Computer Crash

It's a tale as old as the computer age: hard disk failure, no backup. In this case, the "crash" was literal, and traumatic. Osnat, navigating the narrow space between window, desk, chair and bed after closing the curtains, tripped on the tangled computer cords at her feet, and sent my sleek black plastic Vaio careening onto the floor, cracking the corner of the screen and more seriously, impacting the lower corner, the area encasing the hard drive.

At first it seemed okay, screen still displaying as usual. I didn't try any further testing as we were just headed out the door to dinner. Conversation with our neighbor there touched on the near-catastrophe and moved on to world tensions - "What if the whole Internet went down in an instant with a cyberattack on the magnetic shield?" - as well as our addictive tendencies these days with computer and Internet and related technologies. I felt chastised by the tenor of our collective judgement yet smug to have dodged that bullet for now.

Back at the room I discovered that programs wouldn't load; I tried a reboot. A telltale clicking sound advertised trouble in the vicinity of the hard drive, and the opening screen stalled with the wishful statement, "Starting Windows..." For good measure I gave the plastic housing a few more whacks with my hand, hoping to rattle back into place whatever had come loose, but now the result was far worse: simple white letters on a dark screen, like what you would get on the first time-sharing terminals I cut my computer teeth on back in 1968. The simple script announced, "Cannot find operating system."

I grieved. Hung my head, retreated into a cocoon, stared off into space. Tried to keep from blaming Osnat; blamed myself, the karma of vulnerability. Computer just four months old, I had spent a month in September installing programs and organizing data; spent irreplaceable weeks revising a novel; maintained all the accounts for my editing business. I had already felt antsy over the required idleness of this January Ayurvedic treatment regime we’d embarked on, in the quiet green hills of Kerala. Had looked forward, at least, in some consolation, to working our way through the dozens of videos transferred from Fabian in Tiru, and downloading more to watch - even some select TV shows! Maybe that was the fatal attraction... Or was it a karmic virus inherited from Fabian, who himself had lost the bulk of his inventory on a zapped hard drive, just the day before offering us our remaining selection from his secondary drives?

Whatever. Now I was up the creek in Kerala. Would I simply sit idle and useless in the rice fields - here and in Bali - until returning to my backup computer in summer?

Osnat tried the consolation-of-philosophy angle, to relieve my “suffering” and probably too her own guilt in the matter. She made the obvious diagnosis: I was too attached and self-identified, anyway, and this should serve as a fruitful karmic lesson.

True enough, I had to acknowledge, since only minutes before the mishap, Dr. Ravi had sat on this very floor observing that I looked out of balance, which I was, since all day I had fumed about my lack of productivity, creativity and efficiency here at the ashram, scratching patches of minutes together over the space of an afternoon, to manage a little over an hour of billed editing time - between lunch, fruit snack, conversations, research for places to stay on our way to Trivandrum, gathering information for our visa application in Singapore, checking email and Facebook postings, and on and on. In truth, I was both too attached and too undisciplined at the same time – the last, a condition not only of poor time management, but also reflected in the loss of hardware and data itself: too careless with the tangled cords in the corner, too neglectful of the need to back up essential data.

In the sleepless night following this “lower-self” trauma I realized how many attachments of self I have already released in the past nine months before this strange still-birthing of a dead computer into karmic manifestation. Coffee, marijuana, all my favorite foods, friends and family, music bands and students, my homes in Victoria and Maui, half my summer in BC, my swims in the ocean, my long walks in nature, baseball, my perfect car, my good music speakers, my drums, daily news research and postings, editing of music jams and videos ... all abandoned for life on the move, for a healthier body and diet, for a loving relationship, for openness and discovery itself, in that spiritual hothouse of southeast India, Tiruvannamalai. If the trickster mountain Arunachala had taught me anything, it was to keep letting go of any expectations and identities ... and to keep letting go.

Still I latched on to the promise of stretches of time coming up in the spring, time to focus on writing and editing again, in Bali while Osnat goes to classes. Having given up all these lesser identities, preoccupations, pastimes, addictions, childish and egoic pursuits, I still harbored this ever-unfulfilled ambition to write, to focus, to retreat, to hole up in my hideway in the ricefields, just me and my manuscripts, nothing left but what I have my whole life considered "the real work." Nothing left, in other words, but the seat of the ego, the sacred head.

Now with one swift stroke the goddess Kali has come with her terrible sword to cut it off.

*

A nightmarish night past, the day unfolded with positive movement in many directions to restore order, hope and functionality. I first determined that the computer warranty does not cover accidental damage. Fair enough – I moved on, following Dr. Ravi’s advice to look in Cochin for expert repair help. With the help of Osnat’s still-functional MacBook Air, I searched online and found a Sony repair shop that could at least take a look and try to repair the hard drive or recover data during the three days of our transition from here to Trivandrum for the departure from India. Now it became clear why we had delayed booking our intended stay at Allepey in the backwaters; instead we booked a hotel in Cochin, from where we could still venture out on a short backwater trip while the hard drive was repaired or replaced.

