How I Went Without My iPhone for Six Whole Days and Lived To Tell About It

Love these faces. 

The day before Thanksgiving we were scheduled to fly out in the early afternoon. We had two hurried stops to make on the way to the airport: first was Costco to pick up pictures to share with family; the second stop was the coffee shop nearby to get a cup of coffee to shore us up for the long day ahead.

When I scurried into Costco, I had my phone and wallet in hand. I got the pictures, hopped back in the car, jumped out at the coffee shop, and - standing in line for coffee - noticed my phone was no where on my person. I assumed I'd left it in the car, but when I got back with the coffees we couldn't find it. Sergio called it and we heard nothing. I assumed I'd left it at Costco so we sped back. It wasn't at the photo counter; it wasn't at lost and found. Costco was so busy that day; I just assumed someone had snatched it up for themselves.

By this point we had to go to the airport or risk missing the flight (for a phone? No way!) so I bucked up, endured that fiery twinge that you feel when you realize something is lost FOREVER, and called AT&T to report my phone stolen.

I couldn't stop wondering about my phone. Finally, about half way through the flight, a very plausible theory dawned on me: perhaps the phone had been in my lap when we pulled up at the coffee shop and had dropped out of my lap when I got out of the car. I could just picture it: me sitting inside the car while Sergio calls my phone and my phone sitting in the grass just a few feet away from me on the other side of the car door, ringing and ringing, but me unable to hear it.

As soon as we landed, I called the coffee shop and sure enough, someone had turned in a light blue iPhone: "it has a lot of missed calls from someone named Sergio," said the barista. "Yep," I told him. "That's mine." He kindly offered to keep it there until I got back from vacation...

…in SIX days. *sigh* How was I going to survive for six whole says without my iPhone in my pocket like it always is?

Well now those six days have transpired and I'm pleased to report that I have retrieved and restored my phone, that I survived just fine, and that I may even be better off for having lost it in the first place. Here are...

The Top Six Things I Learned on a Six-Day Holiday Vacation Without My iPhone. 

1. I spend a lot of mental energy worrying about my phone. It wasn't until I did without my phone that I realized how much time I spend thinking about it. Where's my phone? Did I leave it somewhere? Will it fall out of my back pocket and into the bathtub when I'm bathing my kids? Did I leave it in the car? Did I leave it at my desk? Will the phone run out of battery power before I can get back to a charger? I went six whole days without having to ask myself any of those questions. That was liberating.

2. I don't read enough. Maybe you use your smart phone to read really long and interesting articles about contemporary social issues or short stories by prominent authors. Or maybe you use your smart phone to like people's pictures on Instagram. Probably we all do a little bit of both. But not having my phone made me snap out of it and pick up a magazine. I have been so addicted to this little device and its connectivity; I am embarrassed that losing my phone is what it took to pull me out of the click-click, scroll-scroll vortex of my smart phone. Why I couldn't I pull myself out with plain old will power?

3. A lot of people are on their phones. A lot. Long before my phone ever went missing, we instituted a "No Phones at the Table" policy for meal times in our family, in the hopes that we could focus on each other without distraction and set a good example for our kids. Since we adopted this policy and then have dined with other people, I have been surprised to see everyone else on their phones during meals. You've seen it before, haven't you? The folks at the table next to you, all not talking to one another because they're on their phones. Well, let me tell you - if you haven't noticed that before, the way to discover it is to leave your phone at home while you go out of town for 6 days. This video - called "I Forgot My Phone" - does a great job of describing this phenomenon.

4. I don't need to photograph something to truly enjoy it; but I do like taking pictures. For most of the trip I borrowed Sergio's phone to snap some pictures of the girls when "necessary," and I am grateful for that and for the ability to capture funny little scenes, poignant moments, etc. But one afternoon, several of us went on a hike while Sergio stayed in the car with Clara, who was asleep. No Sergio meant no phone which meant no camera. The hike was beautiful - the tall barren trees, the sunlight at just the right angle, the green moss, the brown leaves, the red blazes on the tree trunks, and of course Julia with an eager face, her red puffer coat, and her bright aqua gloves. It was picturesque. I wanted so badly to photograph it. But do you know what I did instead? I just enjoyed it. And it was good.

