Our first named hurricane of the season has been moving along the coast this week. July 4th has always been a day of parties, barbeques, parades, fireworks, trips to the pool and beach- and hot summer fun. In recent years, however, all of these are peppered with moments checking email, quick calls to work associates, time carved out to finish and send that report or handling a few odds and ends that you couldn’t get done before vacating the office for a few days.
Before the internet and cell phone, we had down time. Time spent hanging out with friends and loved ones, interacting through play and conversation, time to read and time to get back in touch with our inner child. Of course, younger adults never knew a time like this- but those of us who did can’t help but feel something is missing in our present plugged in lives.
I’m sitting here looking out at the storm as it rages over the ocean all around me. We are in a sheltered place on Long Island Sound- a place I spent many childhood summers. When I come here for a visit, I can almost hear the voices and see the images of a long ago time for here time seems to stand still. The streets look almost the same, some cottages are updated, but the old names are still there. The view out over the sound is just as it was when I was 7 years old. While it’s true you can “never go home again,” I can come close in this place. But, somehow, there is often this distance or barrier that seems like more than time.
This morning, waking up to the storm, I felt like I had been transported back in time. Folks are out walking in bare feet with slickers on and no one is talking on a phone. Some outages have occurred, so people are unplugged- card and board games are coming out, there is conversation and story-telling- and someone even came to the door to tell us a neighborhood party has been changed to a few weeks from now- due to the weather. No text, email or phone call- they came to the door.
Today time has slowed down- and if I listen quietly, I can see and hear the children we were- laughing and running through the rain. I can picture us out on the fishing dock, catching bass which were always plentiful on rainy days. The day will pass slowly and a sense of calm and relaxation will set in, followed by a truly restful night’s sleep.
Soon enough, life will return to normal- but for this one day, our minds can frolic and play through memories of a simpler time, a time when intimacy was a way of life- when conversation happened in real time and the images of our shared days were recorded in our memories and not on our smart phones, where they were then stored and taken out on special occasions among friends, not shared online for any stranger or acquaintance who happens to click by.