insurance and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, statements from Sovereign Bank and the Duke University Credit Union and TIAA/CREF and Social Security.  Plus weekly ad flyers, pizza and Chinese restaurant menus, and injunctions to vote for or against some candidate.

I was looking for some paperwork this morning at home, before heading in for a long day (thesis review tonight from 7-9 pm).  And although I moved and filed (or recycled) 487,219 pieces of paper, I couldn't find the ones I wanted.  Maybe they're at home in Vermont, which produces its own daily paper harvest.

In 1975, Business Week predicted that through the use of leading-edge technology such as magnetic tape Selectric typewriters, display text editors, facsimile machines and electronic mail, the use of paper in offices would decline drastically — in fact, IBM copywriters created the phrase "the paperless office" way back in 1964 to indicate the opportunities that could be had by letting IBM sell you every piece of business technology they could muster.  Instead, the use of paper has more than doubled in the US since then. 

And I have most of it.

One of my favorite parts of the Business Week article is the discussion of how technology will disrupt the secretary-executive relationship.  We don't remember how much secretarial work was like dating back in the day, but girls started out in the steno or ten-key pools (extra points to anybody who remembers what a ten-key was), and only through talent and dedication (and personal grooming and charm) rose to be an assistant to some junior exec.  Business Week was clear about the social changes of seemingly neutral technology:  "...word processing is a tough sell, particularly since it so often changes the traditional secretary-executive relationship. 'The biggest problem we face is the office wife,' says Lexitron's Pugh. 'She likes giving total loyalty to one boss, and he likes getting it.' "  Yes, I'm sure he does. 

SHE could find my Vermont Health Care Proxy, I'll bet...

And don't even get me started on books.  Between Nora and I and what we've brought back from New York, we're probably in the ballpark of 5,000 or so.  Most of which we've actually read, which means that the big ideas have been converted into neural impulses.  They're backed up, as it were, and could perhaps be discarded.  But they act, individually and collectively, as totems.  They mark us as members of the tribe of serious readers, and the symbolic value matters greatly.  Just as the logic of word processing was resisted by the emotional life of the office, the logic of paperlessness is resisted by the reassurances offered through paper.

Abundance

Are you wondering where we are? Where I am?  It has been a long time since I posted though H wrote eloquently of what has consumed us. Actually, most of that is him. I am merely the little angel on the shoulder puttering along in his shadow.... Ok Ok stop laughing. Truth to tell, I too have been working hard, though not in as public a way. My work will receive less attention, but I am not complaining...exactly. I am closing down mom's house at the beach. Not for the winter but for good, or as best I can. You thought I was done when I finished the apartment in New York didn't you? Alas. I am sitting in the middle of the living room surrounded by... well, surrounded. I have taken milk crates of things to the street hoping that someone would find that poster of carousel horses compelling, or the glass hand juicer, or the coffee pot --oops, I dropped that putting into the glass recycling container. Or the pillows, or the teddy bears or the three bags of clothing - well, no. I stopped at t-shirt number 32  (that's the clean ones I was counting - not the ones with one coffee or rust stain). They are in bags to be taken to the Salvation Army or another non-profit on the mainland. To do that, I had to call the local contractors who have permits to drive on the beach and ask if they would do it. They agreed. I hope the bags don't end up in the ocean.

I am going to donate the 8 or so sets of sheets as well. All usable. All in need of a new home.And the fleece blankets in green and red.

I tried to donate the books to the local school library, but they can't take donations - of books or money. The last librarian was purging the collection and sent the books to be destroyed; they couldn't sell them. Something about taxes that are supposed to pay for services. Maybe the PTA would take them she said. Maybe they could store them in the library til the PTA has its big garage sale in the Spring. And there are two kids in Islip who are collecting books to give to charity. Maybe she can contact them for me. And she carries a tote bag on and off the island if that would be any help. (You know that line about the proverbial drop in the bucket?) So there is something about a librarian destroying books that sticks in the craw, know what I mean?

It has been an interesting if arduous process to examine what I value enough to keep it. There are small stacks of folding plywood architect-designed tables. They will be good end tables on the porch. There is the coffee table and chairs that came from Mom's office. They are useful, comfortable and will see many years of service once they are refinished with some sand paper and teak oil. There is a whale vertebra from an old boyfriend. There are blankets and linens that we don't need but that I appreciate because of the craft involved in making them. It is craft that has no value in today's world. Women's work you know. On the day when the chief of Citigroup resigned his $15 million  job, I m keeping some beautiful calendar pages that I will use as wrapping paper next Christmas, following in a friend's footsteps who wrapped our wedding present in calendar pages. It was beautiful (as was the teapot inside).  And I am keeping the whale windvane and a small corner cabinet that will sit on top of a chest of drawers somewhere.