5. Social media can wait. Since I wasn't checking my phone (my Facebook, my Instagram, etc.) every hour or every half hour, I missed out on a lot of social media. But … I wouldn't exactly say I "missed" it, if you know what I mean. When an opportunity arose to catch up using Sergio's phone, I would log on to my email or Facebook or what not and look for something important that I might have missed. There wasn't that much. One friend's announcement; another set of great pictures; a clever post here or a funny comment there. You know what? It can all wait. I caught up later and spent the rest of the day doing something else. Like going on a hike.

6. I like being connected. Here's another video, a portion of which echoes the "I Forgot My Phone" video by asking "Is it easier to connect? Or harder to stay close?" and contrasts images of loved ones video-chatting or texting with one another from far far away with an image of a family of five at dinner, each absorbed in their own electronic device, oblivious to each other. I have felt precisely those feelings. Every time Julia chats with her grandparents on one of our iPhones, I love them. Every time someone I'm trying to talk to won't stop looking at their phone, I hate smart phones. And when it was Thanksgiving and I didn't have my phone with me to write to my family or post a message of gratitude to friends, I was a little bit sad. I used Sergio's phone to text my family so it's not like I was completely disconnected. But I did feel a little bit out of touch and I didn't like that.

Tonight when Julia saw my phone for the first time (after I picked it up at the coffee shop this morning), she exclaimed very excitedly, "Mommy! Your phone! Are you happy?" Okay, if even a 3-year-old knows how connected (addicted?) you are to your iPhone, then maybe you really are hooked.

I am tired of being mired down by the worst of my smart phone, but I think now I can appreciate the best aspects of this technology. I can already feel some New Years resolutions coming on.

Addendum 1: I have just learned a new word - "nomophobia" which is short for "no-mobile-phone-phobia." I didn't know that word existed before, but I definitely think I had that phobia and conquered it head on when I lost my phone. I'm glad to know I can survive without it.

Addendum 2: Here's a new ad by Apple that makes the case for technological immersion. It is sentimental and beautiful and represents some of the best that a smart phone has to offer. An interesting consideration in my continuing examination of how we use our phones. Apple ad

Leaf Bouquets (or Russian Fall during Indian Summer)

Autumn has already come and gone in Moscow, where my friends Sidney and Deena are living this year. Several weeks ago they wrote in a blog post about the beauty of a Russian fall, especially in Moscow where trees abound, and they told of a custom of making bouquets out of leaves. Of course! Leaves are just as colorful as flowers. Why wouldn't you make them into arrangements? I clicked through to this website to learn more.


Since fall here has been off the charts this year (and here's why), and since I've been trying to capture that, I knew right away that I would be making a leaf bouquet like these. Well, I'd try to, anyway. So on an Indian Summer weekend two weeks ago, I gathered as many leaves as I could from the church parking lot and from the neighborhood. And before they could get too brittle I set to work.


Sure, my technique may still need perfecting, but my little bundles make me happy.

Autumn

blue and red with power line

The colors have exploded this week. And maybe it's because there has been such a deficit of sunshine lately that I have been drawn like a moth to the flaming yellow and orange and red, perhaps in some primal pursuit of the vitamin D missing from an overcast week.

with church steeple (or Brookside pretending to be New England)

But here it is Saturday and the sun is FINALLY out for hours at a time. And still I am drawn to the colors and am staring in awe. I know they will be gone soon. So in the same way that I go to the farmers' market (which is where I was this morning) and buy way more than I need (which is what I was doing this morning) because I know the season will end (which it will soon) - I go through my day with my iPhone in hand and snap picture after picture, more than I 'need,' of every bright color that calls to me.

Take a picture; it'll last longer.

camouflage

Post Script: Just saw this on NPR's website - "Why Leaves Really Fall Off Trees." It's partly because "leaves are basically the kitchen staff of a tree."

The Fit is Go

The Fit with license plates

It's been one month since we bought our Honda Fit. I registered it and got our new license plates last week and Sergio installed them today. Our Fit is official now.

The day we bought the car, Sergio suggested we name it; he came up with a clever name, too. We decided in the end not to give it any name at all; but I still treat it tenderly as a thing which has been named. The Fit is cute and fun - a very well behaved pet. And it is the most fun I've had driving since I was 16. Driving a standard - now and then - makes me more in tune with the procedure of operating the vehicle and this makes it all more fun.

The newness of the car is a challenge to maintain. A bit of a fool's errand that we'll give up eventually, I'm sure. But for now we foolishly plow ahead with our lint roller and Armor All wipes and the - ahem - occasional trip to the car wash. I am relieved to have the Fit broken in with a smudge here or some dirt there. But it is also fun to remove those bits of detritus and restore the car to shiny and clean.

