Just unplug, and maybe it’ll be all right again
Thin white cords dangle from my ears, as if I am unraveling from the inside out. Music pulses through the cords, flowing into me like a stream. Bathed in sound, I walk quickly, stepping over dusty pebbles and shredded chunks of bark that have blown from landscaped yards onto the cracked gray sidewalk. A black and white cat is sprawled in front of me, its limbs stretching leisurely across the sidewalk. The cat stares at me with half closed eyes, unmoving.
I step over the cat and keep walking; the beat of the music energizes me, while orange and pink streaks appear in the darkening sky. There is no movement in the houses I pass, only shadows through the windows, children immersed in silvery blue computer light. Glancing at my watch as it vibrates, swirling stars, like a celebration, explode across the watches face, informing me I have achieved my 10,000 steps. I make sure I have enough cardio heart rate points, turn the music up and head home. A young man and woman walk toward me as I turn the corner. They walk side by side, staring at their phones. They do not speak.
Lavender gray evening light filters through the leaves of the trees in my front yard as I hurry through the front door. I remove the earphones from my ears, tell Alexa to turn on the living room lights and push the Sonos app on my phone to turn music on. My tidy house is filled with light and sound as I scroll through my phone, checking to see if I have missed any messages or breaking news.
Two television remote controls lay on our shiny glass coffee table. The remotes look important with their white and red buttons, arrows and numbers scattered across black plastic cases, as if pushing those buttons holds some sort of power or secrets waiting to be revealed. With a sudden hushing sound, cool air blows through the house and my phone pings with a message while the timer on the microwave beeps like the shrill call of a bird and Roomba begins to whirr and circle around the room like a hungry predator.
Books were stacked like towers in our house when I was growing up. They were scattered and piled behind chairs and on dusty shelves, they leaned together like tired soldiers. Torn and faded bedsheets and blankets were draped over tables and tippedover rocking chairs to make secret hiding places. The worn wooden floors had trails of dirty footprints. We were seldom allowed to watch the black and white television my father called the “idiot box.” Often, I would cuddle up on my top bunk and disappear into a book or stare out the window and imagine.
My parents put a record player just outside our bedroom door. My brother, sisters and I would lay in our bunk beds while Nat King Cole sang “Unforgettable” and “Mona Lisa”, his soft, rich voice weaving itself into the night air, soothing us into sleep. The beds squeaked as we tossed and turned and burrowed like pups or creatures in the wild. The windows were open and the early summer breeze drifted through the room, ruffling the sheets we had pulled over ourselves. I could hear a neighbor’s dog barking and see the lights on the church across the field from our house. Once I heard an owl. The smell of roast beef and onions hung in the air. Sometimes we would whisper to each other, trying to name all the states in alphabetical order, pressing our lips together so we would not giggle. Sometimes we planned how to make a fort in our backyard the next day. Sometimes we were just quiet and listened to Nat King Cole.
My thoughts, as I walk through my house, are like scattered bits of dust blowing in every direction. The music that pours from the speakers, the lights, the whirring, the beeping and pinging feel like waves that threaten to topple me. Disconnected and drooping, the white earphone cords hang from my fingers. Slowly, I roll them into a tangled ball and set them aside.
I silence my phone, walk past the remotes and sit on the floor in front of the sliding glass door and look outside. It is darker now but I see the silhouettes of trees and lingering reds and pinks in the sky. The gentle wind moves the leaves of the trees, they rise and fall slowly and gracefully. The rug feels soft on my bare legs. Thoughts, colors, sounds begin to move through me with ease now, like pieces of silk in the wind. I breathe in the quiet, the stillness. And it feels like rest. The author Anne Lamott has written that “almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” I think she is right.
Maybe then we could see the color of a stranger’s eyes. Maybe then we might hear the sound of the wind blowing a branch against the window.
Maybe sit in quiet darkness. Maybe then we could just be.