Changing Minute Hands in an Empty Library.

I am at the Community College's library.
Less than a block away from the Grand Rapids Main, I feel it is a rarely noticed gem.
Usually bustling during the weekdays, Sunday finds it empty and full of natural light. I stare out the rear window to heritage hill, across the snow-plowed piles and a parking lot. I am alone on the second floor. It is quiet. So quiet. My slide guitar laden music is playing loudly in the headphones I checked out from the front desk. Hours of isolation spent, sandwiched by meals with family and friends. A well way to spend a Sunday afternoon, if you ask me. Light work and personal projects.

About a month ago I made the horrific realization that I had lost a flash-drive with many important works on it. Mainly, it contained the second half (rough draft) of the manuscript I turned in for Creative Writing, as well as the spit-shining-polished final draft of the first half. Easily over 50 man-hours.
This piece had earned hearty praise from my professor, who's opinion I value highly. Visualize doing something you have followed and admired for years, and having a small time expert/part time mentor rave about it. Your reaction is not an ego boost, but rather a instillation of faith in your own talent. The praise telling you that you are good at what you do. Even showing promise.
And I lost most of what I turned in.
Surprisingly, I am not as down as you'd expect about the whole thing.
I remember what I wrote about - just not in the exact same words. I can rebuild the broken wall - the house will just end up looking different than it initially would.
Early in his career, Ernest Hemingway wrote the Nick Adams stories - but then lost the entire collection during...I think it was a cross-country move. Not one copy of them remained. What we know today is the rewriting of those stories from memory. Sure Hemingway was a literary icon - but his story gives me hope.

Waves destroy sandcastles. Hurricanes destroy cities. What causes us to rebuild? Keep living and raising children after our parents have died? Wash off the mud.