This morning is the first time I can remember being alone and laughing out loud.
I was looking for an email address in my archives. Deleting an email from Jim–any email, whether it’s a picture he sent me from his phone or a dental appointment reminder–remains unthinkable.
I knew there would be an email dated last February from the person whose address I sought. I scrolled along and found an unadorned link Jim sent me last Valentine’s Day.
I clicked on it. And laughed.
It opened to a sketch of a farmer, accompanied by the words: “One quality I’m not looking for in a partner is the ability to maintain a virtual farm.”
Even now, Jim is gently poking fun at me. Even now, as I try to stay afloat in the vale of tears, he can make me laugh.
I had just come inside from cleaning up after the dogs. In addition to its other obvious sensory negatives, this chore involves a repetitive motion my spine simply should not be making. I spoke to the sky as I did it: “Really, Jim? You’re laughing at me, aren’t you? Two beagles? What were we thinking?”
If you were to survey one hundred people who know me as either my work self or my other self, and ask what cyber-game I am most likely to play, I’m guessing ninety-nine of them would pick “Mafia Wars.” Not so.
Uncharacteristically, I’ve never partaken of an invitation to cyber-mayhem. I did, however, find myself irresistibly drawn to cyber-farming. Make fun if you will–and my husband did, always with a twinkle; but as Jim threatened to post as our daughter’s status update (having engineered a promise that he could write her next update if he let her use his smart phone to check her email): “To women of a certain age, Farmville is like crack.”
The good kind of crack, of course. Continue reading “Of Virtual Farms and Speaking to the Sky”
Love in the Spaces 