Frustration (but trying to keep positive)

After an extremely useful day, talking with and learning from Tom David (www.tdavid.net) and with Paul Carroll and his colleague at Ploughshares (www.ploughshares.org) I was looking forward to my last week in the USA, consolidating what I’d gathered there, going through the reports I’d gathered, and doing some real work on the write-up.

It had been an early start and the weather was hotter than most Californians enjoy.  Admittedly I felt tired as I began the journey home: but I didn’t realise how tired until I realised that between airport security and boarding the plane my laptop and I had parted company.  A couple of days, lots of emails and phone calls later, I had to accept that it wasn’t coming back.

With it I lost most of my notes, lots of reports, and quite a lot of analysis.

There was no point in crying, although I felt like it for several days.  Instead I abandoned myself to family time – more cuddling the baby, feeding her family and just hanging out with them generally.  We’ll never enjoy saying goodbye, but by the end of our stay I think we were all saturated with each other’s company.

Trying to look for the positives, it was good to have time for a few other things, including beginning to learn to play my new banjo (a Deeering Goodtime 2, if you’re interested).  Deprived of the reading I’d compiled, and having to resort to paper for note-taking, pushed me to realise that I rely too much on modern technology.  So this was a forceful reminder not only that life isn’t all work – but also of how much I love work: reading, thinking, and putting ideas together.

Now I’m home again – missing little D of course, but very ready to get back to work – although I’m also determined to keep practicing the banjo.

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