A few months ago, I began a new habit. On Thursday nights around dinnertime, I turn off my computer and my phone. I purposefully disconnect to slow myself down, to calm the incessant mental agitation, and to bring peace to my inner worlds. I might read, or do a puzzle, or draw, or play guitar and sing, but nothing plugged in.
I began this new practice in preparation for Fridays. For many years, Fridays have been a fasting day for me. When I was younger, it was a food fast or partial fast, like just eating dinner. Then it morphed into juice or liquid fasts. Much more frequently now, it’s a mental fast of keeping my thoughts in the highest spiritual place that I can for twenty-four hours.
And while Thursdays have supported Fridays successfully, sometimes this night-before preparation brings a sense of loneliness. I try to lean into the feeling and breathe while I watch myself detach from being electronically fed. This week, I had help from a rainstorm that came on quickly. It had been unseasonably hot and humid all day. Suddenly, a wind seemed to come from out of nowhere, whipping through trees as if in a circular pattern. By the time I got back to the bedroom to close the windows, water had already soaked the rug.
I went downstairs and opened the front door. I stood just inside, allowing the freshness of the wind and water’s spray to enliven me. In a matter of minutes, the downpour stopped and I stepped outside, barefoot in the grass. I saw my neighbor standing in her doorway finishing a phone call. She hung up, then pointed to the lamp that hangs above her front door. There’s a huge bee, she said. She’s not a fan of bees. I went to look and sure enough a bee the size of a horsefly was crawling inside the lamp near the bulb. As I watched, it flew away, and my neighbor carefully stepped outside.
We chatted about the weather, about the theater, about the property on which we live and the opportunity we’d have soon to star gaze from the field once I get my astronomy binoculars a proper tripod. I felt as if I’d stepped back in time into a gentler rhythm when neighbors connected with each other instead of their TVs.
What a peaceful and pleasant moment on an unplugged Thursday night. Real physical presence. The virtual world is such a gift to connect us globally. We get to explore and find our tribe among the peoples of the world. Yet, there’s nothing so fulfilling to me as simple, casual conversation shared amidst the clean, rain-soaked air, barefoot on my front lawn.