A few weeks ago I got some memory in the mail. It came in a box, of all things, and by some miracle, using skills and knowledge that come naturally to him, my husband installed it in my computer.
The computer had been asking for this for a Long Time. First of all, it was agonizingly slow. But I didn’t realize this, because this computer is all I have. Now when Bill used my computer on occasion, he had a thing or two to say about it, but I won’t quote him here, because I am the editor of this blog, and I have standards.
No, I didn’t really know that it was painfully slow, because it became slow over a long period of time, and so I was clueless, much like the frog in the proverbial pan of water sitting over low heat. What I did know, and what alarmed me, was the warning that flashed upon my screen from time to time. WARNING: (it said) Your system is low on virtual memory. And then it went on to say other things that I don’t remember, and didn’t really pay attention to at the time.
The warning was enough for me. What could this mean? “Bill, what does this mean?” I called to him on more than one occasion, my voice rising toward panic. “My system is low on virtual memory. What does this mean?” When the virtual memory goes, I wondered, what would I lose? Because I have things on this computer that I Do Not Want To Lose. Not Now. That would Spell Disaster.
And how much time did I have? Is this like the warning light on the dashboard, letting me know that I’m low on gas? I can go a long time with that puppy ablaze. But being low on virtual memory– do we really want to flirt with that disaster?
On the other hand, how concerned could I possibly be? After all, we’re talking about virtual memory, here. Virtual. That’s no cause to lie awake nights.
But the man bought me memory and installed it on my computer, and suddenly WOW! I’m flying! This machine boots up in no time at all; I log onto the internet in milliseconds; my e-mail downloads almost before I ask it to; I flip from website to website like I’m turning my head. Sweet. This virtual memory has some kick. Maybe virtual means more than I think it does. Maybe it means more than it should. Maybe we should call it something else.
So memory comes in a box, in the mail, carried by an employee of the U. S. Postal Service (many thanks). But last spring memory came in a different way, when Bill and I carried a dresser upstairs from the basement.
It’s a low dresser, made of oak, with two drawers and a cabinet underneath. It’s been in my family all my life; my parents bought it when they lived in California. My mother gave it to me because she also “got” me in California and felt we shouldn’t be separated.
Bill and I brought it upstairs from the basement, where it had resided since we moved into this house five years before, and put it in our bedroom. When I opened it to put away some linens, it turned out that it was already full of memory.
Happily, memory makes room. But it didn’t speed things up for me. Instead, I sat in front of it for awhile, folded linens now in a rumpled heap at my side, and remembered.
I remembered the way our house smelled in Pittsburgh, and how the sun filled the back of the house on a late summer afternoon. I remembered the dark green carpet in my bedroom, and the crabapple tree that bloomed outside my window. I remembered the sound of the front door opening, the clunk of our shoes as we dropped them in the entryway, the closet where we kept our coats. I remembered the slope of our backyard and how it all turned to water after the rain, watching water and mud come up between my toes. I remembered dancing badly to the soundtrack of My Fair Lady in my bedroom after dinner, and my sister making fun of me, and making fun of my sister after her only date with David Anderson. I remembered knocking gently at my other sister’s door when she was having another Mad, and her filching my father’s cassettes of Frank Sinatra, and her gerbils named Peanut Butter and Jelly. I remembered playing Barbies with Megan Fergus outside under the birch tree, using the tree’s flaky seeds as feed for plastic horses. I remembered coming inside to the artificial light after late play on a summer evening, washing my feet in the bathtub, the smell of a fresh towel that my mother had washed, and folded, and put neatly away.
Then I put the linens away, and since then have removed and replaced linens from that cabinet uncounted times. But I’m always a little slower with that cabinet than I am with the linen closet, because sometimes memory gives you time, and sometimes it takes time away.
