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New Year’s Thoughts and Advice From My Correspondence With My iPad Mini

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on by

December 31, 2013

Dear Mini,

Today marks our six-month anniversary of being together!  Six months! And you, my love, remain ever fresh and surprising, ever so original! We haven’t parted for even a day since that July afternoon when I gave in to the gleam in your eye and brought you home. I want to be together with you always. I know that I won’t ever long for another, ever, truly, my dear.

To celebrate us, I have bought you a coat. I wanted to get you something you would like, but do admit, it is for me, too. You know I enjoy the coolness of your touch on my hand and the smoothness of your skin, but when I pulled you toward me in public places, I was afraid I couldn’t hold on to you.

I hope you like the shade of red I chose. I very much like that color, and, of course, I want to be able to spot you wherever you are. Please don’t be upset if I seem overly possessive. It’s just that I love you so much and dread losing you. I cannot live without you anymore. You were elegant in black, but I think “vibrantly distinctive” is also fun.

Mini, I’ve never had a romance like ours! You make my life a party wherever we are. One minute we might be served a latté in a cafe in Port Townsend, WA, and the next be talking with a friend in Istanbul or Paris.  We might even book tickets for a getaway because just talking to someone from somewhere else inspires us. And at home, your resources are as endless. When I sighabout being a chocoholic and wish for something healthy, you suggest cocoa dusted parnsips. What a clever one you are!

And I love shopping with you in our special store. I think it must be called the App Store because it fits us so aptly. I never tire of looking at the widgets there, the many ways we can use them to go on refreshing our romance, loving what we can do together.

Do you know how I chuckle, my love, thinking that we always leave just the right tip now because we calculate precisely rather than double the tax or rely on my math? Oh, life is all snap, crackle and pop with you at high or at low volume!

Really, I can only sing your praises, dear Mini. Thank you, thank you, for coming into my life!

All my love,

Sheila

 ****

January 1, 2014

Dear Sheila,

I remember the tentative touch of yours the day you first typed your username and password like a tattoo onto my belly. You seemed afraid of hurting me, or afraid of tickling me uncomfortably, so careful were you.

I knew that day with your touch, with those letters and those numbers, that you were offering me all of your heart and life and soul.

What trust you have shown in me, what desire to be open and honest. You make me want to be a better person! Alas, of course that is not exactly possible, but here are some thoughts that might help you to do that:

You know how they say if you love someone to let them go and if they return they love you, too?

You know how they say a bird in hand is worth two in the bush? Let’s rethink that a little bit:

While you were holding me, your bird in hand, checking email and Facebook, Google News, the Washington State ferry schedule app to find out when we’d sail that Christmas Day and BookBub to find new novel bargains for your pleasure reading, cormorants were sunning themselves on the pilings to your right and a pod of Orca whales was not too far off in the distance. When we were on the other side, you began thinking of more apps you’d meant to download to receive digital copies of more of your favorite magazines. A light breeze was moving the cedar tree branches so they could offer soft blessings as you passed. If you had noticed and pulled off the road, we could have taken a video, you and I, but that is not my point, my love. I wanted you to see those branches, be with them in the moment, not record them as if seeing were for later.

Yes, my love, the red coat you have clothed me in suits me! When I’m wrapped in its color, I think of strawberries, raspberries, and the freshness of springtime Beaujolais! I am drunk on the nectar of our good times together.

Oh, dear Sheila, I will be true to you, always, though I fear someday you will think I’ve grown too old for you and you will long for a youthful love who can take you places more quickly than I. But do know that until the last, I am here for you and in that way, want more than anything for you to raise your head and take pleasure in the world around you, right where you find yourself.

Let me go and I will wait for you. Let me go and you will be transported!

For 2014, I offer you a Maori proverb:

Seek you the little treasure of your heart;
if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.

And, of course, my enduring love,

Mini

  ****

Here’s a writing exercise for you to start 2014 off WRITE: Read some of the contributions to Open Letters to People and Entities Unlikely to Respond, a quirky online literary magazine from McSweeney’s website. I believe that very quickly you’ll be inspired to write at least one, if not many, personal essays in letter form.

