Remembering What’s Important

Have you ever had one of those months when things just go sideways? Nothing really bad. Just irritating. Things don’t work. Unexpected boulders fall down into your planned day making detours necessary. Your plans that you were certain were going to be started – in my case, a deep dive into getting to know the new characters in the story I’m ready to write – are no longer certain at all. Other things have to be done. Your plans have to be planned all over again for another day. You begin to wonder if you should forget your plans and start down a different road altogether.

I have been trying to finish up the audio narration of my third Hidden Springs mystery for two years now. I was closing in on the finish line when my computer erased five minutes of the narration on one of the chapters. That meant I had to set up my recording place again for just those five minutes with the hope that somehow I could make it sound enough like what I had read last summer that the narration wouldn’t be too jarring to anyone who might listen to Murder is No Accident in audio. It was kind of neat that in those five minutes was the line in my book that says a murder in the story was no accident.

Then, when I was getting ready to do that narraction and read the section on my iPad which lets me turn pages without making the noiose of paper rattling, the iPad was dark. Would not come on. I had to go on line to figure out if I could solve that problem. I did eventually get the iPad to come on. Have yet to get it online, but didn’t need to do that. In fact, after I wasted a couple of hours working on the iPad, I figured out that I could use my Kindle to read the missing section. But then it had been so long since I had done any audio recording, I forgot some basic things – mostly the pop screen over the microphone. The first time recording it was not good. Tried it again. Still not good. Gave up on it, but then my memory kicked in on some of the things I’d forgotten to do. Recorded it again and I think this time it will work. It’s not perfect, but what is? Well, maybe a nice cup of tea and a good book and an hour or so to read. That sounds close to perfect.

So one problem solved, but then… I guess I hadn’t been paying attention, but my newsletter service that sends out the newsletters to my readers and friends just closed shop. I tried to sign in to it to write a newsletter and it wouldn’t work. Nothing worked. I emailed them for help. The person who responded said the company had quit August 30th. Oh. Sigh. I really liked the ease of designing my newsletters with their system. I really liked how my newsletter list had grown. Now I have to learn a new system. It took all day and part of yesterday too, but I did get my mailing list transferred to a new service. At least, I hope I did. I guess we’ll see when I finally get that newsletter written. If  you are on my newsletter list, you can be on the watch for a new looking newsletter next week. I hope.

I’d already been through that when I bought a new computer in the summer. My old word processing program was deemed too old to operate in the new computer. I had a newer program too but didn’t really like it. So, I was still using the old way. And then some of my files didn’t get transferred to the new machine. The whole folder of my next year’s book where I had my character lists, the manuscript, the history research. I’ve recovered some of it. Meanwhile I’m wondering what else might have gotten lost that I haven’t noticed as yet. Then I discovered that my backup program that is supposed to be saving all my files against such loss never got transferred to this new computer. Another search online to find out how to fix that.

But you know, while some of that made me wonder if someone was trying to tell me it could be about time to hang up my keyboard, none of it was all that important. And no, I’m not planning to hang up that keyboard. Those things were all just minor problems. Things you probably think I’m wasting your time even putting these words out there for you to read. You may  have quit reading before you get here. I wouldn’t be surprised.

Instead, I remember that this is September 11th, and 23 years ago, the Twin Towers were hit by airplanes. People had gone to work that morning perhaps worried about small irritations that turned out not to matter at all when they were faced with tragedy and destruction. Many of them had no escape. Firemen and policemen ran into the buildings to try to save people and many of them never came back out. People watched it all on television in horror. Sorrow swept across our country. And fear. And anger. People prayed. We all swore we would never forget and we haven’t. Now there are young adults who have no memory of watching that second plane fly into the other tower or of seeing the buildings collapse. Those of us who did watch will never forget the images and the realization of what those images meant for the people trapped in the buildings. We can’t forget the last words of the brave men and women on that other plane who kept the terrorists from making it to their intended target. Heroes all.

So many heroes, both men and women, have stepped up through the years to serve our country whenever called on during times of war and tragedy. My minor irritations mean nothing when I remember them.

Do you remember?