Technological advancements of our day allow and encourage us to attempt to engage in multiple very different activities at once. For example, one can dress oneself, nurse a baby or prepare food while digitally being informed of major world news. That same person can write an electronic note to a co-worker 1000 miles away while talking to a neighbor on the phone. Someone can plan a day's work by viewing an animated radar image of a weather system on a small handheld screen, and that same person can get in a car and move down a road at 60 miles an hour while simultaneously typing a grocery list for a spouse on that same handheld screen. You get the drift. As a person who is naturally inclined to side with the Luddites when it comes to the value of modern technology, I continue to find myself surprisingly adapted to the changes in American lifestyle that new technology imposes on our day to day personal habits.
I talk on the cell phone while driving. (Terrible habit.) I use the internet daily. I have a blog. I can text. I continually break my own taboos about what technologies are acceptable in my life and when it is acceptable to use them.
When I first got a cell phone it was for emergencies only. Then the convenience of calling people whenever and wherever trumped that ideal. But absolutely no talking while driving. The temptation to utilize my ridiculous commute time for multitasking won me over on that one. Then I decided that even when a cell tower came to Hot Springs I would never use the cell phone there- I figured there had to be a place in the world that I was only reachable the "old fashioned" way. That battle was lost in a year or two, but I vowed to never use the cell phone in the woods. Well, guess what, I do sometimes now. It doesn't seem right, but sometimes I can convince myself that making a phone call while hiking or strolling in the woods is a good use of time.
Yesterday morning I found myself with an unexpected day off of work. Between rain showers I laced up the ole leather walking shoes and headed out for a much needed hike up the local mountain, Lover's Leap. On the way out of the house, I grabbed the cell phone. I figured maybe while I was getting in some good old fashioned exercise I could make a couple of phone calls and thereby cross a couple things of the ole To Do list.
As soon as I stepped into the cool wet breezy Appalchian woods, I regained awareness of what is left of my truly human wit. Thank God and Daniel Boone and the pending rapture for that. It's in the cells (of my body, not the phone). My body relaxed. My breathing attuned itself to the wet, oxygen rich forest air. My ears settled into the complex awareness of multiple depths of the quiet and not so quiet sounds of the woods. I wanted nothing to do with my phone, and I felt like a fool for having considered using it while having such a lush opportunity not to.
I hiked up the backside of the mountain, by Silvermine through a little mini grove of wild paw paws and wood nettles. Back into the holler I remembered the friend who died back in the woods there when I was newer to the mountain. I realized how this mountain has helped me identify myself as a grown person, and that was marvelous to me. Up the trail there were the precious semi hidden secretive earthy blooms of wild ginger and delicate white wands of galax flowers. I noticed for the first time that each tiny little galax flower is comprised of 5 tiny petals. Fresh growth on the tips of rhododendrons were green and alive, sourwood leaves were shiny and vibrant, and the cool breeze perfectly complemented the wet day. At the top, green unripe blueberries on wild shrubs promised bountiful snacking later in the year.
Had I been on the cell phone, I would not have heard the sweet, delicate "witchity witchity witchity" of the common yellowthroat on the river side of the mountain. Nor would I have heard the insect-like buzz of the worm-eating warbler, who sat perched in the canopy singing its little heart out. I crouched silently and watched it for a while until it noticed me and proceded to fly down to the ground next to where I was perched, allowing me a good long close up look at its lovely markings before it circled me and headed back up to the canopy where it chirped calls of alert to whomever... Had I been on the phone I wouldn't have detected the twitching tail of a common grey squirrel who thought it was so sneaky down there, quickly gobbling up tidbits from the floor of the little nook where it foraged, protected. I would not have even noticed the multi-species bird squabble up in the canopy as I descended closer to the river- or the loud splash of a beaver's tail in the water beneath a low hanging birch branch. All of the spectacular arboreal drama would have been by-passed all together.
May I urge you, dear readers, to leave your devices behind and go for a good long walk in the woods, in this precious place that we live, and enjoy the precious phenomenon which is life all around us. It's unique to our planet, unless you believe in aliens.
