Last night over dinner in Seattle a friend floated the phrase, “Urban Amish.” That’s me when I think of my relationship with the phone. Then this morning on Facebook another friend described attending an event at USC where all the students’ heads were down, and how she wanted to stand on the quad and shout, Look UP!
“I felt like I was in a zombie apocalypse,” she said.
I feel like that every day.
There was a time, I suppose, when I waited for the phone to ring. It might be a boy. Most likely it was a girlfriend. It could be for my mother, and that would tie her up for awhile. The phone hung on the kitchen wall then, and in my way I seem to have left it there.
I’ve upset everyone around me by not bonding with the cell phone.
“What, go for a walk without your phone?” exclaims my husband like I’ve forgotten my pants. At best I’ve left my phone at home charging. But it’s never with me. That is not the way I want to walk. I have a different purpose in walking in this world. I want to notice things. And to think my own thoughts. Call me crazy.
My sister in Boston jumps into her bright red Prius every day and drives it like a phone booth on wheels. All wired up with Blue Tooth, whatever that is, she conducts her calls with both hands on the wheel. She talks with her daughter in NYC, her son in NYC, her husband in the attic—he has recently moved his office into their remodeled attic—our mother, our father, our other sister, it’s magnificent really. And me if she could reach me. Probably not. Her entire drive is a chain of calls. Sometimes she’s got to go from one call because another call is coming in.
I know because I’ve flown out to be with her in Boston and ridden in her car. Sitting in the passenger seat and listening to her calls, I have to wonder, whatever happened to personal conversation? Or listening to the radio.
Silence doesn’t bother me either.
a little elbow room
a little elbow room 