Time Changing or.....Changing Times?
It's that time again—set your clocks back one hour on Saturday night.
Enjoy that extra hour in bed on Sunday morning.
Store up some restful serenity folks, because we vote on Tuesday, and Idon't need to tell you the stakes are high. Greg and I voted early, andthen he left for Cuba, part of a group from Hanover Friends' Meeting,and I leave Sunday afternoon for a week in Chicago to study with myteacher, Tias Little. I can't say I'm sorry to be sidestepping theanxious frenzy leading up to Tuesday and its (hopefully, uplifting)aftermath. I'm sure news will trickle in. But I'm going to focus on thetraining and the peace in my own heart, and offer up prayers when I can.This time around, I am not going to sit in anxious vigil tofivethirtyeight.
Last weekend I was away on an annual walking trip with a group of dearwomen friends. It's our 14th year doing this trip. We are all in our midfifties. The kids have mostly gone, some of us walk a little moreslowly, some have had serious illnesses, some have newly difficultsituations at home. But, when we are together, we talk nonstop, welaugh, we share meals, and we walk. Most years, the weather is trulywretched (it's historically the last weekend in October, a traditionleft over from the days we had to see our kids' soccer season through tothe bitter end). But we layer up and get out there no matter what theweather offers up. Our walks are more like 6 or 7 miles these days, notthe 20 ish milers we started out with, but we enjoy every wet, freezing,windy mile, with a fair amount of hilarity, conversation and sometimestears.
This year, my water bottle leaked in my backpack and my phone died awatery death. The rice thing didn't work. I didn't have my laptop. Itwas much, much harder to unplug than I would have thought. Humbling,really. But by the second day, I didn't miss it at all. As chance orkarma would have it, my digital demons were out in full force: when Igot home Sunday night my laptop fizzed and fritzed and then wouldn'tstart. A sign from the universe?
You don't need me to tell you about the addiction many of us have to ourdevices. I don't like it, and, as a business owner, I also can't severthese particular ties that bind. So, like in most things in life, I comeaway from this forced unplugging (now that the new phone and laptopare—mostly—working again) knowing that the key is moderation andboundaries. Our devices are tools; it's important to regularly set themaside, turn them off, and walk off into the woods, with friends oralone—to talk, share, contemplate, live our lives, laugh, cry, feel.
I will bring my phone with me to Chicago but will try to only check itin the morning and evening, and leave it off during the day, during mytraining.
Sleep in Sunday, friends.
Vote on Tuesday.
Stay informed, but preserve and cherish some time away from your own digital devices.
Love,
Leslie