CHRYS TOBEY
Instructions For Ada
What is imagination?
—Ada Byron, also known as Ada Lovelace (1815 – 1852)
1.
After you get here, Ada, you may want to sit for a good hour, maybe a few. It will feel slightly
disorienting to arrive in a place two hundred years in the future. Side effects of time travel include,
but are not limited to, vertigo, loss of appetite, headaches, or general melancholia. The most
common is the sudden onset of dreams about pygmy goats and/or intruders. However, Ada, it is
possible that these effects are not due to your extended time in a tiny tin machine that jolted you
into the 21st Century, but the fact that you are actually in the 21st Century. Sometimes I sit on my
couch for hours, or an entire day, feeling any of the above side effects, and note—I have not time
traveled. But you have, Ada, so welcome. You can now throw your corset into the trash, or even
burn it, but know there will be times when you’ll hold your breath so long, you’ll swear you’re
still wearing it.
2.
If you’re lonely, which I’ve read in credible online sources is expected after time travel, you can
still read a book, visit a petting zoo, join Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or Skype1, find a
suitable partner within seconds of swiping through photos of potential mates, eat a hot dog, marry
found suitable partner2, text random people3; take a yoga class with baby goats4, say hello to
passersby on the street, online shop, interview yourself in the mirror5, stalk someone6, drink coffee
with someone7, purchase a robotic dog, visit Japan8, or you can do what I’ve been doing lately—
stand next to a tall, black pole, which can be found on the sides of most streets, that says “press to
walk”; push the button and you’ll hear a mechanical voice command wait; continue to press the
button and you’ll continue to hear wait, wait, wait, until you feel you’re almost not alone.
3.
Ada, after you’ve settled in, you may wonder how to keep a sound mind. If this is the case, you
can read a Buddhist book, or listen to an array of calming meditations via Youtube or podcast or
DVD—which is outdated, but most of this will be by next year. The good thing, Ada, is you
missed the decades when we had lobotomies, when electroshock was all the rage, when a woman
could be committed to a sanatorium for life, usually by her bored, and/or philandering, husband.
And guess what! We no longer have bloodletting! Although you will no longer have to worry
about leeches, you will want to eat leafy greens, stay fully hydrated, limit social media and news
exposure, avoid GMO’s, get eight hours of sleep—if not, we have Ambien or Lunesta or even
amethyst—exercise at least three times a week—you have choices: yoga, cycling, Pilates, barre,
Zumba via Zoom, and classes where you shake your butt—find some friends—actual friends—
live in a place that is near, or surrounded by, nature, limit your commute to and from work, and
try really hard to think you’re not gay. Ada, I could leave more specific instructions about these
classes where we gyrate, but if you want to keep your sanity, this is what you don’t want to do:
Don’t drink alcohol more than two to three times a week—numbers vary—don’t let a parent leave you;
don’t grow up in a family where someone is an addict or an alcoholic or says, I don’t want my
daughters to be gay; if so, don’t try to control your environment by starving yourself or running
nine miles every day; don’t get raped, hit/slapped or stalked—all statistically a little hard to avoid
if one is a woman—don’t eat too much sugar; don’t get married because you won’t want to get
divorced; and, absolutely don’t fall in love. But Ada, even if you have to take Klonopin or
Wellbutrin or Depakote, even if you get diagnosed and re-diagnosed and misdiagnosed, or if you
sleep in a cardiac unit as your heart recovers from a momentary lapse, or if your sister has to sit
with you for a few nights or every night for a year, Ada my love, even if you carry this shame, this
narrative you wish you could unbraid, know Ada—it will be okay.
4.
In the event that someone starts stalking you, which Google defines as “a person who harasses or
persecutes someone with unwanted attention” or “a person who hunts game stealthily,” so, to
qualify this, in the event someone “hunts” you “stealthily,” someone who a) has a criminal history
of hunting women and b) lives in something that one couldn’t possibly acquire in the 1800s—a
van—you will want to carefully follow these instructions: If he hides in your bushes, if you
repeatedly find him in the alley next to your home, if he tapes a GPS tracking device to your car
and your phone, if he drives behind you and drives away when you walk outside, if he dresses in
black, wears gloves and a facemask while he waits next to your door, if he unscrews your lock, if
he pries off the boards from your gate, if you hear his footsteps near your bedroom, if he crawls in
through your window, if he attacks your friends, if he texts and calls about his gun, if you still see
him following you multiple times a day while driving, while parking, while in the grocery, while
walking from the gym, walking your dog, walking from work, even after you’ve moved, even after
you have a lawyer and an officer and he has been to jail twice, Ada, you’ve got a problem.
5.
In the event your stalker has such stealth and stamina, you will need to file various protective
orders—which we now have in the 21st Century—and you will need to go to court several times;
prepare for trials; meet with officers, some of who will say things like oh, he is just a creep or
could just be a coincidence; you’ll need to move and move again; lose work and money and find
a lawyer who will take your case for free; listen to the professional who instructs you to practice
dialing 911 in the dark; meet with various victims’ advocates; receive dozens of letters in the mail
that refer to you as the “victim”; watch in awe, as though you are living another’s life, while the
police place panic buttons in your new place; wait hours, sometimes days, while there is a warrant
out for his arrest, again; answer the same questions as the state prosecutes him; negotiate a plea
deal; listen as many people tell you to move far away, leave the state; you won’t and each time he
gets out of jail, each time you get a call courtesy from the deputy who tells you he will get out
some time after midnight, you’ll learn how to sleep with the blade of fear pressing against your
spine, and this, Ada, is when you’ll realize almost a year of your life has gone by—like time travel.
