Unlike its bronzy pink siblings on the bush, this one was decidedly purple – a perfect match for the painted bench outside our front door. Happily gawdy, it had found a way to stand out. We speculated on the cause. Perhaps a resident had dumped coffee grounds on the bush, changing the soil from alkaline to acid and steering this new blossom toward blue. Perhaps it was a separate plant altogether – a premise dismissed by the acid-alkaline crowd. Or perhaps – and I hope – it was simply a middle flower child looking for a way to make a statement.

And so, after years of hearing how my life would be easier if I switched from my dying PC to a Mac, I finally caved. I sit here typing on a MacBook that says “Whooooosh!” every time I send an e-mail and sends an icon bouncing up and down on the screen, invisible hands clapping, every time I activate a program.

I have to admit it’s fun. Who can’t figure out where the photo program is? There’s a camera and a palm tree hopping up and down. Who can’t find e-mail? There’s a postage stamp a few inches to the left. And who could miss Keynote, Mac’s Power Point equivalent? Just click on the lectern.

A month in, I already sound like the typical Mac user. “I LOVE my Mac. It’s soooo ‘intuitive,‘ I hear myself say to anyone who will listen. In other words, the layout is so picture-driven that you could follow your instincts even if you had no instincts at all.

But for those I’ve Mac-attacked with the so-much-easier message, I feel bound to add this caveat for the organizationally impaired. “It gets so much easier after the first 160 hours.”

The journey from PC to Mac, stunningly simple for most, has been anything but simple for me. It sure sounded easy at the store.

“Just bring in your hard drive,” said the Mac-sters who sell these, “and we can transfer everything over.” It sounded as easy as those TurboTax ads make a 1040 – a few figures in and a completed return pops out.

Like the tax ads that omit the laborious part – finding the figures to enter in the first place – the “transfer everything over” concept was deceptively simple. It presumed the files were on a single hard drive and in pristine order.

Unfortunately, they were not. Some were on my hard drive. Some were on my late husband’s. And the rest were on a multi-colored set of flash drives, handy for carrying information between the two and giving birth to duplicates.

The Mac-sters aim to make computing fun. If I’d fessed up, I’m sure they would have suggested that I rent a really long movie to watch while I created subject files for random documents from drives that had never before cohabited. It would have also entertained me while I reconstructed the groups in my address book that didn’t survive the transfer and organized my pictures by “places” and “faces.”

Thank goodness they suggested – even urged – that I come in for weekly “one-to-one” lessons. They’ve been a Godsend, as much for the cheerleading as the instruction.

“You’re almost there!” declared Emily the other morning, as we clicked through an address book now in quadruplicate, thanks to an unfortunate conversation I’d started between my MacBook and my Blackberry.

“Once you get it all organized,” she added, “it will be so easy.”

I’m sure she’s right. Before long, I’ll have the drudge work done and be learning to play the guitar by clicking the icon called “garage band.” I can’t wait. The moment will be magic. A guitar hopping up and down on my screen in happy, silent applause.

Copyright 2010 Pat Snyder

Was this the observation of a wiser, slower generation? Or a wiser, less frantic woman? I think the latter.

Growing up, her sisters said, she was the last to finish a meal. When I was growing up, she was still the last. Ultimately, in the independent living dining room, she was still the last.

“I’m just a slow eater,” she would say. “Go on if you have to.”

But no one ever did. They sat. They told her their stories. She listened and chewed. They waited.

Although she regularly apologized for the delay, I can’t remember anyone complaining. She wasn’t a dawdler. She was a savorer and a listener. Someone easy to sit with. Someone who took it all in.

Looking back, I have to admit she was right about the gulping. It’s an excellent habit to break. Not that I have. But I’m working on getting the six directions – whatever they were – down to five.

Mom would be proud.

Success is not measured in dollars or inventories of adult toys or even inventories of impressive adult connections.

This is not to say traditional measures of success are bad. It’s fine to drive the Lexus or pilot your private plane. Every once in a while, though, to keep things in perspective, it might be a good idea to skip a stone across a pond.

Fine idea, but ever try to unload pieces of random medical equipment all in one place? If I were in charge of the world, there would be a centralized Medicare warehouse that redistributes this stuff, but don’t get me started. And we won’t go into the full time job it would be to sell it all on Craig’s list.

Instead, I Googled the problem and discovered a warehouse called MedWish International (www.medwish.org) , a non-profit in Cleveland that distributes medical equipment worldwide. And ta-dah! I had to drive up that way regardless for a friend’s book-signing party. So Tuesday saw me trucking up 71-North, Prius jammed with a manual wheelchair, half a dozen seat cushions, some sort of circulation pump, a variety of crutches and canes and the crowning glory – a bedside toilet chair. I felt like I was driving an African bush taxi and I prayed I wouldn’t break down.

Happily, the medical delivery went without a hitch. MedWish Director of Operations Mimi Hable even met me in the parking lot and helped unload.

So as of last evening, mission accomplished! My son has the clothes closet. MedWish has a ton of equipment. And thanks to my husband’s perseverance in acquiring this stuff in the first place, people around the world – and especially their tushes – will be more comfortable. Success all around.

