Summer Rain
A New Current
Not touching the iTouch, Jeb dives into Legos. While I work, he sits beside me creating countless structures in the third dimension. Interactions and melodramas can be heard as he mumbles dialogue between Lego guys.
Not immune to the ways of war, these little dudes usually come with some sort of miniature weaponry.
Knowing my pacifist tendencies, Jeb points out, “Hey, Mom, look at this.”
A Lego version of a trash can has been filled with a slew of black rifle replicas, each one smaller than a toothpick.
“Mmmm…that’s a good place for them,” I respond.
For now, I won’t begin an essay asking why standard toys include gun-toting characters for our children’s play. For now, I am focusing on the positive. And that is the fact that there was no mention of the iTunes store or any kind of upgrade requests for an entire day.
For 24 hours my son was plugged into his own imagination, no purchase necessary.
No yaps about an App from my eight year old (and gasp!) no yips from the dog next door all night!
For the first time in many nights, the neighborhood was softly quiet.
Yes, I did make a communication (refer to previous post, if you like). And yes, at least for one night, that skipping record stopped.
A dear friend used to say to me that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.
If the record player is my metaphor, then I’ll say I simply pulled the plug on both my son’s handheld gadget and the neighboring dog scenario. Things feel a little more sane, and certainly more quiet.
Even dreamtime shifted. I swam in milky mineral pools of hot spring water in the caves and crevices of some remote beach. Collected multitudes of ornate blue and white pottery shards, which lead like bread crumbs, to entire plates and vases, fully enact and washed up on the shore.
I’ll collect these lessons like treasure. Soak in the silence. Smile and drift a bit on this new current.
Pausing the Loops
It keeps sitting on the desktop in Save mode. This diatribe against devices. It was my friend the other night who brought to my attention that d’vice seems to be more fitting moniker and that’s exactly what frustrates me. The addiction to the gadgets. More specifically, how this affects my son and all of my mothering.
But this is all just saved for now. So deep it goes I can’t craft all the words in my little 45 minute morning writing window.
So I stop on the written piece. Face to face, I tell Jeb that Mom needs a pause from the iTouch. It’s going to stay at his dad’s house for a while.
Then I come here, and rather pointlessly, tell you that I’m writing something that you can’t read because its not ready.
And then…well, there’s the neighbor’s dog. Somehow the yipping, high pitch snaps of our next door neighbor’s little pooch weaves its way into this thread. Not that it’s barking now (thank God).
What is it that bothers me most? Is it the irritation of its incessant yelps that begin around nightfall? With an empty house the dog gets nervous in the yard, feigning territorial dominance, all the while spooked and barking at shadows. Or is it the feeling of futility in an unwavering pattern that can last for hours and happens nearly every night?
I have empathy for the dog that feels this insecure. But I also have empathy for our neighborhood that suffers through this barking frenzy in what we’d like to be our quiet evening hours.
Like being stuck on the groove of a record (remember those?), I don’t know what got to me more. The actual sound irritating every last nerve in my body or the fact that I was, once again, in this tired, old feedback loop that seemed to have no exit. If the record’s skipping, pick up the needle or pull the plug on the whole system. Do something different to make a change!
With this radical motivation in mind, I lost my cool and, despite myself, heard my own voice breaking through the night air. There I was, shouting out the window screen “Be quiet!” right in the direction of that feisty canine. Go ahead and laugh. It was silly. And the dog (and a couple of his pack-mates) just barked right back at me.
Ok, shouting doesn’t work. And turning up the radio doesn’t drown the sound.
More fundamental action is needed if I want a genuine shift. Like talking to the neighbors, you may suggest? Yes, that seems logical…and something I’ve been avoiding.
So let’s see…Mom pulls the plug on the iTouch and decides to make direct communication with the neighbors about their barking dog.
Life’s an experiment and these are big efforts intended to alter repeating feedback loops of negativity.
Metaphors abound here, so feel free to apply the iTouch or yapping dog to your own life’s loops.
Let’s see if habits get broken and something better is built. I’ll keep you posted.
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