But most of all, as I snuffle aimlessly through trash bags and refill other trash bags and am paralyzed with fear that I won't "get rid of it all", I am struck by the fact that I grew up with abundance. If my mother wanted three of everything to stave off her fear of being poor; if she lived with every light bulb lit in every room of the house; if my mother had more than 32 t-shirts at her summer place at the beach, the impact on me was one of abundance. And now I am dealing with the consequences of excess. I am watching a transition occurring in my heart. It is happening slowly and with some pain. I went to the little grocery and bought soup today, even though I had had some in the freezer. I wanted something different. Something that would make me feel that I had a choice. I am a product of abundance. I have always lived with many options - things to choose from. There are consequences to learning that abundance and choice can be a paralyzing place to live. And that sometimes, there is freedom in leaving it behind.

I am not there yet. I am getting better, knowing that someone who needs the t-shirts will wear them. I hate the idea of sending them to a landfill. I am getting better, knowing that someone will use those fleece blankets to stay warm. I am still worried about those books, but it is getting easier to put the cookbooks on the street...

Riding the Scree

Struggling down the slope  
There's not much hope 
I begin to try to ride the scree  
But the rocks are tumbling all around me

— Riding the Scree, Genesis

So it's been 21 days since we last posted, three full weeks.  Life does indeed get in the way.  What's happened over those past three weeks?

We coordinated 380 new or revised course descriptions and a completely new course numbering system leading to a top-to-bottom revision of our curricula for thirteen of our sixteen degree programs.  The website has to be accurate as of next weekend.

 

We had a huge housewarming weekend for about 50 people.

 

We had a student die, another hit by a car but likely to recover.

 

We've driven about 1,400 miles back and forth between Medford and Middletown and Medford and Middletown and Medford and Middletown and Medford and Rutland and Middletown and Manchester and Middletown and Poultney and Middletown...

We wrote a white paper and Board briefing for another college's fundraising plans.

We booked a trip to Venice over New Year's.

 

We installed (and filled) a new bookcase, cleared out the office, set up and transferred files to a new computer, connected the printer and the fax/scanner.

We accepted speaking engagements in Florida and in California for the spring.

 

We had a friend diagnosed with cancer, and another friend's friend die of cancer, and another friend's friend die after a sixty-year relationship, and another friend's daughter in the hospital, and another friend's daughter leave an abusive relationship.

We set up an experimental method for comparing the heating efficiency of different brands of wood pellets.

We continued to deal with Mom's legal and material artifacts.

We coached a thesis student toward design development, in his project of designing a very large church on a very small site in central Boston.

We did demographic analysis aimed at uncovering likely enrollment trends for the next four years, and a comparative analysis of time to graduation and cost of degree against peer institutions.

We harvested all the last of the basil and tomatoes and parsley, made a couple of pounds of pesto and calculated the cost of production (secret business plan...shhh...)

 

We supported colleagues as they endured the lurching priorities of supposed leadership.

We ate pancakes shaped like butterflies and turtles and palm trees.

We taught six sessions of two courses, and built out a rubric for end-of-semester evaluation of all first-year students, and taught that rubric to co-instructors.

We built our first bonfire in the backyard firepit, taught a ten-year-old how to flip potatoes and spices in a mixing bowl without a spoon, made S'Mores and lit sparklers (estrellitas), and remembered how much fun it is to set random stuff on fire.

We watched a presidential and a vice-presidential debate, and read and listened to a lot of news.

 

We designed and conducted and did data analysis on a huge questionnaire of student desires for design software and digital fabrication equipment.

 

We've responded to approximately 400 or so e-mails, and left far too many not yet addressed (e-mail is the kudzu of contemporary life — it originally resolved a problem, but has since devoured the forest and become its own problem).

 

We took two air conditioners down out of two windows in two different cities on the same day.

We decided whether or not to buy a set of flannel sheets (yes) and a pickup truck (no) and a set of professional-quality billiard balls (yes).

We had a cold and a sore back and a migraine and not enough sleep, and left one of our prescriptions in the wrong state.

 

We got a haircut, and cleaned cat vomit off the back seat of a car.

 

We went to a concert, showed friends how to spin yarn, and discovered a huge variety of mushrooms in the woods behind our house.

So we didn't want you to feel as though we were neglecting our duties.  It's not as though we've been hanging out on the porch sipping umbrella drinks through bendy straws.  Sounds nice, though.