ON BEING DISTURBED.

All I wanted to do was write some simple thoughts down, send them out in an email and the job would be done. “Let Nothing Disturb.” Hmm. this often seemed like a cute joke; since, oftentimes things do disturb.

While using the computer at the Harold Washington Psychiatric Center, a.k.a. the library, amidst composing my thoughts, that had been with me all weekend, some written down and others in my head, that’s when the grunting, the bag smashing, the soda slurping and the mumblers, the arguments and the cacophonic chorus of loud talkers and candy-breaking-in-mouth began. My hearing had become bionic.

“Let Nothing Disturb,” automatically came into my mind.

Going into the drafts file, the story that I wanted wasn’t there, it should have been saved automatically, lots of other junk emails, had been saved and not the file that had meaning to me. Luckily this was not the first time that this happened, so I went to the email that was sent with the story in it. All I had to was copy and paste this story into a new file and I would be all set. Copy and paste, a pre-1990 function failed. It just wouldn’t work. “Let Nothing Disturb.”

Finally that process worked and then the computer screen started to flicker. Each time making the piece I was working on disappear. More interruptions and delays. Then the people that were supposed to be able to…