The server is down -- until tomorrow

I arrived at the oral surgery office today, three minutes late for my appointment. When I went to check in at the desk I was told, "The server is down," and then asked, "Have you been here before?" A few minutes later I was told they would have to reschedule my appointment, which, of course, they could not do right then, but only when the server comes back up. 

I wondered what message the office person, in her colorful scrubs, with her pink clipboard and heavily (but beautifully) mascara'd eyes, was getting from the half of my face above the face mask. I'm pretty sure my eyes and forehead conveyed a full measure of irritation and unhappiness. It's not like they were telling me, good news, I wouldn't have to get this tooth pulled after all!  

(If you're asking why computers going down means you can't pull a tooth -- I dunno -- probably something about images stored on the server from an earlier visit to a different office of the same practice.)

By 2:30 this afternoon, the appointment time, I had invested approximately 20 hours of dread in this trip to the oral surgeon. And yes, I am counting hours spent dreading the appointment while sleeping and not sleeping, as well as the usual waking hours. There are many layers to this. I am not new to having teeth pulled (nor to root canals). Dragging myself through this includes the yuck of standing in line at the pharmacy to pick up after-appointment prescriptions with my mouth still stuffed full of cotton. Also, tooth decay and gum disease are reminders of mortality to me. My mouth is dying faster than other parts of me. (Read more: "Dust to dust" from Ash Wednesday 2006.)

It was a beautiful April afternoon -- delicate green leaves just emerging in the trees overhead against a soft blue sky. I am not without blessings, including friends who listened to my griping and returned more sympathy than I deserve. Instead of the milk shake I was planning to have for diner, I've enjoyed a chopped salad, a chocolate chip cookie, and an Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. 

It's been a long year of COVID worry, isolation, and inaction. Just like the seven-year-old version of me, I'm looking for a good ending to this story.  But it's in process; we're barely able to draft the story of how we come out of this, while trying to figure out how we join up that story with the one we were telling back at the beginning of 2020. 

Roadblocks appear -- today, for me, a cancelled dentist appointment, and yeah, much bigger problems in the big world in which I play only a bit part. I guess we wait until morning, when we're back online again, and get back at it. 

Quietness of evening

 

I sat outside for a while after the sun set tonight, through twilight and into darkness. 

At first I was listening. There was lots of birdsong while there was still a bit of light and a blue sky. Not just insistent cardinals, but lots of different sound.

All day the sound of nail guns echoed through the neighborhood, as roofers replaced a roof across the street. They worked until it was dark and finished the job. The pounding faded to the sound of engines idling as they loaded their tools and ladders into a pickup and a van. One drove off, and a few minutes later, the other. I hope they went home to good suppers and people glad to see them.

The birds stopped. Silent dog walkers passed, bicyclists with their headlights glided down the middle of the street, passing an 8pm jogger. I listened to silence all around me and sounds of traffic in the distance. I breathed carefully as I tried to quiet my mind. 

News websites everywhere are full of stories about coming out of the pandemic. Personal growth stuff like how to hang onto the good habits that helped you hang on through the last year. Big picture stuff like has the nature of work changed for good? And much more, as they feed on each other. I click on headlines but seldom read to the end. 

I did follow one thing today all the way through, and I think it's what inspired my evening efforts at quiet: Who We Are Now, in the New York Times, with comments from readers about how they've been changed by the pandemic. Pretty photos float down the page with short quotes and a few longer stories from people who faced fears and worse and who seem to be deciding as they described their lives, to be okay. 

It's takes some work to be quiet, to listen and be still as the darkness falls. More than once I had to turn my phone off and over after restlessly clicking it on and looking for something to get the hit of dopamine. Thought for a minute about getting a bowl of cornflakes to help quiet my mind. (Helpful, I find, when awake at 3am.) I called my monkey mind back more than once to enjoy some peace and positivity before it wandered off again. And of course now, writing, I'm trying to experience that quiet again from my living room chair, wondering who I am now. 

Controlled burn

Good Friday, while on a walk at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, I watched a controlled burn -- fire deliberately set around Meadow Lake, burning away last fall's dried grass and weeds, turning the earth black and covering it with ash. 

The burn -- the bright blue sky, the orange flames, the brown smoke and then the white -- seemed sacred. 

Perhaps it's because everything seems sacred on that holy day -- so dark as we tick off the slow suffering hours Jesus was on the cross, yet so lit with that word of theological judgment: Good.

Watching at a distance, we could see the progress of the burn around the pond. At our feet there was blackened soil -- yesterday's burning, or perhaps last week's? -- dark crowns of plants and bits and slivers of new, faint green shoots. In the distance a trail of workers in their yellow fireproof suits curved around the lake, setting the fire and controlling it as it burned out. A small truck with a tank followed slowly, just in case. We watched as a tall stand of grass flared up suddenly sending bright orange flames ten or twelve feet into the sky. Very exciting, especially for the two small boys standing in front of us with their mother.

We burn away the brush, the waste, the invasive stuff to give the new shoots a chance to thrive. And yet those new shoots come from old roots. In our lives it's seldom a controlled process. But on this Easter Day, we pray that it turns out to be a good one. 

(More about controlled burns in wetlands.) 

(Thank you to Lisa for the photo.)