The other day I heard a friend expressing her overwhelm around emails. She just couldn't keep up with the volume. There was even a measure of satisfaction in deleting them, unread.
This week it appears that I have been relieved of that problem. Someone texted me saying that when she tried to write to me it was rejected. It was then I noticed that many of the routine messages I have subscribed to were missing, as well as any communications from people at work.
In a way it was a relief to have silence. Nothing was pressing for my attention. And yet the vague awareness that I am ignoring people taps like the sound of knocking on the back door, when I am upstairs and can only barely hear it.
While it has never happened to me, other people have expressed angst over being hacked. Unsavory messages appear to originate from them to everyone on their contact list, without their knowledge. Then follows the tedious process of changing your password, or closing the account.
The system is lovely when it works. We speak virtually to each other, with words we intend and no snark. But on occasion things go awry, misdirecting those conversations, or fabricating bad ones.
Sometimes the void or blathering arrives even without a screen. I notice my own mind blocking any goodness headed my way from someone I have already decided to ignore. Or my squirrelly imagination conflates negative meaning to another person's innocent remarks.
The other day I was cooking tofu. Everyone at our house knows that John does a better job of that, getting the cubes crispy and uniform, while my impatience shows up and they are, well, less so. He walked up to me at the stove. Before he could speak, I did.
"What am I doing wrong?"
He was not, it turns out, armed with criticism at all, but had a question about what vegetables I planned to go with it.
Maybe I could create a new password. Something like "I love you," could open the roof to beauty, and sift out spam.