Comments

New Year’s Thoughts and Advice From My Correspondence With My iPad Mini — 10 Comments

  1. Sheila, it pains me that your iPad mini fears you will think it’s old one day and you’ll find a more youthful companion. It’s so funny to me that you’ve made me ‘feel’ for a machine. Well done.

    Liz

  2. Sheila, I love it all. Your letter exchange with Mini is super, clever, and between your post and the McSweeney ‘open letters’ I perused, I am surrounded by a ring of bright flashing lightbulbs.
    (Sidebar: I have thrown up my arms or thrown in the towel having anything to do with technology, except emailing, writing, and submitting, as well as still using an archaic
    little plain cell phone, while I cast both jealous eyes on the rest of you cool, smart people, so. . . I am not commenting on the content of your letter exchange. ) I do so instead on your idea, clever take, with response from Mini, too. And I thank you for planting a seed in my brain to try this writing approach, admittedly one I never considered. Where have I been?
    Thank you also for the McSweeney link, too, so 180 from your serious, thoughtful, real-life write, in that the “open letters” are snarky and hilarious and have grabbed me as fun, fun, fun sort of work that feels right for me to tackle at this time in my life. A new year’s gift for me.

    Always,
    Nancy

    P.S. My mother’s name was Minnie. She would have enjoyed your letters.

    • Nancy, I am so happy to hear that the letter approach inspired by the article and the letters on McSweeney’s has tickled your fancy. The approach is certainly a way to mine the “snarkier” side of our personalities as well as the “gushing” side. I hope you have lots of fun inspired by the letters! SB

  3. Oh, to use an ipad mini for such fun!! My response to your entry may be a bit different from others:

    It seems the ipad minis is a shrunken ipad maxi that allows people to finally use their phone aps from a smart phone. Smart phones are too small for the wonderful aps. I had to use my smart phone to read someone’s acceptance speech to a large hotel audience. An honoree was sick and I asked her to rush me her acceptance to at least read aloud. I succeeded but reading from a phone email on an ipad or ipad mini would’ve been much more readable, if I had been carrying one around. I used cell phone navigation to get home tonight from Bremerton. Yep, the cell phones are too small for the myriad of uses.
    So the ipad mini is a hybrid phone/computer/ipad and so cool that it’s light enough and small enough to fit in a purse. I wonder if it will be as popular for males. Phones used to be so small, now are wide and flat like an iphone. I noticed my son’s phone is wider and is just barely wide enough now for his jean’s pocket. Will jean pockets get wider?
    My niece gave me a kindle fire she won and didn’t need. I hope to get wi-fi and may use the kindle fire more. ipads are pricey especially the monthly internet.
    I am learning to use mini ipads at work for nonverbal teens whom we are hoping will attempt more communication with the two main communication programs. I have sat with parent and assistive technology staff discussing, selecting programs, selecting vocabulary, etc, for one student recently. I have learned to take and insert pictures. I have learned to call or email assistive tech staff to troubleshoot glitches in program or in my or the special ed teacher’s memory because I’m supposed to be the building “expert.” (Yikes!)( I adore teachers who become experts.) I have learned how to set the machine so that editing functions are allowed or not and so that guided access is on or off. If we forget, the student can get into and change programs when we have made the ipad mini simply a communication tool and supposedly disabled other functions so the student can’t mess it all up.
    After a visit from assistive tech staff, I have tried to type out clear directions to turn functions on and off. Assistive tech folks know this stuff like the backs of their hands, and we plebians don’t. I have listed photos we need for the student and planned to take them or told parents what photos to take. I have reminded parents and special ed teachers to recharge both the mini ipad and the amplifier.
    Oh, to use a mini ipad or maxi as another friend loves to do or just the kindle fire sitting on my desk awaiting my friendship.(I can get aps for it, too, but am excited to download from the library audio books when I travel since I get motion sickness reading in a vehicle.) I think I can get a keyboard for it which I could take to a poetry workshop, which would be exciting.
    Your letters remind me that I have one day of vacation before returning to school. I realize I need to hit the deck running, though I may be slow on Monday morning. I realize I will need to see how much assistance my memory will need to get using the mini ipad with my one student and with another student who will be getting one next month. Parents hope they will be magic bullets. I hope they will increase functional communication for the two very disabled but ambulatory students. We have to learn to use the machine, let alone teach the student to navigate the program. Then we have to facilitate and expect usage. The student needs tons of practice and I’m hoping we can give the student frequent opportunies for usage. The ipad has been viewed as a possible panacea for the disabled, especially nonvocal students, many with autism. The old machines were bulky and cost up to $10,000. These new ones are easier to use, the touch screen is enticing, and they are affordable, allowing access to a greater number of disabled students. The aps are reasonably priced at less than $200.00.
    My gawd, your article opened up a flood of anxiety about getting back to work on Monday and exposed the TO DO list at the back of my brain! I greatly enjoy my android phone in many of the same ways you enjoy your ipad mini. I think the larger, more readable machines like ipads and ipad minis are wonderful. However, I love being able to have my phone in my pocket (bringing on hip cancer???)
    I love my job but the technology is challenging.
    Sheila, you suggested I look at the article. It highlighted to me some of the different ways modern technology is being used. You seem as delighted as I was the first time I got email and facebook messages on my android phone. Every time I use my phone with a student,dictionary or wikipedia with a teen, or especially when I use a translator ap to write a preschooler’s parents a note in Spanish, I am tickled pink. However, with the ipad, I am reminded that I learn more slowly than younger professionals who are more clued into technology and adapt to variations quickly. (I could write an ode to learning curves and being overwhelmed but it would just be venting.)
    I think that’s it. Happy New Year, Sheila. I bet you didn’t expect THIS response to your letters! -ME
    Does your ipad mini have a name yet? I hope for peace at home, that it’s a female.

