Mistrust the process

I opened the folder and skimmed its contents. The files inside were arranged by some form of chronology that merged creation and last perusals, but their subject lines were empty. As I drew my cursor down the list, I focused my attention on the window to the right of each draft, which showed the first three lines of the text therein.

I hopscotch across platforms. I was jotting down notes on my phone and shaping them into thoughts on my laptop whenever the time allowed, usually while the television remote was under the control of others.

Often, and usually, well before sunrise on the last day possible, I sit in the dark under the bed covers, rearranging words one last time before I send whatever patchwork of thoughts I have made off toward its final destination.

This has been my writing process since I could say “Gmail.”

When it works, it works.

I find the file I want and double-click.

The treatise opens as if tapped by a magic wand.

When it doesn’t work?

A stopwatch of dashes circled my screen as a notice told me to have patience while some magical process of computation – perhaps ones and zeros inside the machine, or perhaps squirrels – worked together to download my file from a server.

When the watch finally stopped spinning, a new message appeared in an empty window: The server was not responding. Try again at another time.

So, of course, I try again, and again and again with furious speed, until I can feel my stomach inching up into my throat.

I email all the people I know who are at least a decade younger, pleading with them to disclose the one small trick I know they must be gatekeeping: A string of code, perhaps, something like Archive://spin around three times and/VoiLA_Remove@trash, and my lost prose would magically reappear.

 Of course, they cannot help. There is no hidden pocket into which my work has been slipped. My friends quietly listen as I talk myself into the delicate understanding that it only takes one elongated internet disconnection for all those words to fly out of an empty window and be lost forever.

None of them want to venture a guess as to why the gray ghosts of my missing thoughts continue to haunt me after their untimely departure from the nebulous realm that is my drafts folder.

For that, I need to consult a scholar at least two generations removed.

Luckily I didn’t even need to enlist a volunteer since my daughter happened to be home from college and sitting on the other end of the couch creating a cacophony of disharmony by simulcasting tiktok on her phone and Netflix from her laptop.

“I feel like I have to tell you that I’ve discussed this situation with alllllllll of my friends, and we’ve concluded that the old thing that gives away your age is your constant refusal to use Google Docs.

“Here, hand me your laptop; I’m going to start a file for you … You will find it in the docs folder under “MOM NEEDS TO GROW UP AND GET WITH THE PROGRAM.”