I went to the Apple Store in Glasgow. I was not feeling confident about discussing my intention to change from using the the pc computer I had used for years, to buying a Mackintosh computer. No facility for managing my computer has ever arrived for me, and the news that creative people get along better with the Mac system had encouraged me to take the leap and change. I am an artist who favours any analogue task over all digital activities.
To put paid to any possible misunderstanding with the Apple Store representative, I started with: “I’m not a geek...” intending that he would understand the implication of this statement and adjust his vocabulary accordingly. “Yes you are.” he interrupted. My brain froze. The entire continuation of his spiel consisted of convincing me how electronically literate I was. He moved on to discuss solid state systems and progressed to various amounts of megabytes and gigs. I barely distinguished anything meaningful out of all that he said., nor could have cared less about the detail. I left prematurely having learned nothing and not even having attempted a shot at a laptop I had been considering.
I stood outside on Buchanan Street, awash with unwanted responses. I would go and visit the Mitchell Library - the analogue antidote. It was a sort of giving up, a retreat from the Rubicon, but my spirits lifted in the up-draught of the M8 motorway hurtling through Charing Cross as I cut across the street and swung through the double doors of the library. Books I can manage.
I have often carried out research there. It makes a welcome change from working online. Books stay still - you are not required to toggle between them.
“Can I help you?” a man in the foyer said. I let him know that it was a reference section I was looking for - a place with a thesaurus. He declared the fourth floor would have what I wanted.
I turned towards the staircase but it was cordoned off. Internal renovation was underway in the building which may have accounted for something. So I turned the other way and wandered off. He called after me: “I thought you were following me...” So I followed him. He got to a corner. “Go down there and turn right when you get to the carpeted bit. There’s a lift there.” I moved down behind another woman who was also looking for a lift and seemed equally bewildered. We met with closed double doors and no sign of a “carpeted bit”. She stopped and half turned to me...unsure. “This is my first time here.” she said.
I sighed and went back to get the guy. He was marching towards me, impatient. He burst into a room through the double doors ahead of us and veered right. “Over there behind the box,” he said. I turned to look. The woman also looked. “The box?” I said. “Do you mean the pillar?” He walked away, not answering.
I walked unhopefully on and a box did become evident. It was a Tardis-sized plywood construction. A workman came along and forced one of its sides open. He went in as I approached. Beyond the box there was indeed the door of a lift. However, the buttons to call for the lift were barricaded off within the confines of the Tardis.
I hesitated, then raised my voice a little to carry through the plywood. “Is the lift working?” Silence. Pause. “Is the lift working,” I ventured on “because, if it is....the buttons are behind your plywood box?” Another pause. Fingers then grasped the plywood wall from the inside and heaved it inwards four inches or so, revealing the lift call buttons on the wall.
Becoming steadily less sure of anything that I had previously known to be a reliable element of my life, I pressed the lift button and gained the fourth floor. Many volumes of thesaurus were there. I hefted a large one with two hands and took a seat. Vaguely I thumbed through the back pages with no real purpose in mind other than to rediscover the closer fit of some attitude that I could confidently inhabit. I waited for the kiss of some familiar facility to arrive and settle, bringing order to my internal disarray. Nothing happened... nothing came. I realised that my attributes and skill with language were not going to make a consoling appearance.
With a sinking feeling I looked up phrases about failure, disillusion, becoming disarmed, not being able to leverage the familiar, and I struck on a gem - smiling up at me there, from the mighty pages. I started to write, and the story came easily because I had just walked through it, Gradually, very gradually, words unfurled onto the page. The process hauled back around me an air more convincing of all that I am. The process diffused the previous empty conclusion.... that I couldn’t even plough with my own heifer.
