TABLE: This dining room table, this old door on legs, this horizontal surface
on which daily life's remnants come to rest. Here I sit among the artifacts
of the moment, surrounded by the comforting clutter of the immediate and
intimate. A most present material existence. By 10pm,
the kids are asleep, the kitchen is clean, the phone has stopped ringing,
the husband has gone back to the office, and a thread of remaining energy
carries me into the third shift: my regular late night work session. From
the dining room table, the laptop computer hums up ready, sitting in forgotten
dinner plates, umbilically linked to the world beyond's remote internet
locations, any alert fax machine, and all e-mailboxes. I plug into Eudora
with my slippers on, wondering if anyone fed the hamster, to find that two
more people have agreed to speak at the national conference I'm organizing.
An infinite time stretches forward, all mine, limited only by certain dullness
behind the eyes which a cup of black tea may ward off.
COMPUTER: The screen beckons, back to the writing. A magazine wants this
article last week, and maybe I can finish it by tomorrow. The computer records
unconditionally, every piece I've ever written is behind this screen. This
too will reside there, with any luck, when I shut down tonight. Files of
my work, of thought of commitments, of late nights past, flash by as I search
for a missing paragraph in "Find...". In the screen, the table,
its contents, and the room beyond fall away, leaving me alone with my work
and this familiar keyboard.
MODEM: Sparking a sigh from the child in the other room, the modem dials
its screeching connection to link my dining room table with phantom tables
across the electronic globe. You have new mail. Email form Princeton about
topics for keynote speakers at the conference; search the net to find where
I can buy a book I must have by tomorrow at 11am; send out a few messages,
some business, some personal. Disconnect. I fax a draft of the article to
New York, where the magazine's machine never sleeps, but I consider the
possibility. In spite of the debris, my computer sends everyone a clean
copy.
BOTTLE: "Maaa-maaa", the baby cries. Maybe all he needs is a bottle,
or maybe this is it for me tonight. If I lay down beside him I'm lost, but
if I catch it quickly, he might just roll over and fall back asleep with
a back rub. Sweet face and warm breath call me into the blankets.
D. Cuff
T e e n R o o m
F e n c e
L a u n d r y