Error 79

Every morning I hand-write three Morning Pages. Finishing page two, I saw that page three wasn't blank (I print lines on the backs of used copy paper to be a little green) and I needed to print a fresh one.

No problem. I opened the blank document on my phone and pushed print, but the phone said, printer unavailable.

I checked the printer: Error 79. HP error messages are almost as detailed as those on Apollo 13. This set off my frustration which increased as I repeatedly removed jams, power-cycled the printer, and got Error 79 for my troubles.

Fixing these errors tends to follow a pattern. I begin curious, move to frustation and anger (this morning I pounded my first against the wall), worry that I'll be unable to fix things, want to give up but keep going, and most times end up at some kind of solution.

Today, I downgraded the firmware and restored factory defaults. The blank morning page printed and I finished my writing.

It's good that I fixed the problem. Good that the process worked. I could let go some of the frustration, trust the process and my abilities, but so far I haven't gotten to that stage. I'm also stuck worrying a little if the fix will continue to work, if there will be other errors. Frustration and worry, what good are they doing me?

Error 79 is in my past now. Things fall apart and sometimes I can fix them. That there is a kind of miracle and, at least for a moment, I'll focus on that at least as much as on my worrying and frustration, whatever numbers those errors happend to be.