    • Hi Mary Ellen,

      I call her Mini and I don’t think my husband minds my love for her at all. I wrote her point of view back to me as a reminder that although love affairs make us feel how vibrant life is, we must remember that virtual life is different than natural life. Where will we be if we forget to feel the air around us, watch the clouds in the sky over our very own heads, listen to the birds that are actually in our own yards?

      I can see many writing projects for you here–an ode to overwhelm would not be a bad prompt at all; an ode to the younger ones who take hold of technology and to the disabled who are learning to communicate with the help of devices–all of these are strong writing occasions. Separate them out and give them a go. Or you might write letters to the young IT guys, to particular students who are delayed due to specific conditions, to the overwhelm you live with. Sorting out the addresses for your letters will lead to the ability to write more and more focused pieces–and to feel less and less overwhelmed!

      • Sheila, You always manage to take what we write and find the useful threads that may untangle our thoughts.

        I wish I could write like Jane Hirshfield (I think) who tends to find a way to write about the concrete in an abstract way. Some of the concrete frustrations are inappropriate for me to vent professionally. I’d love to do it via metaphor.

        Perhaps there’s also a poem on our love affairs with technology; you’re so wise to compare it with nature’s beauty. Oh Gawd, I just thought of what you wrote “watch the clouds in the sky over our very own heads” and then about the computer “cloud.”

        Looking forward to the weekend and perhaps a day to write!

        Thanks again for your wise words in response to my ramblings. Maybe I could title my overwhelm poem “Ministry of Frustration”.

        Happy New Year. -ME

  4. Sheila,

    I adore the letters you wrote, so light-hearted and tender – that’s what I appreciated most about these letters was the tenderness (and affection) expressed toward an object. So clever!

    There are some great open letters on that McSweeney site. I still want to do that letter to my noisy neighbor, so I’ve added it to my list of writing projects.

    Thank you for sharing what you wrote.

    Cyndi

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