Sunday, January 19, 2003 AD Am(com)put(er)ation I'm missing my computer at home, but not as much as I thought I would. Funny how much more time I seem to have all of a sudden for reading and prayer. Of course taking away my favorite palliative has also brought back the sharpness of living alone. Have you ever seen "Awakenings"? There's a scene that takes place in the large recreation room of the hospital. Most of the floor is covered with black and white tiles in a checkerboard pattern, but there's a section several feet wide, running under a wall that has a row of windows, that is all white. The doctor observes that one of the encephalitis patients often walks up to the edge of the checkered section of the floor, but never proceeds to the windows. He theorizes that her brain needs the stimulus of the alternating colors in order to process the fact that the floor continues. So he and the nurse color in half the tiles on the blank section of floor to take the checkerboard pattern all the way to the wall. Sure enough, the woman is then able to walk all the way to the windows and look outside. I've long considered that scene a metaphor for my life. I do OK at church or at work or hanging out with friends, but night after night after night of facing an empty house feels very much like facing that empty floor. For the past three years, I've gone straight to the computer almost every time I've walked in the door. The Internet served as my checkerboard floor -- the stimulus that allowed me to keep functioning once I got home. Of course the problem was that I wasn't really functioning, I was just medicating. I was worried that once I got the computer out of the house, I would be frozen again by the emptiness of the house. I guess a week's data is not enough to go by, but so far life doesn't seem to be any more traumatic. In fact, I think it may actually have improved a wee bit, if an increased indulgence in Scripture and prayer is any indicator of such things...and I think it just may be. ;-) Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 1/19/2003 07:18:00 PM
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