Computer woes, garage door malfunctions, leaky faucets, funny noises made by my car - I can't fix any of them. Instead I get Somebody Else to come do it, occasionally as a favor, usually for a fee.
I've come to notice a certain feature shared by all these people who, unlike me, can fix things.
They take as their starting point the belief that the thing CAN be fixed. This is connected to their belief that if something doesn't work, there is a REASON it doesn't work, and if they can locate that reason, they can address that reason, and then do something about it to improve the situation.
Instead I start from the assumption (to slightly alter the words of the bumper sticker) that "STUFF HAPPENS." It just happens, randomly, inexplicably, through some bizarre quirk of the space-time continuum that comes into play most prominently when I am around. (For example, even other people's computers stop working if I'm in close enough proximity to them.)
Sometimes things work. Other times they don't. Who can understand the innermost secrets of the universe?
But lately the universe's malfunctions have been disturbing enough that I've tried to adopt the stance of the fixers. And let me tell you, it is AMAZING how many things can be fixed when I do.
So: thanks to the coronavirus quarantine, now we all live much of our lives online. I bought a new laptop, one that actually has a camera and microphone in it, so I could record lectures for my classes and participate in the non-stop ZOOM sessions that are how we are currently spending our days. But something kept going wrong with ZOOM for me. My face, never my best feature, would be blindingly bright, a white-hot hole in the middle of the screen. Then it would finally go into focus - and then out of focus - and then into focus. Plus, I looked so ghoulish that although I had never spent a minute of my life caring about my appearance before, I wanted to sob after every ZOOM session.
Oh, well, I thought. I guess ZOOM works for everyone else, but it doesn't work for me.
But then, during a ZOOM session, I wailed about my ZOOM despair to one of those People Who Can Fix Things. He mentioned that the problem might be with my computer camera; I might do better if I got a separate webcam (whatever that was). Another friend who was part of this ZOOM session sent me a picture of his webcam. I ordered it. It arrived. My son and I tried to install it, and of course - OF COURSE! - we couldn't make it work. But then we Googled "How do you make this thing work?" and it turns out you have to download software on your computer first. Who knew? Well, now we did.
I LOVE MY NEW LITTLE WEBCAM! I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT! Oh, little webcam, I love you so! My face is in focus now! It looks like a normal human face! It even looks (sort of) like a pretty human face!
Dear ones, some things really CAN be fixed. While we all know we have to accept those things we cannot change, some things actually CAN be changed.
I learned this ditty as a child:
For every evil under the sun
There is a remedy or there is none.
If there be one, seek till you find it.
If there be none, never mind it.
In the future I'm going to do at least a little bit of seeking first before I throw up my hands in surrender to the universe. There just might be a new little webcam out there somewhere, waiting for me.
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