I had a friend, Pam, who was an astrologer and whenever things were not working, be that computers or phone calls or emails, I would call her and ask – what’s up? I knew what she would say – mercury retrograde – but how she said it was somehow comforting. Saturn was in a new phase and Jupiter was crossing another planet, or some other wonderful and bizarre thing that made no sense to me, but it did not matter. It helped. There was a certain poetry to what she said and we both always laughed. I think that laughter helped the most.
She has been gone a long time now, but I miss being able to call her. The world still spins out of control but now it is even more complicated. Computers and emails were used mainly during business hours; now they are 24/7. There are fewer phone calls, but they have been replaced too often by texts. Add a pandemic and you have the perfect storm. Astrological one anyway.
I did not mean to write about retrogrades today. I thought I would do a more lawyerly discourse on issues one needs to discuss for estate planning. The importance of reviewing all assets and how they are held and being sure everything matches the paperwork. Keeping everything together so family can find things. Maybe explore preferences for funeral or memorial services so heirs have some guidance. Something like that.
But then the document I tried to send to a client – 3 times – never went through. Four other attachments did, but not the main one. I got the “outlook is not sending” message with a yellow triangle and exclamation point inside, which I duly googled (didn’t help) and resent. It might have gone through this last (fourth) time, and when I finish writing this piece I will check again, but it does make me think. Is googling yellow triangles with exclamation points inside any crazier than mercury retrogrades? I think not. If we must live through these times, you would think someone would make them more interesting. More fun. Maybe make that triangle a planet and put a star inside.
I know, it makes no sense. But not sure what we have does, and a star inside a planet might be more calming than that exclamation point. And who knows, it might make me laugh until I can figure it out. And pretend that Pam is laughing with me.
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