Category: social media fast

31 Day Social Media Fast: Day 16 & 17

In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

Winter’s as-yet-unrelenting grip. March 2019, Bay of Fundy.

We arrive to our property in Mispec, New Brunswick after a 13-hour overnight drive from Baltimore just as the tide is rolling all the way out to the Bay of Fundy. There are rocks exposed, hairy-looking creatures that hulk at the water’s edge, rocks that we’ve never seen before and will be covered again in less than 30 minutes when the tide turns and the water rushes back in.

The road is ice-covered and uncertain, and the Subaru stays behind as Khristian and I trudge to the top of the hill where our property begins. As we walk, we see these:

Any ideas of what this print might be?

I didn’t think there were bears in New Brunswick, but I see in the recent reportage of bear attacks in New Brunswick a link that another person survived a black bear attack by grabbing the bear’s tongue. We see plenty of deer prints and some poops of uncertain origin, but no sign of our resident porcupine, Street Stephen. The only other possible evidence of animal presence is the family of crows that sing their welcome (or warning) above us the entire time we are on the property, and snow prints of various animals that lace across our path as we walk.

It is absolutely glorious here. We will spend the week in Saint John, the largest city in the province, information gathering about wells and art and tree diseases. The property is nothing like it was in the heat of August, the last time we were here, and I am glad to have seen it in the winter, even as winter crosses the liminal space into spring-not-yet-spring and we cannot spend as much time as we’d like on the bluff overlooking the Bay of Fundy due to cold.

When we left, the tide was just beginning to come roaring back, but numb toes and fatigue were setting in, and the siren call of a warm AirBnB and a glass of bourbon made the decision for us.

It is the next day, St. Patrick’s Day, as I write in the cold sun-splashed morning, so slainté, revelers. Today we will ourselves walk the streets of the city and revel in each other’s presence, take ourselves out to lunch or dinner and listen to the water. Easy.

31 Day Social Media Fast: Day 13

In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

Today’s “bad news-good news” cycles goes thusly:

Bad news: I got a rejection email from The Sun.

Good news: It’s not taking them as long as it used to.

I choose to see this as good news (the rapidity with which they politely blow me off). I am not sure why, but it works for me. And maybe someday I will be published in that beautiful publication. Truthfully, it’s the act of submitting that holds more power for me these days (although, if I am honest – which I always try to be – publication would be lovely. Let’s not kid ourselves any).

So the rejections pile up, and still I am working to unearth and uncover and disclose. It is harder than you might imagine, this actual being honest with yourself. We are all stars in our own movie, and as such it is easy to cast ourselves in a favorable light.

But it’s the shadow I am now (and always have been) interested in. It shifts, though, and is hard to catch (I think there is a cartoon about that, catchiong your shadow, but it escapes me).

Anyway. Today is the last day of 47. Tomorrow I am officially in my late forties. Two years from Fiji (is how I am choosing to look at that factoid). Twenty-two years from taking up smoking again, and 32 years from smoking heroin in a shack on an island.

It’s good to plan ahead.

31 Day Social Media Fast: Day 12

In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

It’s a day that ends in “y,” so this means I wake up to wade through a lake of dog piss in the kitchen in the morning on my way to coffee. It seems more than a little unfair that I should have to navigate said lake prior to caffeine.

Suffice it to say, it is not delightful, and this is the third day it has happened, even though extraordinary measures have been taken to prevent it in the prior two days (last night the fault was The Child’s, and I wake her up to inform her that she is responsible for the cleaning of it today).

I add it to the list of un-delightful things, which is just like complaining and probably not going to earn me a book deal any time soon.

Drinking my coffee in bed this morning, I consider the day – a walk, two yoga classes, an early-morning invitation to a birthday drink after the second class. I am tired, sleeping poorly, but very much aware, even with the dog pee, of how grateful I should be as this day unfolds in birdsong and sunshine in front of me.

Later in the day, with just a few hours between teaching small children yoga and teaching adults yoga, I feel the siren call of social media. It’s a little craving in the center of my chest. It has been nearly two weeks, and it is still a thought in my head, to visit The Facebook or pop in to Instagram.

I have figured out that I can view Facebook events without actually logging on, the public ones anyway, and that makes me feel like staying off Facebook is the best choice – for good. We will see. Still plenty of time left.

Instagram remains problematical. I have not been taking nearly any pictures on my phone or DSLR, partly because the weather has been heinous, and partly because…I don’t know. I am working to slim down my digital life, and I have been more discerning in what pictures I take and what I keep when I take them (as evidenced by the scant photography on this blog).

In general, this social media break thus far has afforded me the luxury of a minor creative crisis. I am working on many different projects at once with more time and less static in my brain, but still struggling to pin something down and get immersive with it. I think this exploration is ultimately positive, but it is unsettling as well. I cannot seem to commit to food or non-fiction or poetry or fiction or photography or painting, so I am doing a little bit of all of it.

We will see what happens.

31 Day Social Media Fast: Day 11

In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

“Because in trying to articulate what, perhaps, joy is, it has occurred to me that among other things…joy is the mostly invisible, the underground union between us, you and me, which is, among other things, the great fact of our live and the lives of everyone and everything we love going away. If we sink a spoon into that fact, into the duff between us, we will find it teeming. It will look like all the books ever written. It will look like all the nerves in a body. We might call it sorrow, but we might call it a union, one that, once we notice it, once we bring it into the light, might become flower and food. Might be joy.”

Ross Gay, The Book of Delights

31 Day Social Media Fast: Day 9 & 10

In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

Wildness.

The weekend is an orgy of relaxing and resetting, sorely needed by Khristian and myself. February is always hard, and this one seemed particularly difficult for both of us.

Saturday is filled with naps and a delicious frittata.

I spend a substantial amount of time Sunday morning reading The Book of Delights and petting the cat. This morning itself is a delight with its rainy dripping and water sounds in the gutters outside and my love sleeping softly and warmly next to me.

We have sprung forward, and I am glad of it. Another milestone, another sign that the literal and metaphorical darkness of winter is lifting.

I am unexpectedly glad at this day for no reason other than the sweet wet smell of rain and the purring hum of the cat and the warmth of Khristian next to me.

This morning, once we are ourselves lifted out of bed, we have fried eggs on toast with arugula (to complement without revisiting yesterday’s spectacular frittata with arugula, sweet peppers, and onions).

We wile the day again away, dreaming of our land in New Brunswick that we will visit next week, before we go to an unspectacular poetry reading. We go our separate ways after – me to yoga, Khristian to his studio – and meet a hawk in the parking lot where Khristian drops me off. I take the disappointing picture above but feel this wildness is a gift, another unexpected gladness, on a day just like any other day.