Waking My Girl

Last night she asked, can you make sure I'm sitting up when you get me up tomorrow? I smiled. My youngest sets an alarm for 6:30 but has been in the high school musical this weekend and hell week before that. She has been going flat out for three weeks and is tired. On an easy day, she gets herself up, dresses, comes down, packs lunch, makes  breakfast, and sits on the love seat under a blanket to eat. After the musical, she was pretty sure it wouldn't be so easy. 

I said, I'll make sure. 

I'm up before five to make coffee and then write in my basement nook. I go to the couch around six to read and write an email note for my wife to read over her breakfast. When I hear my girl's 6:30 alarm, I creep upstairs to make sure she's up, then pack lunch and get ready to go. 

This morning, her phone's alarm was flashing silently. I sat on her bed and hugged her leg with my hands. Honey, it's time. I said it softly knowing she didn't want to get up. I didn't want her to get up either. She looked so peaceful, so cherubic. I wanted to stay and pass the day with her.

"I'm going to stay in bed today," she said. I smiled. "I'll go to school some other day." Hmm, I said. "I'm so tired," she said, drawing out "so" like a yawn. Yeah, I know, I said, almost whispering and I could feel the words coming from my smile. I hugged her leg some more and waited. She pulled the covers up high. I said, "a girl last night told me to make sure she was sitting up." She sat up and rubbed her eyes. I said, I'll see you downstairs, my love. 

There's not much better in than seeing my girl each morning. I wake her gently because that's what she prefers. Who doesn't? I remember being jerked awake by my alarm clock's terrible click and buzzer or, when I overslept, my mother's shouting, singing, and clapping. It made me angry. I want the opposite for my girl. 

There's a selfish aspect as well. 

I want her to remember me waking her. Not the specifics of today, but that feeling of me talking quietly, hugging her leg. I want her to feel loved without thinking about it and as sure of that love as she is of the sun in the sky. No question, no doubt about it. This small ritual of checking if she's awake and waking her gently is me trying to insure all that. 

I want it for her, but I want it just as much for me. Having her feel loved helps her love me and I'm greedy for more of that. 

Some say I'm lucky she gets up so well and goes to school. Most of the kids I teach come to school only under threat. My girl, unless she's feverish or it's a Jewish holiday, goes to school, mostly willingly because my wife and I have been waking them this way their whole lives. We have engineered this. We seem to have realized early enough that we have our children only for so long. Childhood really is over too quickly. 

When she goes out on her own, I hope she will wake some mornings remembering my soft knock at her door and the shadow of me sitting on her bed. She might almost feel my hand hug her leg and hear me say, "it's morning, honey. I'll see her downstairs." If she does, there's every chance she will begin her day feeling loved and radiating it out into her world. That's about all this world needs is more of her kind of love. 

Small Disconnections

I went to a writing conference Saturday without my laptop. For eight hours I wrote by hand in a notebook. Arriving at the college, I had trouble with the wifi. I couldn't think why I needed my phone at all and powered it down. I turned it on at lunch to call my wife but turned it back off. Writing by hand was good. I could have typed more words, but there was no door prize for most words written. It felt good to be fully there at the conference instead of checking email, Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times, and every other damn online thing. 

Later, at home, I turned the phone on to check email (spam) and the (bad) news. I found an article about a guy who has blockaded all news since the election. Rather than read the whole thing, I began writing this. Why read about someone making good choices when I can make my own? 

My writing last week was spurred by Michael Harris's books The End Of Absence and Solitude, both about the loss of quiet and solitude in a "connected" world. I avoided Facebook last week unhappy with how much time I'm spending there. I limited Twitter to five minutes once a day.

Here's the worst thing about people who disconnect: they write things like this. The evangelist sins more than his flock but still calls them sinners. Don't let me tell you how to live. I'm just trying to convince myself. I know I'm a sinner. 

In another article this week a tech writer ditched online news for newspapers. He coined a Michael Pollen-like rule: "Get news. Not too quickly. Avoid social." I like the article and the writer, but during his two months off social media news he had tweeted a dozen times most days about, wait for it, the news. I follow him and had read those tweets, but when he wrote of unplugging, I wanted to believe, just as I want to believe I can do the same thing. Given that he didn't unplug, I really can do the same thing. 