Gracing my front stoop is an ever-fresh collection of blossoms that look perky from the curb in any weather. They give the impression on a quick drive by, that I have, in fact, gardened.

As a consolation to my green-thumb mom, I’ve stuck them in her umbrella stand. She would at least be happy at least that it’s being used.

And probably astonished that a family of bag worms has nested among the blossoms.  Don’t tell me you can’t fool nature.

But I never expected to find him in the master bedroom closet. The other night, though, there he was. I’d gone fishing through a few more cardboard boxes in seemingly endless quest to put my late husband “stuff” in the hands of someone who could use it.

There, in a little plastic flip box was an audiotape of Tony – labelled in the unmistakable perfect printing of my Bob’s older sister Sally. Through a happy coincidence, the box also held a working tape recorder. The reward of the cleaning spree was an evening with Tony, urging me to “shape my destiny” and identifying for me the “six basic human needs.”

Unfortunately, we only got through three (certainty, significance and love). Apparently there’s a second tape somewhere. I can’t wait to find it. Meanwhile, Tony has motivated me … to keep cleaning.

Repeating it for 15 minutes each morning feels symbolic of another lesson learned there, that regular practice is as important as success. It is so easy to flit, to try one thing and then another, when remaining faithful to a regular routine can provide the structure we need. To say nothing of the calm that comes from putting the cell phone on “quiet” and closing the door.

If random thoughts sneak in, as they inevitably will, try calling them by name, as Elizabeth Lesser suggests in “The Seeker’s Guide.” Just say “thinking, thinking, thinking,” and they will skulk away. At least temporarily.

“Plan your work and work your plan,” I’d say. “And don’t forget to anticipate what could go wrong.”

That’s what I’d say. Unfortunately, it’s not what I do, which is why it’s July and my basement is not in the clutterless state I’d envisioned.

I’m a big believer in visioning, that popular notion that half the battle is envisioning what you want in your life and then, voila!

In this spirit, back in May, I envisioned the clutterless basement. No longer would it house the castoff furniture of my late mother’s apartment. No longer would it house the bulging plastic storage drawers from my daughter’s last three campus apartments. And certainly it would not be burdened with the tax returns (with work papers) of every deceased relative over the past decade.

“Here’s the plan,” I told my daughter, knowing she’d be leaving soon for the summer in Israel. “Before I start, you need to sift through your stuff and say what stays and what goes.”

I pulled out a large monthly calendar and negotiated a mid-June date.

“No problem,” she said.

Then came a glitch between the Vision and the Voila! that I can only blame on myself. I had a plan, but I did not anticipate what could go wrong. I should have asked a few simple questions.

“Is it possible,” I should have wanted to know, “that instead of sifting through your stuff, you will actually be studying for exams? That you will be interviewing for the job of your dreams? That you will be shopping and packing for a trip?”

And most important, I should have probably asked “When you clean out your current apartment, where are you storing your stuff?”

Instead, with an amazing lack of curiosity about these issues, I continued to vision the clutterless basement. The Summer, after all, was long.

Unfortunately, the flight to Israel was also long, and so was the list of food that the traveler, recently on a gluten-free diet, had decided she needed to transport.
Rather than sifting through plastic drawers, we were now researching the question of whether gluten-free food can be transported to Israel and if so, how.

That question was quickly followed by a subset of questions: “Will they allow three dozen rice tortillas on an international flight?” “Can a homemade quinoa loaf be checked in international luggage? ” And if so, “How long will it take to make a quinoa loaf with 17 ingredients and an apricot-maple glaze?”

Unsurprisingly, no sifting occurred before she boarded the plane. The basement project has not yet begun. There are even more bulging drawers – from the last apartment – in the basement. And she will not be back for weeks.

I am tempted in the meantime to offload some furniture or dump a few boxes of tax returns. But good project management dictates that I should not. Plan your work, work your plan, it tells me. Sifting must come first. Difficult as it is, I must wait till she returns to clean the basement.

I am, of course, distressed about the clutter and looking for consolation. But not quite distraught. Nothing that a little cinematherapy and a few good books won’t cure.

Copyright 2010 Pat Snyder

Sure, there are IPhones here and IPads. But there is also a violinist performing for pleasure on Bestor Plaza, Chautauqua’s village green, and families strolling with kids and dogs. In this place where automobiles are allowed only for unloading and then banned to the outside lots, it’s possible to reconnect with the Power of Slow.

But even here, in this turn-back-time paradise, we wrestle with scheduling overload.

I laugh as my friend Robin, here for the first time, tries to map out a reasonable schedule from an intimidating list of opportunities. A poet, she’s pledged to spend some time writing this week.

I understand the dilemma. It’s easy to want to be in two places at once. This afternoon, at 3:30, there’s an hour of poetry reading at the Literary Arts Center. And at 4, a program at the Jewish Center called “Shalom, Y’all.” Maybe a little of both? Anything called “Shalom, Y’all” is too good to miss.