E

Found this at the 29olivestreet shop on Etsy. Even though I think I might already have a very similar E stashed somewhere in this apartment, I still found this one so inviting. Maybe it's the dinosaur.

The Guy Who Named My Blog

Happy Birthday to the ever clever Sergio, who intrigued me with the phrase "Everything Begins with an E" many birthdays ago and who was the one who had the great idea to use it in this venue.

Dialog in the Dark

I experienced something akin to blindness on Saturday at Union Station's Dialog in the Dark. The exhibit was a tour led by a visually impaired guide who directed 10 sighted people through a series of pitch black environments where we learned - or at least tried - to experience the world without sight. Everything in the exhibit is in complete darkness; it is disconcerting to say the least. The design for the exhibit logo is insightful - a faint light shining from beneath a closed door. This is precisely what my eyes were fawning for in those first moments in the acclimation phase when they slowly dimmed the lights to nothing. It was nearly impossible to convince my eyes to stop expecting to see just a little bit of light somewhere.

Sheila was our guide and she was excellent - so secure and helpful as we all faltered. We moved awkwardly with our new best friends, the canes. Tapping (wrong) instead of sweeping (right). Reaching out for something - anything - what is that? Bumping into one another, calling out for our friends or partners. Is that you? I relied very heavily on the feel of Sergio's corduroy jacket to confirm that it was him near by. I can only imagine how silly we all must have looked.

Which brings up the theme of inevitably imagining how things looked. I believe that one goal of this exhibit is to encourage experience through other senses besides sight. And that did happen, without a doubt. But everything I experienced through the other four senses I translated into images that I had previously gathered by sight. So that in the farmers' market environment, Sergio directed me to a rose he had found, and when I smelled it and touched its petals, a slide show in my brain erupted: images of Mema's roses in full bloom, Mema in her garden, single bright pink blossoms alone, the trellis in Mema's yard, clusters of pink petals on a tablecloth, the thorns. I saw it all in rapid fire succession.

And a new slide show came into my head with each tactile stimulus - the plush toys (images of bright orange, bright yellow), the coffee beans (images of mugs, my canister of beans at home, my coffee pot), the head of garlic (images of my kitchen, my knife, my cutting board). Each item evoked so, so much. And in the city environment when we were crossing the street, passing behind (and bumping into) an old Volkswagon Beetle, I pictured the Beetle in my head and it was yellow. Pale yellow. Very pale. I asked Sergio what color the bug was and he had also seen it as yellow.

In the Dialog in the Dark Cafe environment - still in total darkness - we had the option to purchase a drink or a chocolate bar. We had come prepared with our single dollar bills. Someone accustomed to darkness - Andrea - stood behind the bar and took our orders. We paid and then made our way clumsily back to the booth where all ten of us gathered to chat. I asked everyone what color they thought the VW bug was but they did not respond. Sheila said she didn't know and hadn't thought to ask. Another person in our group asked Sheila if she'd always been visually impaired and she said that she'd been blind since birth. And that made me think - I wonder what yellow looks like in Sheila's mind?

When I was little, I used to love a story book called Knots on a Counting Rope about a little boy who is blind. One passage in particular used to haunt me then and has stuck with me until now - the passage where the little boy who is blind tries to understand what "blue" is. I worked my brain like crazy as a kid trying to imagine "blue" without seeing it. I came up empty handed then; I do now, too. Even if Sheila had known for a fact that the VW bug was yellow (or whatever color it really was), what did she think of when she thought of it? What do any visually impaired people think of when they think of things? I can't imagine what's on their internal screen, if there isn't a slide show like what's on mine.

In some respects, I did still experience the world keenly and differently through those other senses. Maybe the absence of visual stimulation is what cleared the way for all those slide shows. If I'd seen the rose with my eyes, would I have seen all those memories in my head? Would it have been emotional? Elsewhere in the exhibit we learned that the nerve pathways used by our olfactory receptors are directly connected to the part of the brain that processes emotion. Would the smell of that rose been so emotional if I'd seen it? If I'd seen it and it hadn't actually been pink?

I don't know. I could have asked Sheila a million of these questions. Did she know that her shawl was an animal print shawl? What does "animal print" look like to her? Or "look" like? Does she know what the color black is? Is black the color she "sees."

