From my curious perch on the farm, I see this dark Orwellian streak out there – to me, very much out of the American character – of fearfulness, regulation, medicine, health care, customer service, tech support, payment deadlines, credit ratings,   government bureaucracy, law, media, technological disconnection and corporate arrogance – a techno-fear system that swirls around our lives, and if you get swept up in one of these clouds, it is often a nightmare, a test of endurance, character, courage and spirituality.

Many of the great writers – Shelly, Orwell – have been warning of this for years. My problem is that I see all points of view – left, right, Tea Party. They all make sense to me in some ways, even though their rigidity and inability to listen is beyond my comprehension. In some ways, they are all saying the same thing. We are losing our freedom, our humanity, our choices.

I see that these Orwellian clouds – systems of fear, I call them – affect the way people look at the world, scare them, make them feel angry and disconnected. Franz Kafka and his maze-like stories of paranoia and entrapment also come to mind, and our computer driven corporate culture seems to shrink our humanity day-by-day. I don’t wish that to happen to me.

It has never been easier for government or corporations to tell us how to live, to monitor us, or to hide behind the dehumanizing systems they create. No wonder everyone is so edgy.

Early this week my wonderful bookkeeper Anne e-mailed me that my bank account was dangerously. low I should monitor it but I can barely stand to look at it. Like many Americans, I often raid my battered IRA accounts, especially with two farms to maintain. The account was, in fact, very low, the lowest it has ever been – about $300 and I have a lot of automated online accounts, so I could hear the sound of checks bouncing all over the Northeast and beyond.

I had ordered some money transferred last week but it had not appeared. Thus I entered the maze, and I knew it the minute I was in, this world of computer messages, deadlines, feelings of helplessness and fear. The investment firm that handles the accounts  sent the checks out, and they were processed. But they have nothing to do with the company that mails them or replaces them.  They had no idea what happened to the check. They were not responsible. They out-source the checks, I was told. The IRA company was in New York, the firm that handles the checks in China, another in Kansas City.  They do not speak to one another except through computers. A processed check ought to come within 7 to 10 days but a new check cannot be authorized until that period has expired, and then it will take another 7 to 10 days for a new check to arrive. A new check cannot be processed until the old one’s “special period” had expired.

The first check was supposed to be overnighted but wasn’t. It was supposed to have arrived.  Second checks cannot be overnighted. Replacement checks cannot be sent to business accounts without a written letter from the bank stating that the recipient (me) is a signatory (new federal regulations). These forms are not available in paper. They are sent in e-mails, scanned, not mailed in Microsoft Word so I could not open them on my computer. And my fax machine was out of ink so they could not be faxed. Most of these messages were transmitted by text or e-mail as there were no humans available to call.

This is the Kafkaesque part – you are trapped in a maze, there is no way out. In Kafka’s stories, the hapless human is caught up in the system he can never escape or communicate with.  I have had nightmares just like this and every day that ticked past brought me closer to a real nightmare – mortgage and other payments bouncing like rubber balls, sort of like standing in the road watching a truck come roaring towards you. I don’t know anyone I could borrow money from to tide me over, or who I would ask. Friday night Maria came into the farmhouse as I was in my second or third hour on the phone trying to get money that was mine sent to me, or figure out where it was and if it was lost.

This went on for days and it tested my nerves, faith and peace of mind.  At such times I doubt myself. Should I have dared this life? I couldn’t see a way through it, nor was there anyone to help me. Is there any escape from a world obsessed with money and driven by it and the people who make it?

So then, this twist. At 3 a.m. this morning, I popped awake, thinking of how much I always appreciated Arthur Conan Doyle’s idea (put in Sherlock Holmes head) that if you eliminate the improbable, what remains is the most likely. I have used this as a reporter, and as a writer. It just didn’t make sense to me that the checks were lost or hadn’t come. It was possible but didn’t feel logical. Had something else happened?  Could they be here? Did we miss them? My mortgage payment was due today.  I was minutes from calling and begging for mercy.

I went downstairs, walked out to the garbage cans, pulled out the trash can, sorted through it and found a plain envelope sandwiched between a magazine and two supermarket flyers. It looked just like one of the many ads that come every day. It was from the IRA company, and opening it, I saw there were two checks, looking very much like coupons and nothing like checks. They had been there all along. We either didn’t see them or tossed them with other stuff we didn’t want. A lot of mail comes through here.

I smoothed them out and rinsed them off. They were good.

This morning, Red and I I got into the car, drove to the bank and deposited the checks shortly after they opened. I was drained, shaken.  This was harder on me than I might have thought. Having two farms to manage and pay for – this was something I chose to dare – did not help. I have come so far with fear but this one was almost too much for me, it was too familiar a fear, I felt too helpless inside of it. And it was an old and deep fear, this helplessness, a symptom I have experience and been warned about that replicated earlier traumas.

But I was out of the maze. It had worked out.  I had figured it out. The solution was always here. Right under my nose. Not the system’s fault, but mine.  I’m not sure what to make of all this. There are messages there, along the money trail, about the fear surrounding money, about the way the system works, about the way technology separates us from people and answers, about the system of fear that keeps so many people so close to the edge. And every day, I reminder I am one of the lucky ones, I am one of the lucky ones. The good news:  I was so pleased that I never lost my temper, never spoke sharply or angrily to the computer voices of the very few human ones I got to.

For me the message rebounds. I want a simpler life, a clearer life, a life as far from systems as I can get myself.  I am not going broke, but I get messages all the time from people who have, and wonder at their sense of relief, their release from this relentless system, one without mercy or give.

Lives are so complex, the systems driving them above and beyond any sense of humanity. Humans make mistakes, their lives do  not move in straight or easy lines, it is hard for them to live without news. I appreciate becoming sensitive to this.

During this curious week – great reviews, new books coming out, tours being planned –  I made a human connection, a spiritual connection, a woman in my accountant’s office who tried to help me, who talked to me when I was frustrated. She felt badly, as if she could have avoided this. We laughed and joked at our frustrations, at the lost messages, the people she couldn’t reach, the files that couldn’t be opened, the faxes that didn’t work. You have to keep smiling, she told me, you have to. This was the point of life, the connection with humanity. We became friends, comrades, fellow travelers in the maze.

This morning I called a florist in New Jersey and I sent her some flowers and a box of chocolates. Keep smiling, the note said. I will.