When my husband Martin was last up in Nevada City, he spotted a great bumper sticker. Along the lines of “I'd rather be fishing” or “I'd rather be golfing”, this one stated: “I'd rather be here now.” As in, not with the person on the other side of this cell phone or (god forbid!) text conversation, but right here, in this car, just driving. That's my beef with all the people sitting in cafes with their laptops or walking across the street, talking on their cell phones. They aren't where they look like they are. Their bodies are there, but their brains and attention are far away.
This past Sunday, my intention was to be Here Now with my family for 24 hours. No computers, no cell phones. I took it a few steps farther and eliminated cars (the better to keep us Here) and clocks because, well, as I discussed in my last post, I am a slave to the clock and that aspect of our technology-free day was really the only thing I was worried about.
So, you might be wondering, did we enjoy a weekend of familial bliss? Did we sit around, tell stories, get to know each other better? Did we spend time walking up on the hill that is our backyard and fly kites, munch on a picnic, watch the sun setting over the fog bank? Well, no. We did not, strictly speaking, break any of the “rules” but we also did not spend that time away from technology getting any closer to my goal of social intimacy and heeding our natural rhythms.
We were hit by two gigantic and unexpected obstacles that thwarted our plans. One, Martin ended up “on call” at work for the final push of a big product launch at his start-up. He wants to keep his job, so we couldn't really be unreachable. Second, my entire family came down with an awful stuffed up, coughing, miserable, feverish illness. Martin found a great workaround to avoid clocks, but still take aspirin and cough medicine every four hours – a timer!
So, from the very beginning, none of the 24 hours went according to my plan, but it was certainly a relaxing day. My original vision for Saturday night was to sit on our deck with a glass of wine and watch the sun set behind Sutro Tower with my little family as a sort of opening ritual. Instead the day went out with a flurry of text messaging to coordinate a meet-up with friends at the local pizza parlor. It was toddler mayhem with three little ones and only four adults, but who needs technology if you have good friends and a couple of beers? Social intimacy? Heck yeah! On our walk home, we watched an enormous almost-full moon rise over Bernal Hill and that really was a spiritual moment. Connection with nature? Check!
Next stop in my fantasy of a technology-free evening was supposed to be lying in bed with my husband and having a deep conversation about our hopes and dreams. Instead, Martin had to go to work so I read a magazine until I fell asleep at what I am sure was an hour so early that I never would have let myself close my eyes if I had known what time it actually was. Paying attention to my natural rhythm never felt so good.
The next morning we were all really sick, and it was an easy decision to blow off the birthday party. My dream of walking up to Bernal Hill and flying a kite after a nice picnic was replaced by lying on the couch and eating random things whenever we felt hungry. Martin mostly worked and napped. Peter napped. I fumed about not having things go my way and not being able to pick up the phone and complain about it. I missed my friends. I was deeply disappointed. I started trying to figure out how many hours we had left in the day.
Finally, as the day drew to a close, I got my wish of sitting on the deck and watching the sun set. So what if we were drinking hot tea instead of a glass of wine? After it was officially dark, I turned on the cell phone and walked over to a friend's house who had been borrowing my laptop. We sat in her dining room and watched the now-full moon rise over the neighbor's fence. It was magical.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
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