6.
Ada, your ghosts may have followed you, since time travel doesn’t exempt one from ghosts. You
would think some seconds in a tiny tin pressure cooker would do the trick, but unfortunately, this
isn’t a perk. Side effects of ghosts are blurred vision and the doldrums. Ada, your ghosts may
have a hard time adjusting to the 21st Century, especially if they’re Luddites or have light
sensitivity. If they don’t find this century hospitable, you can ask them to return. However, ghosts
generally don’t like to leave. Be aware that in the 21st Century ghosts are drawn to Joni Mitchell’s
voice, especially when she sings I made my baby cry; Epsom Salt; small bodies of water with
ducks; the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; couches, chaise lounges, and beds; social
media; long walks, particularly at dusk; John Lennon’s piano; yin yoga classes; and, any form of
sleeping. Ada, when you do see your ghosts, you can ignore them, but this usually isn’t the best
idea. It’s best to just sit with them, maybe say hello, maybe smile at how a smell or a sound made
them appear. You could be tempted to go to a hotel room with one of your ghosts just for a night,
because you want to fall asleep holding their hand, because you want to hear love. But my dearest
Ada, they’re ghosts, nothing real.
7.
Ada, if you’re gay, if because who the hell could come out in the 1800s, unless they had a
penchant for public shaming and/or punishment by death. Ada, if you’re gay, and you happen to
land in a sinkhole called Florida, run. In the last hundred years, we’ve seen some progress in
these parts. I.e., instead of hangings, we experienced a good many decades of holes drilled into
heads, skulls shocked, arrests, laws against sodomy, loss of employment, and citizens sometimes
confused gay people for game. Unfortunately, some pious peeps still see it as sin—they protest at
places like Mr. Rogers’ funeral, who, Ada, was not gay but happened to be a kind man. Ada,
because of the aforementioned, it took me some time, what feels like a couple centuries, to admit
to loving the ladies. And, even though there were no longer laws for imprisonment, I often felt
dead. But now we can wave our rainbows, Ada. We can watch some lesbian movies where they
recreate the 1800s, which warning, may make your brain feel wobbly. We can love who we
want, and Ada, we can finally say, I’m gay.
8.
In addition to electric toothbrushes and vibrators, we now have all kinds of gadgets that keep us
going: stents, sensors, CAT Scans, MRI’s, EKG’s, IV’s, X-Rays. Ada, we can even print you a
new leg or arm or elbow, anything you want. We can create a clone of your beloved dog, tinker
with DNA, but the inevitable is still inevitable: we are still going to die. I used to be terrified of
cancer, terrified I would die by age fifty. My friend, who was much older, warned I needed to
think positively. She’d use herself as an example—Look at me. I’m 50 and I don’t have cancer,
she’d say, until she did and died within three months. Ada, you really don’t have much longer,
even if you freeze yourself inside an ice cube, so this is what you’ll need to do: sit near a window
in your favorite café. As you sip the foam from a latte, look past the poles and wires and metal
until you see the way sun slices through sky.
9.
Stay, Ada. Don’t go back to the lover who will call you an ace as he slips your money to a dealer.
Don’t go back to a time when you couldn’t have a job or imagination or an idea. It will kill you.
How could it not? Don’t go back to opioids. You can borrow some of my Klonopin. Ada, if you
stay, it won’t be easy. Fathers still leave their children and side effects of being a woman include
migraines and this strange feeling one is a puffer fish trying to climb a ladder. And if you go into
the tech industry, which I assume you will, you’ll be one of only a few women and think you’re
repeatedly running into a steel beam. However, Ada, you’re thirty-four. If you go back, you’ll
never publish again. You’ll be dead in two years, hemorrhage and wish to be buried next to the
father who left you when you were a baby. And yes, your wish will be fulfilled. But if you stay,
you may live long enough to figure out someone who doesn’t love you is not worth a wish, nor
one sip of air.
1. Ada, you’re now revered as one of the world’s first computer coders, barring the men who
dismiss you. I imagine this may take you a moment to process, since you could only co-publish
one article in the 1800s, and even that was because you co-authored it with someone who was
born with a penis. Ada, I advise you now take a seat and slowly sip some lemon-flavored bubbly
water, favored among the Millennials.
2. I advise against this: today we mostly marry for love, and our unions often don’t last. Ada, the
side effects of divorce are worse than the side effects of time travel, so it’s probably best not to
do this.
3. However, it is challenging for the common person to prank call with cellular devices. Though,
you don’t even know what landlines are, so you can just ignore this.
4. I know the goats can feel overwhelming.
5. It’s preferable to wear a wig.
6. Like reading a book, this is not new to the 21st Century, Ada, but technology has made it much
more efficient to stalk (i.e., GPS tracking devices taped on cars, shared locations, etc.).
However, I don’t recommend this (see Instructions #5 & #6).
7. Caution: this can sometimes increase loneliness if one’s friend has not powered down their
mobile device.
8. Apparently, there is a company in Japan that sells replacement spouses, children, grandparents,
etc.