Angels, and How to be One

Rarely does the writer's life provide the funds for getting all the things we need. Fortunately for me, mine has provided an absolute wealth of friends, who besides providing me with the best of company, try to see to it that one way or another I do get the things necessary to carry on.

Two of the angels in my life have given me what was almost essential to make Proust Said That happen: the very computer gear on which I was able to create it, lay it out, print it and see it in the miracle of 256 colors, my wonderful friends Cynsa Bonorris and Marilyn Wann. They have both, as they well deserved, upgraded. The equipment they no longer needed was a godsend to me. Cynsa has very recently found an even better Mac for me, and purchased it, even though the only thing I can ever give her is rice pudding.

And there is my neighbor and Webmaster, Jeffrey Gray, who is willing to come to the rescue every time there is a problem with my computer or a simple ignorance of the thing, who gave me my first modem, and now surfaces regularly to fix the email he has wrought. When he doesn't come to my rescue, Cynsa does.

Last year on the email list for the Burning Man, I proposed a special camp for people who had closets full of equipment they didn't use, in which they would carefully wrap up this old gear in plastic, to protect it from the desert dust, put in a note to explain why you are giving it away, in case some repairs are necessary, and leave it on a table for other celebrants to pick up and take home if they wished. Perhaps they could include their name and address so the person who got the gift could write to thank them. How many artists, struggling writers, the financially disabled in general, would be thrilled to take home a functioning ten-year-old Macintosh? It was an opportunity to be angels, like Cynsa and Marilyn.

I don't know if anyone did that. There was too much going on at Burning Man to know; it was a small town in which every person was somehow interesting, creative, and funny. But the idea remains, and I am constantly reminded of it by the generosity of my friends. If you have upgraded and have an unused item that can mean so much to someone else, please do make someone happy. Send me email at psegal@well.com, and I will find someone for you who needs an angel.

P Segal