Dear Reader,
Last night, I did something I’ve been meaning to do for years.
Truly years.
I destroyed our old hard drives, because those wiser than I have said it’s reckless to dispose of them without protecting your financial information. I was convinced, but not immediately motivated.
Word Raccoon was tired of seeing the task on our calendar, asking what was that thing that kept popping up that I kept rescheduling? At her urging, I said I would try getting rid of them.
It was messier and more difficult than I expected. Which is why I kept putting it off in the first place.
In trying to pry them open, I ruined a screwdriver and a set of wire cutters, both casualties of my determination. I gouged myself twice, and my hands are not happy with me.
And afterward, I had to pick up what I can only describe as a scatter of glass across the porch. Not ideal.
Which is why, this morning, I relocated operations outside.
There were more hard drives, of course. I dug them out this morning, determined to start on them immediately and get them finished, out, out, OUT of the house.
And because I am nothing if not a woman of layered experience, I paired this destruction with an audiobook: North Woods by Daniel Mason. It’s excellent so far, but not something I would’ve sought out.
I have the physical book from the library sitting here, but Libby offered me the audio version today, and something in me said: yes, this is the correct soundtrack for controlled demolition.
(That something was probably Word Raccoon.)
The audiobook is intriguing, so much so that I will go back to the written page to finish reading it. I need to know what happens to those twin sisters. Lil’ Miss Mary needs a talking to!
Somewhere in the middle of all that hammer swinging, I found myself thinking about my dad.
He taught me how to drive nails when he was building our family’s house in West Virginia. I remember putting nails into the floor, carefully, imperfectly, him patiently showing me how to draw the shiny nails out of the soft plywood and drive them in again straighter. I couldn’t have been older than nine.
(He tried, lord love him, but I’m not truly handy.)
Much later, in that same house, he decided to move the bathroom.
This time, he handed me a different kind of hammer: a sledgehammer, and told me to go at the wall.
To the moody teenager I was by then, it was awesome: the weight of it, the permission to swing it and demolish the walls and even loosen the studs.
By the time I finished this morning, I had gone through the rest of the drives. Some surrendered easily. Some not so much.
But they are done. Taking this off my calendar finally, hallelujah!
From there, I did what any reasonable person does after dismantling pieces of their technological past:
I went to the gym.
(I did not lift weights. My wrists had already staged a quiet protest. They are gonna complain so much tomorrow!)
Here I am now, writing. Finally.
I’m still feeling the after National Poetry Month aftertaste of “enforced” poetry. Ironically, I’ve still found myself writing a poem every day (today, one about my father building our house), but I haven’t felt that overwhelming urge to write that I value so much. A writing life can survive that, but oh, I miss feeling like I’m spilling over with words, dreaming of them, unable to live a normal life almost because I want to write.
Ebb and flow. It’s all a part of the writer’s life, I suppose. I prefer the flow. I don’t ever feel really like myself when I’m in the in-between. But maybe I can write my way through it?
WR says of course we can. She says if I give her a Coke Zero she will drop and give me a poem right now.
Deal!
Yours in demolition and words,
Drema
dremadrudge.com 