But she had already answered so many of our questions. I couldn't detain Sheila long enough for this manner of inquiry. She thanked us for coming and we thanked her for guiding; she turned away and swept her cane until it found the edge of the mat and then she followed the mat's straight edge out of the end of the exhibit and back around to the beginning.

Today Only!

I don’t remember if it was this way last year at the holidays, or if the economic situation has ratcheted things up a notch, but this year I am bombarded by sales pitches. Every day for a week, I have received 8 to 12 emails each day from retailers enticing me to buy something. It’s the same stores sending me a new email every day, making my inbox a broken record. Didn’t I just delete that email yesterday?

But each day is a different incentive: discounts? one day only? gifts under $10? gifts under $6? free shipping! additional discounts! buy something red! (?) something free if I hurry? clearance items? last minute gifts? extra points on my rewards card? free gift with purchase!

None of these offers have enticed me to do anything except hit delete. Right now I am not going to buy any of that, no matter how much of whatever they offer me. But since the economy is bad and I know that retailers are suffering and that circumstances are dire, I actually sort of … feel … kind of … guilty. Like I’m saying “No” to a desperate plea each time I click delete.

Hey! Want to buy this? No thanks.
What about this? No.
Okay how about these – they’re buy one get one free! No, really.
Just buy it! We’ll give you a free gift. No. Not now.
Please buy something? No, I already said No.
Are you sure you don’t want to buy something? I’m sure.
But we thought maybe you wanted one of these. No, I don’t.
We’ll ship it to you for free. No.
Yes we will. I know, but still – No.
Oh, just buy something from us, will you? No!
Please? No.
Pretty please? No!!
Pretty please with sugarplums? No, No, No!!
Fine! But this is the last time we’re asking you. Fine.
Don’t expect to get this great offer tomorrow. Fine, I don’t want it anyway!
And today is your last chance for free shipping, too! Good!
Until tomorrow. Okay.
See you then? Yeah, see you tomorrow.

Snow Day

Today was a snow day, so to speak. This does not mean the same thing at this stage in my life that it meant when I was younger, but I still get excited about the snow as though I were a kid. It doesn't matter that I still have to go to work when it snows and it doesn't matter that I don't have the time or interest to play in the snow. (Although that snow angel I made a few years ago was kind of fun.) There's still something exciting about the possibility of it all, of just knowing that I could go out and make a great snowman or enjoy a day free of obligations, given the right circumstances. Those prospects, even if unrealized, are delightful.

Yes, I believe it's official now: I could not enjoy life in a place that does not have seasons like this.

old St. Patrick's in the snow
cold covering of snow outside, warm glow of lamp inside

Thanksgiving Day

Happy Thanksgiving from the cutest pilgrim salt and pepper shakers in all of Nashville. (Wait a minute: were the pilgrims Shakers?)

In Honor of the Piano in Harwich, Mass

Recent news reports have shared the strange details of an abandoned piano found in the woods in Massachusetts recently - a good condition, Baldwin upright, complete with bench, sitting in the middle of the forest. How, why, and by whom it was left remain a mystery.

News organizations have snapped up the chance to ask if a piano is played in the forest and there's no one to hear it ... etc.

But here's another What If proposed by poet Winfield Townley Scott. (This is from a strange little volume I bought for $1 at the library book sale years ago. It's called Some Haystacks Don't Even Have Any Needle.)


IF ALL THE UNPLAYED PIANOS

If all the unplayed pianos in America--
The antimacassared uprights in old ladies' parlors
In the storehouses the ones that were rented for vaudeville
The ones where ill fame worsened and finally died
The ones too old for Sunday School helplessly dusty
The ones too damp at the beach and too dry in the mountains
The ones mothers used to play on winter evenings
The ones silenced because of the children growing away--
Resounded suddenly all together from coast to coast:
Untuned joy like a fountain jetted everywhere for a moment:
The whole nation burst to untapped, untrammeled song:
If would make--in short--a most satisfactory occasion,
A phenomenon which the scientists could never explain.

- Winfield Townley Scott

Consumption

Tonight on All Things Considered, News Analyst Daniel Schorr speculated that the Age of American Consumerism May Be Over. Though being consumers is closely tied to patriotism in our national psyche, current economic circumstances necessitate or reflect a decrease in spending that might make us, as a nation, change our tune.

But what's interesting about Schorr's analysis is the use of the word "consumption." Even though I assume there is a definition of this term that is exclusive to the field of economics, that didn't stop me from pondering the other definitions of the word and placing them in this economic context. Since I am studying 19th century literature just now and not economics, each time Schorr said "consumption," I couldn't help but think of an old-fashioned disease.