I had been careful only to back up a few necessary documents on my Android phone, and at first these failed to transfer to the Mac via Bluetooth, but the USB option proved successful. The most important document, containing passwords to online accounts, still needed MS Word, however, to solve its password protection. Would I have to buy and download a replacement to install on the Mac? Open Office, a free Word clone, came to the rescue.

All of this progress on the practical plane, to restore the functionality of my computerized life, if not the hardware itself. There are usually, it seems, workarounds. Google came through big-time with its synchronization of my Chrome bookmarks, so that my virtual life online remains intact via Chrome, on the Mac. The question remains, in the hoary words of Dylan/Hendrix, how much is any of it worth? Yes, I will have to work more hours to cover the needless expenses of repair; to restore programs and settings; to recreate spreadsheets and novel revisions from scratch. But I won’t be spending all those hours watching those lost videos and TV shows. And either way, what is the value of time, itself, except in the living? On the inside.

*

Reduced to my core identity as a writer/editor, and even that threatened by the loss of familiar material capability (hardware, software, data, access), I had to experience that dark one-night of the soul, with Osnat rubbing in the spiritual salt. While aware of the higher justice of her perspective, I remained stuck in my emotional loops of feeling lost and disoriented, an addict without fix. Does “back in the saddle” now resolve this deeper metaphysical condition, of self-reliance on particular identity, role, activity, success? On my sacred trinity of Productive, Creative, Efficient? On my fundamental marriage to countable, fillable, executable Time?

Here I am, on the morning of my virtual renaissance, Mac-reborn, spending my precious free hour before breakfast while Osnat is in treatment, scoping out the options on OpenOffice, and clacking away at the old keys.

So I continue, now as ever, with this identity, this version of “real work” intact: the roving word, the rogue journalist, wearing the self-proclaimed hat of the writer, ever resilient... like my mother a smart-aleck to the end, with the TV on; or my father with figurative drink in hand. This is my chosen or given self, the way I accept for my true meditation, what I can offer to myself and the world, for what greater purpose I cannot know or care too much, but to give, to sacrifice, to offer again; to breathe while doing so, to let the thoughts pass by and let them go; to watch and witness and hold and shape and let pass by; to savor in gratitude and to share for whatever use they may have for others, or whatever beauty and grace they may convey; for that is our gift in this paradoxical paradise we have co-created, to dance in beauty and grace, before and after the challenges and obstacles thrown up as exercises in digestion and transformation; to dance in beauty and grace.

Where is this motion, but in the running fingers of time passing, letter by letter? Where is the notion that all is well or doomed, when the sweet middle steers a sure course effortless, flaming inward in open splendor?

Only to offer, to be available, to invite the sudden flurry of birdwings by the face with eyes closed, then open to the swaying flowers, the silent sun.

Followup post: Doing and Not-Doing

Encountering the Self

Sunday, November 27, 2011
Tiruvannamalai

Arriving at Manna Cafe to play on Saturday night, with one sandal held together by string. It fell apart in the road on the way there, and at dinner at the Olive Tree I asked for something to hold it together; Megan from Invermere came up with a piece of string just the right length. Now today, down to one pair of flip-flops, I'm glad to be free of the rotten Teva's, the leather deteriorating by the day in the road slop. Last week I got the guy at the chai shop to do a street-side repair job, but now, a week later, I'm just glad to move on, lighter. My toes also are better off exposed to the air, following the previous night's outing to Manna (when our band was supposed to play, except the rain was too heavy and the other musicians were sick) and I came in from the outhouse with bare toes itching from what I thought was an ant bite, but was skin split from fungus, athlete's foot, incubated in days of humidity and rain. Saturday too on arriving they told me that Suryaneel was sick but I said I'd seen him earlier that day for rehearsal, and the rain had subsided, so I sat and waited and he did show up, a little bit late, with an eight-year-old Indian boy, Danesh, with him to play tambour. Our debut set gathered a small but appreciative crowd, gracious for our tunes mostly improvised together, complete with an impromptu African piece I led on the darabuka, and a sketchy group om-along.

Today my toes are healing well; the rain has let up enough to get clothes dried on the rooftop, and I'm over the mild but lingering sickness of the past week, for the first time. Another good kirtan set this morning at Upahar's, playing with Oleg again, also recovered from sickness, and Suryaneel, arriving late, and a djembe player who kept his head down and played too loud. Still Suryaneel's flute rose above it all, clearing a pure space of still meditation and full emptiness. This morning was rough, with mosquitoes buzzing the bed an hour before dawn, and even after I rigged up the mosquito net, finding ways in to prevent me from ever falling back asleep. At least the nights have been cooler of late, and I'm glad to sleep under the heavy sheet and Tibetan blanket, with all the windows closed. Still the cows start bellowing early and continue through the day whenever I start to nap, so I forget that and just brew another cup of coffee. The Internet worked fine today after the guy had to change all my settings which had been reconfigured too many times at other locations. I went to buy toilet paper, bottled water and samberli incense for mosquitoes, at Bubu's market; he was 100 rupies short on change and told me to come back for it another time. In the evening I walked with Osnat on the main road, with little traffic before the masses arrive for the holiday, and realized a new pleasure, an unhurried pace, lightness in my step.

