Category: VT Survival

All Good Things in Moderation (on life after dial up)

All Good Things in Moderation (on life after dial up)

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 2 Comments

I can have my cake and eat it too!

My mom always said that it was fine to have dessert for breakfast once and awhile–as long as you didn’t have your cake–and your Eggs Benedict too.

I find myself leaning into this same form of decadent moderation with my new access to high speed internet. I may allow myself instant entry to the World Wide Web first thing in the morning, but I pace myself with one new treat a day.

That first day, I was able to view a beguiling rap performance by Tom Cruise(??) on the MTV Awards; and today, I’m enjoying my first West Wing Week in Action–including a clip from the President’s commencement speech at Kalamazoo Highschool.

Getting DSL after a year of blogging with “dial up,” makes me feel like a lottery winner–and I need to pace my spendings just like those winners do–reminding myself that there’s plenty of time for reruns of The Brady Bunch and live streamed concerts and all kinds of shopping.

Kelly Salasin

LOVE at First CLICK (me & DSL)

LOVE at First CLICK (me & DSL)

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Oh, DSL, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…

(Goltzius/visipix.com)

We’ve only been together for what? 72 hours?  And already, I have a list of things I just love about you!

  1. You’re so RESPONSIVE.

  2. You’re so EASY going.

  3. You’re so FLEXIBLE that I can leave & come back later.

  4. You maintain your CONNECTION despite my absence.

  5. You SHARE everything with me–even video.

  6. There’s so much more left to EXPLORE between us.

  7. But I can finally do just ONE THING AT A TIME because you’re FULLY PRESENT.

And best of all, our courtship has been limited these past days to a single location.  But if my ears hear correctly, a truck has just made a delivery to my doorstep–and soon…You & I will be FREE to explore our relationship beyond bounds!

(Gerard/detail/visipix.com)

ps. That sound I heard in my driveway WASN’T a delivery truck FINALLY dropping off my wireless modem—it was the school bus driver dropping off our weekly eggs.  The saga continues…

(click below to read previous posts)

Dial UP?  Seven Steps to Sanity

Living in the Void

Ode to Dial-up

Kelly Salasin

Ode to Dial-Up

Ode to Dial-Up

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Good things come to those who wait…

and wait… and wait…

Rembrandt (visipix.com)

Unless old (un)FairPOINT pricks me again, tonight is my last night with my dear dial-up connection.

We’ve had what, 15 years together? He was so splendid then–a young mother’s lifeline; an emerging writer’s canvass; a recovering educator’s renewed venue.

Over the years, I discovered that others had speedier connections, but still we shared the same process… “connecting, connecting, connecting… AUTHENTICATING.”

This is a dim memory for most even in these parts of rural Vermont.  There is no longer any pause before expanding into the World Wide Web–no aperitif–no loading, loading, loading foreplay–no authentification of desire or intention.

With our zealous race toward immediate gratification, what has been lost? What will be lost for me when I simply open up my laptop TOMORROW–and see–gray bars BLACKENED–within the privacy of my own home?!

I’ve learned that there is no greater sense of contentment to be found anywhere else–if  not first found in the now. And so I take this time to write my appreciation for my dear dial-up–for his faithfulness–even when the power is out–for the AMPLE time he’s given me for

bathroom breaks, water breaks, snack grabbing breaks, stretching breaks, laundry moving breaks, yelling at the kid breaks, scratching my back breaks, picking my nose breaks–my teeth, my hair, my sanity…

–all manner of breaks during the sweet, syrupy pauses of his beautifully SLOW connection.

“Whatever slow us down, whatever brings us back into the slow circles of nature… is an instrument of grace.”

May Sarton

Kolb (visipix.com)

Isn’t there a whole SLOW movement right now? Because I’ve got their champion–and tomorrow, I’ll send him there–to lead their cause–while I

expand

into the

broad

arms

of

3

Megabytes

of

DSL!!!

Dore, "Dante & Beatrice" (visipix.com)

Anyone need a modem?

Kelly Salasin

Living in the VOID

Living in the VOID

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve exhausted all of the stages of grief around this particular issue, and now I’m at a loss around what to feel next.

Each time I get yet another neighbor’s news, I work through another layer of loss.

First there is DENIAL. How is that possible? It can’t be true.

Then, ANGER—It’s not fair! How can all these neighbors have it, and not us?!

Next, BARGAINING—Okay, I won’t complain and then I’ll be nicely surprised when I get the call.

DEPRESSION—I’m never getting it.  I’m in some gray zone, some rural hell, where they keep passing over me.

ACCEPTANCE—Everyone else has it, and I don’t, and that’s just the way it is. I can deal with it. (I’ve spent so long in this stage that I deserve an award.)

Kubler-Ross could not have imagined the grief over the inaccessibility of high speed internet in rural Vermont so she neglected to include the steps after Acceptance which are the ones I’m needing right now.

Following her landmark work on grief, two more stages have been slipped in by others:  shock and testing.

But I’ve already done TESTING.  I secretly glance up at the airport bar on my laptop every once and awhile on the off chance that I can catch myself already connected.

The other step, I’m saving.  I’m saving SHOCK for the day when I actually have those grey bars filled in with black–from my own livingroom!

For now, I’m stuck in the VOID. Because the only other option is to cycle back through the steps–and I refuse to do that, no matter what Kubler-Ross says.

I’m sitting down on theses STEPS and waiting–practicing my best SHOCKed face so that the moment that WIFI arrives, it won’t know that what I really want to say is:

F*@K YOU!

Kelly Salasin

The Mud Angel

The Mud Angel

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

mpinwheel-daffodilA few years back my family and I rented a house atop of Cow Path Forty–What a winter!  It seemed to snow more in March that year than it did all season.  We watched as the plow piles in our driveway reached alarming heights.  And then it all began to melt…

Each day was another adventure as we maneuvered our way up and down our road, dodging the deepest of ruts.   We thought a lot about cows and demolition derbies, but nothing encouraged us more than the discovery made one day at the crest of our hill: 

a large sunshine-colored pinwheel was planted smack in the middle of the tiny pond that had formed in our road.

So deep was this rut that her plastic-petaled face survived for days without being crushed.  The sight of her buoyed us through all that brown…  with the promise of SPRING!

kelly salasin