I've got a crush on that idea

[photo by Mia McCullough]

Here's the abyss
waiting with its
kiss of shiver
and bliss.

— Gregory Orr, "Here"

Still January 12, 2009

There is something very empowering in limiting the ways in which someone can reach me.

Living in the city this is difficult to do without voluntarily giving up a mode of communication. I had a friend in Port Townsend, Washington, who lived without a telephone for a while and we all thought she was crazy. I imagined her living in a hovel. She couldn’t afford it, for one thing — she was trying to keep her overhead as low as possible. I equated this with being deprived of proper shelter and food and imagined she was living in, essentially, a barn. This was before the internet really caught on as an everyday household occurrence, so her contact with others was in person or by letters.

Now I have a crush on the whole idea.

But...giving up the phone, with kids at home, and with the climate such as it gets here in Maine, would be a highly unnecessary experiment.