June may have been Pagan Values Month for some bloggers, but for me it was the Month of Random Shit Breaking. Among the random items breaking down all month: various car parts, household goods and appliances, and worst of all, my laptop.

It was a 7-year-old laptop, so old that it barely talked to other, newer pieces of hardware, or even rendered web pages reliably. But I didn’t really care since I used it mostly for writing. Not work-associated writing, though. The laptop was what I used for lying back on the sofa at the end of the day and reflecting, churning through feelings and impressions to come up with blog posts that answered some question I had been asking myself.

In its absence I realize that it is hard for me to get that same receptive state of mind while sitting up at my desk in my office, writing with a desktop computer. My analytic mind dominates in the office, while my poetic mind perches on the couch. And so here I sit tonight, weirdly upright and with too many papers spread out around me, trying to re-enter the musing frame of mind I just had on the couch before coming in here to write. Nope, not really happening.

One thing I have learned in the last few years is that even if I can’t see the way forward, things come through when I really need them to. So while I feel stymied by not having a working laptop I also feel weirdly serene about it, and kind of curious as to what will happen next. I have had to find serenity with a lot of things this year, mostly with my nephew’s death which is still very much an open wound. I don’t have as much energy for taking care of things as I used to have, so when stuff breaks unless it’s essential to my livelihood I tend to just leave it.

If it were my desktop computer that broke (God forbid) I would be all over the internet finding a replacement asap. But it’s my laptop, an almost ethereal companion that helps me dive deep and surface with something to say. Its loss I am taking more as a conversation with the Universe about what to do and how to do it right now. Maybe I need to bring that poetic mind into my office more. Who knows? At least I was able to write this tonight, and hopefully I’ll be back with more to say in the weeks to come. Meanwhile I’ve been writing a column for SageWoman Magazine the past three issues, so if you’re looking for longer musing pieces there is at least one other place to turn.