Though this photograph I took in California depicts a time before I was born, I wish I could be there. Today I left my cell phone and IPad home. Don’t tell anyone OK? Mondays are filled top to bottom with meetings. I arrived at the office at about 6:00 am. Left at 6:30. I am sure that when I check my phone tomorrow (if my guilt does not cause me to look tonight) it will be loaded with voicemail. I did look at my EMAILS and caught up on them tonight. Now understand that I am paid well. I was paid very well when I was 22. When I went home at night back then, work stayed wherever my truck had been that day. No invisible connections to a hand held device that kept me on a 24-7 clock. No computers or machines linked with clouds or wires or magical wavelengths to my boss or the whole world. Years ago home was HOME not an extension of work.
Today there is literally no time to think or relax. Something is always pinging, ringing, gonging, beeping vibrating or just simply lighting up! Now rest is only while in the RESTroom. To some that is even a place to converse on one of the handheld machines as nature takes its course. Lunch means sit in a meeting, rushing through the fast food establishment or shoving down a bacon cheeseburgers that had been sitting under the warmer at the store all day. The actual lunch break is walking the 300′ to the store and back.
I remember sitting at my in-laws home on their back patio after work when I was first married. We talked with eye contact. Voice fluctuations and emotions indicative of the subject. There was no question what the words meant. You actually looked at a person as they spoke the words. NO LOL. We laughed out load. No little smiley faces. Just smiling faces. Real relationships. No sexting. Only beautiful music and loving eyes. NO PORN. NONE. ZERO. NADA. Sure there was magazines at some stores. No accidental clicks on the typewriter to bring up on a screen unwanted visuals. I did have a friend show me his mom and dad’s Joy of Sex book. Today the same book would be comparable to a burger commercial.
I cherish my time at my house at bear lake. No phones. Very bad Cellular service. Only a couple of regular TV channels. And quiet. Really quiet. Much like the photo does to my soul my house at the lake calms my spirit, my body and my senses. This year I am going to communicate with someone on the bus at the airport, on a plane and waiting in line at the grocery store. At the doctors office waiting room I may break out in song. Bet that will bring the heads up out of the machines. How about a little less time on the machines and a little more time looking up at each other see the beautiful world around us!
