Unplugged

My daughter Talia asked me in a short text how the bike group was getting along and I said, “Mostly fine. But for my taste, too many phones!!” Every single meal they’re out, sometimes needed, sometimes not. But this morning was the worst—every single person except me either talking about their phones or trying to make something work on their phones. I just had to leave—too damn depressing.

 

When we’re riding, it’s not too much of an issue, but still, the route is on the phone and every time we stop, even when in front of a sign that says, “Bike route to your destination—this way,” it’s five to ten minutes heads down trying to interpret the little purple dot. It’s really maddening. Same thing when we arrive in town trying to find the hotel. But I just walk up to the nearest person and they happily give me directions—which today actually got us to the hotel better than any purple dot.

 

These are good people. But it’s a sign that the machines designed for addiction, for sidelining human relations, for insidiously wearing away at our confidence to trust our intuition, are doing their work masterfully. Amongst other things, they teach us that we always have to know precisely where we are and where we’re going, which is diametrically opposed to the way the growing Soul actually works. If we’re a bit lost for a while, so be it. That’s where the fun and the stories come from.

 

I think my training in both Jazz and Orff has made me different from most folks. I don’t say that in an arrogant way, but I do wholly trust my intuition knowing that it sometimes “doesn’t work” but then leads me to something interesting—maybe even more interesting. Like a good Orff teacher or Jazz musician, you need to know the general territory, but the point is to feel your way through the chord changes or children’s responses and see where it leads you. 

 

After some 30 miles biking today in our first day of full sun and hot weather (almost up to 80) in shorts and Tivas (well, I wore my Tivas), we arrived at the town of Belluno and wandered through the town in search of gelato ice cream. Nice to feel like a tourist in a town and we also found a restaurant the way I like to. Not going online to Google “Best restaurants in Belluno” but just follow your nose—and ear. The moment we hear that disco beat, we turn the other way. In this way, found a lovely restaurant with an all-Italian menu which we mostly deciphered without phones and a blessed silence beyond the murmur of human conversation, not a single recorded note assaulting us. 

 

Determined to short-circuit people whipping out their phones when we sat down, I invoked the way my daughter Talia often offers an interesting prompt to a conversation and suggested one to the group: “Tell us about your first trip to Europe.” (One of the group members, Heide, is from Germany, so she talked about going to England.)

And wasn’t that delightful! Four of us took that trip between the beginning and end of college, that impressionable time when you’re so ripe for adventure and new tastes and new ideas. Stories tended to be short and not so much about the impact it made on young minds and hearts (though I suggested that could be Theme Number Two for a different dinner), but still fun to hear and evocative for the people telling them. Unplug from your phone and plug into your living memory. That's the lesson.

 

Tomorrow is a 60-mile (100 kilometer) stretch, literally twice as much as today. But there is an option for a train at the 40-mile mark if needed. We shall see.