Larry’s Pretty Good Reading List

Our work computers periodically become outdated and are replaced, which is greatly appreciated and less disruptive with every iteration, as cloud backups and connectivity proliferate. In the spring of 2020, I went home with two six-year-old laptops.

(In defense of my department, they had been encouraging me to upgrade for at least a year, and I resisted because the technology worked fine. I didn't see a need for new if old was doing the job.)

By fall one computer was no longer compatible with company security, and IT sent me a new one that combined everything I needed from both old computers. But we were in the process of moving from one campus to another (a process hugely extended by the pandemic) so the old computers went nowhere.

My point is that when IT upgraded my computer again this week, and they invited me (now a remote worker) to campus to pick up the new one, I brought them three old ones in trade and a whole lot of memories.

Even after my previous department became remote in 2020, we were required to attend a variety of in-person events from client meetings to company all-staffs. In the depths of my three laptop bags I found parking receipts, boarding passes, Chinese readers and snacks, along with masks - so many masks - hand sanitizer, and a note from a deceased coworker about the name of one of my laptops.

It's hard to believe it's been six years. It's also strange to me personally that the time between going home and starting my current job - four entire years - has largely disappeared from daily recall. I remember working with my previous department, on-site, for 18 years. And I remember working with my current department, remotely, for the last two.

Everything in between: the years between 2020 to 2024, from going remote to moving house to saying goodbye to Mimi, all still exists in my memory, but it's largely unmoored from the rest of the timeline. It's neither "now" nor "then," but some secret third option that my brain initially skips over when looking back, somehow assigning those years to a parallel life track rather than a sequential one.

I wonder if it will settle into place as life goes on, if life goes on (thanks body, I appreciate you), or if it will remain disconnected, like the semester I spent teaching at a residential school during the fall of 2001.

Memory is so interesting. I try to let experiences change me in the moment as much as possible and desirable, so I get more out of them than thinking of (or forgetting) them later.

And being kind, of course. The most important connection to any experience.

“I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

~Etienne de Grellet,
Quaker missionary