Get Ready, Get Set, SPLAT

Just as things seemed to be getting sorted out, another wrench got tossed into the wheel. I use a computer program called Darci USB to type on and do the mouse controls of my computer. To access Darci I use a puff/sip control which gives me a “dot” when I suck (sip) and a “dash” when I blow (puff). I have used Morse Code since I was first introduced to a keyboard emulator that accepted it in 1986. It truly liberated me in that it made it practical and fairly fast for me to do my own input and writing. As e-mail and the internet became the primary tools of work life I was able to get into and keep up with the world of communication and influence in ways I could never have imagined even when I was dictating essays to willing volunteers at university.

I certainly could never have imagined the impact that mobile, trailer living is having on my daily life. Early last week I could no longer ignore that my puff/sip interface was sluggish and requiring ever greater effort to deliver the required sucks and blows. By Friday first Gabor, then David, spent hours with me cleaning old saliva out of ever deeper parts of the interface, and in the process, breaking part of the casing and discovering more and more both about how it actually works and how broken down it had become – a wire stripped here, a part of the breath pipe cracked there, etc. Nothing seemed to keep it working more than a few minutes before it again slowed down and became difficult to activate. Eventually I began to notice that the “dot” producing part was much improved, but the “dash” producing mechanism finally failed completely on Saturday.

In the meantime I had connected up with Skype, and just as I was finally able to make independent phone calls, (not having been able to do so since leaving Toronto on Oct. 24), I lost the capacity to do this AND keep up the blog AND keep up with Facebook and e-mail all in the same failure of a single switch. This was an unanticipated blow although the device itself is about eight years old. Somehow I never thought that continuous setting up and dismantling of a device that had been stationery for years could lead to its rapid deterioration!

A few hours later I remembered that Darci can run from a single switch. Erin confirmed with me that the second switch really is not functional, then we set out to discover if we could get me back to functionality with just one. Of course single switch puff/sip is just sip. I began to retrain myself in the required, quite different, mouth movements while both Erin and I tried to work out figure out what settings would make the device most workable for me. About two hours later after typing a page of gibberish I put out two sensible words – Hello, Erin. – and went to bed.

Sometime mid-morning today I realized that the third switch I have in my possession, the interface for my Tykkriphone – a puff/sip telephone dialer – is now redundant because I am not going to need a land line phone with Skype even when I do return to living in a house. I thought that perhaps we could combine the one functional switch from the Darci set up with the only switch from the Tykkriphone interface to make a new dual switch for Darci that would work like my now broken device.

At first we seemed defeated because, as luck would have, it both switches seemed to be suck ones. Trial and error revealed that the “A” tip could become the “B” tip, and finally I was back in dual switch mode, this time with two tubes in my mouth, but happily typing away at my usual 35+ words/minute and managing Skype, Facebook and Freecell all at the same time!

Thank god for willing assistants, ingenuity and duct tape.

Speaking of God, we have been to church 5 times since the Tour began – not something I could ever have imagined as part of our ongoing itinerary. Two Sundays ago I was invited to speak at the chapel of Erin’s former boarding school. Since then we have twice attended the mid-week church suppers at the First Presbyterian Church in Savannah, at whose retreat house I stayed for ten days last January.

Through a connection made at the Sentient Bean we were invited to attend yesterday’s service at Life Ministry in Chatham, next to Savannah. The singing was moving and the principal minister emerged as a very intuitive, energetically healing person. I went up for the laying on of hands, soon followed by Erin. I am not one to push the vision of World Peace through Inclusion as a religious message. Just the same the minister’s warm touch, empathic understanding and encouraging words raised my energy and spirit in the face of our uncertainty about exactly what we are doing or where the money is going to come from.

This morning we followed through on an invitation to go to the Eucharistic service at All Saints Episcopal Church on Jones St. in Tybee. Certainly not charismatic in nature, the service was still warm and energetic, and it was very familiar to me as I was raised an Anglican. The sermon was about inclusion and the importance of serving the “least” as much as the “greatest”. I partook of the Eucharist, and so did Gabor who, raised in a Communist European country, has never experienced this ritual before.

At coffee hour afterwards I had the opportunity to speak for a few minutes about the Tour. Our video camera worked and we caught it on tape, and several people took cards and suggested possible places where I can speak about Inclusion.

Later this afternoon we met with Tom and Betsy Kohler and they took the 30 second tour of Avalanche. Tom and I mapped out a strategy to spend time this week creating three or four opportunities that can lead to real results soon and in January.

All in all, a week that seemed fraught with energy and time draining difficulties has also led to several exciting potentials for fulfilling our commitment to the vision of World Peace through Inclusion.

Judith