Let he who is without social media be the first to cast phones. Or something like that. 

No matter what I claim about disconnecting, I'm far from living the life of Thoreau. I want to live that life, but I also want to play piano. It's just I'm unwilling to practice and learn how. I'm ready to drop social media and online news just so long as I don't have to, you know, drop any of it. 

Two years ago I unfollowed everyone on Twitter. Why not just delete the account? Well, it's my name and I would hate to lose that. Besides, I knew I would go back. I'm a waffler and hypocrite. But that time away informed how I rejoined Twitter. Last year, I unfollowed everyone who spread bad news. That was almost everyone given who is running the country, but I wanted to be thoughtful again. I'm never going to be perfect and I'm unlikely to quit Twitter, but I can always be more thoughtful. 

I want to choose what I do instead of following the crowd. It's a lot of work to be thoughtful, but yesterday my phone was an inert lump instead of a demanding master. I focused on writing and the people around me. Even my eyes felt more focused.

Rather than draw grand conclusions from these disconnections I'll say only that they are possible and each one makes further disconnecting a tantalizing proposition. Being thoughtful turns out to be almost as addictive as social media. Who knew? 

The Poet's Bowler

The poet wears baggy pants, a beard, and a damn bowler hat to the coffee shop. He carries a canvas bag stained grey with graphite. I bet he bought it like that or hired out to have it weathered. He sits beside me and draws from the bag an expensive notebook. Leather bound. Opens to pages of poetry written in large scrawl, letters two and three lines high. The poet ignores margins. I watch him write four lines. Gibberish or genius. Could go either way. He moves to sit on the floor next to a woman in an easy chair. She seems not at all bothered by his poetness. Or his bowler hat. I drink coffee, taking care not to spill on my button-down shirt, khaki slacks. So unpoetic. The poet talks to the woman about the color auburn and her painting. He has left his expensive notebook on the table next to me but taken the bowler. Were it the other way around, I’d try that hat instead of his notebook on my head. I stare at my reflection in the window, the pages of that leather journal cutting tiny slices from my ears.

Luddite Living

It wouldn't surprise me if I come off as a Luddite. I've written about unplugging and disconnecting. In teaching, my primary technologies are pen, paper, the printed book. I'm listening to The Pat Metheny Group's "Song For Bilbao" on my turntable. And if you were to catch me writing by hand, I would be doing it with a fountain pen in a notebook. Even on the computer, I'm using a minimalist editor -- Writer from bighugelabs.com so I'm not distracted by bells and whistles. In the last week I've read articles about dumb gadgets being better than smart ones, getting news from actual newspapers, and paying attention to the moment. In school, I tell students I'm intrigued by their willingness to be slaves to phones. On my desk is the paper planner with which I replaced Google Calendar. 

Yeah, you could say I'm a Luddite so long as we agree they weren't anti-technology or afraid of it. Rather, they didn't like how technology was being used to disenfranchise and hurt common workers. If we're talking in those terms, then you bet your ass I'm a Luddite. 

I've taken the last week off Facebook. I wonder if Facebook went away, would I lose or gain? A bit of both, but not in equal measure. This week I have realized I spend about an hour a day on that site. Ew. It would be okay if it made me happy, but that's mostly not the case. 

What does Facebook provide me? A conduit but for what? When I was a kid, Mom called the television The Idiot Box. A box full of idiots and watched by idiots. Sure, that's harsh, but Mom is an all or nothing kind of girl, and I tend that way as well. Facebook isn't completely worthless. It just feels that way.

My plan isn't to swear off Facebook, my phone, or the computer. I just want to ask questions. Are these things making my life better? Am I using them well? Am I being used by them? No, no, and yes, but only because I let them. 

Months ago I turned off notifications on my phone. Just now I deleted Gmail from my startup tabs on the Chromebook. I'm learning to turn my phone off part of each day. All of this is a response to my dependence (addiction?) to the technologies. 

The only casualty of these maneuvers has been posting to this blog. I've written very little on the computer to post. I'm glad to be back at it, especially in this stripped down editor. (Get a Writer account and customize it. I use a dark blue, Open Sans font on a light yellow page in full screen.)

I want to keep asking questions. I'll check Facebook again soon but maybe with a timer counting down five minutes. I want is a better life and the questions are turning, slowly, into a system to achieve it.