The OED confirms this sense of gloom with the tone of some other definitions of consumption: "the action or fact of consuming or destroying; destruction," "decay, wasting away, or wearing out," and "wasteful expenditure, waste." When you put it that way, it brings a whole new meaning - as Shorr hinted - to "shop til you drop."

"Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"

In yesterday's paper there was a blurb on the front page enticing readers to find out if their favorite blog is written by a man or a woman by testing it at www.genderanalyzer.com. Never one to pass up a good opportunity to examine gender stereotypes (especially gender stereotypes about writing), I couldn't resist trying it out. I was hoping to find proof of the inaccuracy of the sharply contrasted gender conventions on which I assumed the analysis is based, so I was disappointed when the "Gender Analzyer" guessed the gender correctly on 8 blogs out of the 12 I tried. However, I was delighted (and surprised) with the 2 it got wrong, and I was tickled with its verdicts on the blogs I submitted which are co-written. MY blog rated 67% feminine; I'll take that over a higher percentile - the kind of higher percentile reserved for blogs that are pink - but I'd rather have gotten something in the 50% range which wins you a "gender neutral" designation.

Here I am acting like I really care what the Gender Analyzer says when what I really care to know is what criteria the site's "Artificial Intelligence" uses to determine masculinity and femininity in blogs - and how they determine it to a degree, no less. And what I really wanted to run through their little tester is some editorial copy written by a man but meant to sound like a woman ... and maybe some novel passage from the 19th century that was written by a woman but published under a man's name.

I am skeptical of easy, clear distinctions between men and women. Perhaps the percentage range in results on the Gender Analyzer does bridge the chasm between the diametrically opposed gender poles of simply "male" and "female." However, doesn't this spectrum still uphold the polarization, the strict either/or? Obviously, the Gender Analyzer did not address this. It picked one gender or the other and designated a percentage rating. It did not critically investigate the notion of gender entirely. Needless to say, this wasn't quite the level of gender analysis one might hope for.

Yes, We Can

And we did!


President-Elect Barack Obama

All Souls' Day

Three years ago when we bought this apartment, we were delighted by the perfect view: Old St. Patrick's - the second oldest church in Kansas City (1875) right across the street. We watched people coming and going each Sunday and listened to the bells chime. But only for two months - at which point the diocese shut down the church for renovations.

For three years it has been just another pretty face - quietly housing a community of pigeons on its spires, but otherwise looking quite lonely. We'd see an occasional truck load of stuff going out (blue carpet) and better stuff (new lumber) going in. Each weekend the only visitors were a family that came to tend to the lawn across the street and the long skinny patch of grass on the side of the parking lot, which on the weekends is always empty. Until yesterday, an unseasonably warm All Souls' Day, when the church was finally open for business again after three long years of lying fallow.

So, with Garrison Keillor telling ghost stories on the radio, I re-potted the basil in my window sill while Sergio pulled the threads of my scarlet A off the rented costume ... and we watched the parishioners pouring out, one after another, after another, clowns-in-a-Volkswagen style.

Here comes the neighborhood!

Playing with food

As if food weren't already enjoyable enough just by being delicious ... then comes along a funky carrot, a clever chef, a brand new Wusthof knife and - voila! A good time was had by all...

Tiny Visitors

We found a lady bug on our window when we got home last night. It's rare to find bugs and such immediately outside of our seventh floor window so we took notice right away ... and then couldn't help but observe the clusters of them all over. I counted as many as fifteen at a time on one window. I think it was a convention. I looked for all their tiny little name tags that said "Hello, My Name Is..."

I was delighted to find them. But what they were all doing was beyond me. And why were they on my window. I like to think they were enticed by herbs in my window sill. (My urban herbs. My herbans, if you will.)
















One lady bug made it inside - a mystery I have opted not to examine. They used to say - back in the day - that if a butterfly lands on you, it means that you are going to get a new dress. I'm pretty sure that, by the same superstition, if a lady bug lands on your wall it means you are going to get a new rain coat for your trip to Seattle.

POSTSCRIPT: This morning when we left for work we walked out the front door of our building and down the side walk stepping over (sigh) some lady bugs whose lives had been cut short. Perhaps by a fall from the seventh floor? A ghastly and strange demise (considering they have wings). I shudder to think what the nature of their convention may have been.