 | Blogs > ladykitty22 > The Cat's Eye > Kudzu and Crackberries |
|
Ce souvenir je te le prends. Des souvenirs, comme ca j'en ai tout le temps. Si par erreur la vie nous separe, J'le sortirai d'mon tiroir. -- Les Yeux Ouverts (Dream A Little Dream) A business trip: three days on my own. Ironically, the business trip has become a form of vacation. Three days with just half a load; three days with just myself and my work to focus on. No cooking, no requests for money, no empty Coke bottles cluttering the counter, no unrecognizable smelly things in the laundry. I look forward to these trips, because for that blessed time span, the physical separation of space and time means I am permitted to live just one life instead of two. The noise of daily living dulls to a quiet hum. Things stay where I have put them. Messes find no place to thrive, and toiletries magically remain lined up in neat rows on the bathroom counter. Returning, a quieter woman, I am inevitably reminded of the constant need to achieve, and sustain, balance. I flew cross-country Monday to start my Walkabout through the Worm-hole, and was greeted by my business associate April at our hotel in Johnson City, Tennessee. As I check in, I am reminded of Blazing Saddles, the famous Mel Brooks movie in which everyone in the town of Rock Ridge is named Johnson. Which Johnson was this, I wondered aloud, and what life did he live that got a town named after him? Of course Johnson had to be a man, April replies; if Johnson had been a woman, the town would have been named for her Christian name: like Virginia City, or Charlotte. Indeed, or like Mount Wanda; one of my favorite hiking haunts, named after John Muir’s daughter. April, who will manage the network team on my project, is my alter-ego. Having worked together for years, we are peanut butter and jelly; Aplets and Cotlets; cookies and cream. A younger version of myself, April is also my mirror. We are both intelligent, beautiful, fit, organized and opinionated – and, as my reader has guessed, not lacking in any form of ego whatsoever. We finish each others’ sentences and have the exact same squawk of dismay when idiocy is encountered. Singly, we are terrifying; taken together, we are frequently greeted by “Here comes trouble”, or “Does the President know you’re both out at the same time?” For all that April and I are alike, we have one key difference: April’s life is ruled by electronic devices. Laptops and iPods dangle from her person, and her Blackberry is permanently attached to one hand, her attention obsessively controlled by its every belch and snicker. Kitty, on the other hand, disdains watches, left her cell phone at home, and prefers a paper map to GPS. I overcame my own Crackberry addiction sometime circa 2004, just before it consumed the last thinking part of my brain and threatened to overtake my life. At the time I swore that I would never again be enslaved by something smaller than my head. I still get the shakes just thinking about it. We've just arrived and already our days and nights are upside down. My body is running somewhere between two and three hours behind and is suffering from an uncharacteristic lack of sleep. To make matters worse, we face a 2.5 hour drive into the wilderness before we reach our destination; this necessitates our leaving Mr. Johnson’s lovely city at 6:00 AM. April protests: as a night owl coming off a Monday night midnight cut, she’s had three hours' sleep. Kitty tells her to suck it up: her own body thinks it’s 3AM, and she’s the designated driver. April at least can sleep on the way. The day is a success beyond our wildest imagination. There are exactly four people there to greet us at this immense, 50,000 square foot facility; in the midst of renovations, we move without locks or limits within a silent hulk. The site is in great condition and the April-Kitty team executes flawlessly. April holds her hand out, requesting magnet lifters like a doctor requesting scalpels, pulling up the raised flooring to inspect the state of the cabling. Kitty measures racks, counts servers and identifies walls to be removed. Backplanes are photographed; conduits measured, model numbers recorded, alarm and badging systems identified and logged. Our site guides, three young, polite gentlemen, have gotten over their initial distress at the commanding presence of these two aggressive (“bitches” – yes, we get it all the time) uh, women; obligingly, they have caught our fire and enthusiastically walk us through the enormous generator housed at the back of the facility, describing its attributes with what can only be described as a lover’s caress. Driving back to Johnson City in the late afternoon, I have finally lost all sense of time. The day is overcast and the drive through lush, rainy primeval countryside is disorienting. Though we have met no Pappy McGees on this trip, we have noticed a frightening lack of sentient life; drives through small towns reveal neatly swept porches, shuttered storefronts and brightly lit gas stations – and no people. Outside of other drivers, I have literally not seen a single soul. I am not sure if I have fallen into The Stand or Atlas Shrugged. The feeling is eerie; I am still waiting for the ghosts of Civil War soldiers. While I negotiate signless backroads through forests choked by kudzu, April sleeps in the passenger seat. I am happy to see her finally rest; thankful to have her alertness, her audacity and her bright energy on this project. Beside her on the seat, her Blackberry chimes out periodically like Scottish war pipes; urgent calls to action; to tasks not completed, decisions not made. Roads not taken. As I reflect on my own double life, the days as competent director, the nights as tear-wiping mom; dance teacher; bill-payer, I wonder which of these realities will win out: that of the soft, rain-drenched earth, miles of kudzu blanketing the new-growth forest, or the frantic cadence of the Blackberry, singing the corporate song of deeds undone and lives not lead. Hanging with April for these three days has opened my eyes. As with all Crackberry addicts, work invades her space around the clock. There is no sacred time; there is no difference between sunrise and sunset, no honoring of the rituals of night. As I watched her sleep, my wish for her – and for all people – is that one day they discover the need for honor, for separation, for ritual, for sacredness. Today, she is too young; too eager to show the world that she can do it all. Tomorrow, perhaps, she will find the reason to honor her own journey. I hope I have the opportunity to be there when she does. Returning home this morning, I vow that my own life will receive its overhaul. I already have the foundation. I will accept no Crackberry as the Boss of Me. I already know that health is wealth, and that eight hours of sleep every night is critical if I expect to be Alert And Vertical when I reach centegenarian status. But I must remember to never relent. This is a fight to the finish; I must continue drawing boundaries. I must continue forcing my double and triple lives back into their respective boxes. Stop and create real spaces between my working life and my living life. Actively honor the sacred. Yesterday, our young hosts burbled happily on about the opportunity their future offers, opening similar, new facilities under the Southern Cross. We acknowledged the competencies we celebrated among the five of us, and together, dreamed a little dream of assembling this same team.... And that’s all it took. Kitty’s mind was off again, laying cable in Aotearoa, hearing Maori songs in her ears as she punches down cross-connects; searching for manhole covers among the pebbles of Franz Joseph. Feeling the morphine of technology’s clean precision rise up in my veins, I had no choice but to succumb once more to the lovely, erotic tension of my beautiful double life. I wonder if there is kudzu down under. I sure as hell hope not. |
||
6/23/2007 8:27 pm |
Damn girl you covered it well.. BUT BUT BUT, we have to always count the cost. I can see you are counting, but I can also see you are not fully assured you have all the information. Well, pick my brain as you decide what is right. I left the city, it cost me everything. I had a business friend who did not he is gone, it got him, but he left a lot. He was in his mid fouties... we never know. NOW, you are doing right as you find the answers as any sudden movement would be more stain than you need. Just keep looking as you are doing, you are on the right road I feel. Where is it going? LOLOL who cares, just enjoy the ride or drive as for sure you are seeing a lot. Yep, the first step is seeing you are on the road and can look around, and you are. Best to you for sure. Here by the sea.
|
 |
 |
 |
| Become a member to comment on this blog | ||
 |