India is India

India is India. India doesn’t care what you think of her. India doesn’t care if you come or go, how many ages in past or future. India remains. India is home, and you know this even if it makes your stomach squirm on first arriving. And your stomach will squirm, even if you are careful what you put into your mouth. The dust, the dirt, the grime, the noise, the chaos of the streets will get you, even if you come believing you are above all that. The cows eating garbage in the streets, the crazy trucks with carnival paint and bling-bling blaring Bollywood dub pop mania with horns in orchestral disarray … even on the mountain, the sacred mountain Arunachala you hear their chorus tuning, bleating, blaring below, in the dusty town that stretches from one field to another without end, without beginning.

In Ramana’s cave, the stillness is profound. The chorus of horns in the town below the mountain fades away, also the drip in the close-by spring, and thoughts subside into emptiness. Appreciating the sweetness, I do consider the perfect air, temperature and humidity controlled for the body to have no need. Perfect merger with earth, air, body, the fire stilled, the water quiet, the town removed.Ramana had no desire for an ashram to be built in his name, for worshippers to come prostrating themselves on the marble floor, the garlanded throne, even for those few devotees to save him with food from starvation when he first arrived, content with bliss alone of being, no need.

You said you would not return, could not bear it, felt so relieved to arrive in Thailand even, the pungent streets of Bangkok, calling that home by contrast. You said you were done with the crazy cities, the impossible trains, the buses without shocks or brakes, the decrepit bicycles and oxcarts in the roadways lined with rubble, the same as Kathmandu, as Conakry, as Iquitos, only worse. Apocalypse not only now but forever, this misery you must face and accept, for this is your body, our body, our human earth, our waste and destruction, and kindness in coming back for more, among the beggars, beggars, beggars, this is after all where we all are headed, our once-sleek North American cities, our Eurozone of comfort and cleanliness, when the public funding runs dry into the pockets of the filthy rich, we come back to India, to Guinea, to Brazil and Peru, to El Salvador and Greece in the meek stones, Jaipur and Varanassi, Mumbai, Chennai, Malawi.

In the room awaiting Shivashakti, the diminutive woman in orange sari who appears daily at ten, for fifteen minutes of silence in front of a few dozen sitting in meditation, I sense an intelligence around me, awake and aware, reminding me of its presence here as elsewhere, in Peru for instance, in the ceremonial yurt; or Maui, in Daryl’s truck by Little Beach, when I glimpsed that entity again in grace of crystal clarity ... In that moment she appears, gliding into the room to take a seat in front of the crowd. Her gaze, quiet and slow, scans the room, face by face, eyes by eyes, making contact, acknowledging and confirming the presence of that awake, aware intelligence which is not personal to her, nor to me or anyone else in the room, but pervasive in existence itself. A smiling and all-embracing gaze that says, Yes, welcome, we are one.” Like Guillermo the curandero, like Famoudou the djembefola, she rises and glides again through the room, her small stature and absolute silence no impediment to the mastery of her powers, which is only to be a vehicle, a channel, an embodiment of the infinite.

The orchestra is tuning up, its mode both classic and pastoral, heavy metal and pop, psychedelic and spiritual all rolled into one, on the dusty street past the temple, the swept dirt in the ashram, where all the seekers come and go, mute and prostrate, before this or that saint, looking for someone to lead the way out of themselves and ignoring the message to look within, to rest and stop the search, right now. The cafes are full of us, or half-empty, depending on the season, and India doesn’t care. There is an enigmatic head nod that lets us come or go, or stay a while longer, offering a small coin of contribution to the passing of the age, and we compare our experience, our temporary lodgings, our stomach disorders, our revelations in the cave before the relics of the saint.
Home we go again to tell our stories and post our blogs, upload our pictures and pay visits to our specialists of intestinal disorders, entering the rat race once again, even if for the last time, while India remains. India is India, and in the dusty street the beggar still waits, the shopkeeper still does a middling trade, the heavy truck rumbles past blaring its Bollywood bop, and the auto-rickshaw careens around a cow eating cardboard. Somehow in the midst of this madness, watching India be India, in the midst of India being India, we catch a glimpse of a pearl of truth, how to be oneself.
In bed at the end of the day, with the morning spent in kirtan and the afternoon at the Internet café, I rest in semidarkness with vision clear and still. The pounding drums of the night before are gone, yielding to tinny radio from the farmhouse below. The darkness allows fleeting images, lights and colors, brief enough only to suggest that there is more to this stillness than meets the eye and ear.

At dawn the barnyard stirs to life, water running, cows lowing, a man coughing, and at first my reaction is resentment: we have to move, this isn’t working, what kind of home is this? In a little while the mountain gathers light, and the sounds subside. A feeling of peace and contentment returns, deeper than before. There is no need, really, to go anywhere. Home is home.

video footage: traditional Dalit drum and dance from Tamil Nadu, South India