Talking with Neighbors, Maine Style

[photo by Mia McCullough]

"One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim, and run a course or two before they make their port."
— Thoreau, "Visitors," Walden

January 18, 2009
Sunday

Snowstorm leaves us with about a foot of snow. Magnificent storm, falling heavily much of the time. Everyone delighted. Had about a 45-minute conversation in the middle of the street with two neighbors up the block — Mike with his homebrew and George in his hat and glasses — talking so long that we accumulated about a half inch of snow on our heads and shoulders.

It occurs to me that I’m approaching a major historical event — the inauguration of Barack Obama — without the internet. There is a feeling of missing something, until I realize that there is NPR, there is the newspaper, and that being glued to the internet for days before, during, after, would cheapen the experience for me. We’re planning to be over at Brenda’s during the inauguration; she’s got cable.

If right now is my life,...

still Friday, January 2, 2009

"If we look into our lives, we will see clearly how many unimportant tasks, so-called 'responsibilities' accumulate to fill them up. One master compares them to 'housekeeping in a dream'. We tell ourselves we want to spend time on the important things of life, but there never is any time." Sogyal Rinpoche



It is weird to notice the number of times per day the impulse to get online comes. It is dozens. Today the panic is less. Detox! The fear that I'm committing "connection suicide" is lessening, and it's only January 2nd.

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Today — the weather report — a paragraph at the top of the New England edition of the New York Times. Regional, not so specific. "It's winter!...blah blah blah." The phone — dialing up to the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine.

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Today — heading up the street to get some lunch. All the old brick buildings of the old port district and shops in their post-holiday sales. Then later, massage school work — studying polarity and sending out postcards or making phone calls to get some practice sessions rolling again.

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Being on the internet for me is, in part, an attempt to address the fear of "missing something" — an age-old human fear? — but hours a day were lost sometimes in cyberspace, and sometimes more because of being distracted thinking about what I'd read, with whom I'd chatted — and if right now is my life, how much did I miss in an attempt not to miss anything?