No Signal: Summer Days Without Wifi

In Response to Dancing Elephants Prompt 12 of 52

It has become cliché for those of us with pre-internet life experience to lament the loss of “true childhood:” we used to play outside more; we didn’t stare at phones all day.

My son was born in 2011 and he loves to play video games. You might think that means something about his relationship to movement or hard work or the outside world. Actually, he’s been fortunate to have numerous rich and engaging experiences both on and off-screen.

I wrote this blog post in July 2018, after a summer birthday celebration in the hills. You see, my sister lives in a remote little town and it took quite a while for technology to catch up to her side of the forest.

Yesterday was my nephews’ birthday party. Whenever we visit my sister’s house the kids seem to have a special kind of fun, their actions a series of tableaux representing a familiar and treasured sort of childhood. Here’s the thing: she lives where there is no internet, no cell service; she doesn’t own a computer; our phones don’t work there. There are video games, as there were when I was young, but those are immobile and cannot follow one out into the yard.

Somehow the air just feels different when there are no wireless signals floating through it.

Yesterday our boys played wiffle ball with friends and family while Papa grilled, Stanley the hound dog roamed the yard for scraps, and little conversation circles formed in shaded spaces with assorted lawn chairs. We talked, ate, and played. We took photos that we could not instantly share, instead keeping our attention on their subjects even after the perfect image was already collected. Our son ran wild, fell off a rock wall, scratched his ankle on a wild black raspberry bush, lost a tooth, hollered and giggled with a band of cousins and friends.

As usual, the sort of connection that travels through the summer air at my sister’s house was far better than wifi.

Times changed and the internet finally made its way to my sister’s house. Ironically, one reason why I remember the specific beauty of those days so well is that I recorded some of them to share online.

Here’s the thing: though we have tangled a new “web” of signals and wires into the web of life as we knew it, so far the earth and trees and sun are still there. Maybe we can have our cake and eat it, too, if we’re careful, attentive, and respectful enough.

For my part, I still treasure the unfettered moments spent with fresh air and wild black raspberries.