Choosing Hard

A couple weekends ago, my mom and I went to a holistic fair. It was a square-figure-8 of tables in a auditorium-like community center. Mediums, crystals, stones, wire jewelry, pet psychics and tarot cards. We got there fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to close, so they let us in for free. Mom was determined to find me a psychic.

We watched people getting readings and doing readings. There was one woman, we'll call her Oda Mae Brown, who was talking to a woman. The woman started to cry and Oda Mae handed her a tissue box. Instead of wiping her face, the woman sat through her reading with streaked cheeks, riveted by what Oda Mae was telling her. After circling the tables for awhile, eyeing a tarot card reader in the corner, Mom decided Oda Mae was the psychic for me.

We waited until the weeping woman finished and Mom approached. It wasn't until I was in the chair and she started to tell me about herself did I realize Oda Mae was/is a medium. I'd never met with a medium one-on-one. Several years ago in my writing group we'd hired a man to come to our group and work his medium powers, but I mostly remember the odd way he kicked out his leg every few minutes.

For full disclosure, I don't disbelieve in psychics. There's a woman in Solvang, a tiny dutch town in California, named Madam Rosinka (real name) who's incredible. I think of psychics as highly intuitive people who tune into a radio wave that's out there for anyone with the right antenna. I also think there are a lot of crocks of shit who make up stuff.

Anyway, mediums. I wasn't looking to talk to the dead. I don't feel like I have any unfinished business with dead people. I don't worry about them. I miss them. It'd be cool if they weren't dead, but most of the ones I know were suffering and they are probably feeling a whole lot better if they are feeling anything. I don't think there's a heaven, but maybe just that each person dissolves into the matter that goes back into the earth. Their atoms floating out adding to new things and the parts of them that lives on is who they touched while they were alive.

So, when Oda Mae asked me who I wanted to talk to, I just picked my Grandma Henry because she was the grandparent I was closest to. The whole reading was strange. Oda Mae asked me lots of questions and told me some specific (watch out for anemia?) and lots of vague ("You're not done learning") things. Part of the confusion for me was, none of it sounded like Gram. I don't know if I expected Oda Mae's voice to change or her eyes to recognize me or what. But even the types of things she was saying didn't seem like Gram.

I shared as much as I could remember with Mom in the car ride home. Mom, despite her cynicism in everyday life, is a firm believer. "Maybe Grandma feels more at peace now so she feels she can say these things." "I think Grandma mentioned something like that... once." I remembered Oda Mae telling me Gram said "You aren't a victim in life."

"What does that even mean?" I asked Mom.

"You do like to choose hard things," Mom started. "You've always had an ingrained sense of justice and a desire to protect the underdog. It's not you being a victim, but that can be a hard life. Standing up for other people. Not always for yourself. Why do you always choose hard things?"

I didn't have a good answer. But it pinged something in me more than anything Oda Mae said.

So I changed the subject to Oda Mae saying whenever I smell sweet peas, Gram is near. Mom breathed in suddenly and said, "Grandma grew sweet peas on her farm!" As I started to protest, a huge bird flew right at our windshield, inches away from smashing in my side. I screamed, Mom swerved slightly and the bird flew off like it hadn't just almost died.

"It's Grandma," Mom said. "She's mad you don't believe her." She smiled while watching the road and we both laughed.

Mom insisted I relay this story to Jared and Dad that night and I realized, in the telling, I'm not sure what Gram would sound like. What she would say. We didn't have one-sided conversations in real life. She didn't give me speeches or long bits of advice. She told me stories about her childhood, her adulthood, her family and she listened.

Maybe mediums are more like funerals - a ceremony for the living under the guise of honoring the dead. They sometimes say something provocative enough that the listener, the hoper, can make that into something significant. And if it stirs something, does it matter where it came from?

Because rather than thinking of Gram's ethereal wisdom, I keep thinking of Mom's "You like to choose hard things."

Time to Put the No in TechNOlogy.

I've known for a long time technology now encroaches on my life. But a moment in which that became disturbly clearer happened a few weeks ago and I haven't recovered yet. Before, I'd be on my phone or iPad or computer 90% of my waking hours. I brought my laptop home at night, not actually accomplishing more work. I had my iPad with me while I watched TV. I read emails while stopped at a light.

And then I took my phone into the bathroom at work. (This isn't the realization moment, that's a common occurrance. I'm just setting the scene. Wait for it.) I put my phone down next to the sink to get situated. When I turned to pick it up, my sleeve caught it and sent it flying to the floor, just out of reach. I stretched out my foot to try and nudge it. Inches too far away. I looked around for something to extend my reach. A half-second later, without thinking, I had the plunger in my hand and was leaning over to tap my phone back.

You're cringing. And you should be.

Luckily, I paused, plunger mid-air, and thought WTF am I doing? I put the plunger back in the corner and finished up. As I bent over to pick up my phone I thought, I can't even pee without doing something else. And that's super weird. 

Since then, I've tried to at least notice when I'm online. I don't bring my laptop home with me. The iPad mostly stays by my bed to read at night. My phone doesn't come to the dinner table and I try not to be on it when my children are present or if I'm doing anything else. Yet, the moments of silence or focus are short-lived. And just when I think I'm doing better, I'm not.

Yesterday, I went to get my haircut. I took my iPad to read the book I have on there while I was getting my hair colored. So, I did that. And then the cut started. I went to a new stylist and he wasn't chatty. He was so not chatty, it made me (a small-talk-hating person) feel like chatting. He was focused on giving me an awesome haircut though. I noticed my shoulders and stomach and back were clenched. In anticipation of him talking? I have no idea. I thought about picking up my book. But felt like that wouldn't work with for obvious reasons. It took a surprisingly long time for me to get over this anxiety, be still, and be doing nothing. Once I did, it was relaxing. I watched him cut (noting tips for when my mom forces me to trim her hair) and I listened to conversations around me (learning way too much about the almost 40-year-old behind me).

I am proud of myself for these efforts but... this shouldn't be hard to do. I didn't grow up with computers and cell phones. We had one house computer when I was in high school. I got a desktop when I went away to college. I got a cell phone my junior year of college. The iPad was passed down to me by my brother less than two years ago. I still had a flip phone until 2013. But addictions happen quickly. You put your phone down, but then Didn't it just vibrate? I should check. It might be an emergency. Hmm, no call. Well, since it's on, I'll just check Facebook. And email. And update Henry's Facebook page. And read these articles on my tiny two-inch-wide screen while I squint my glasses-wearing-since-sixth-grade eyes that have been looking at screen most of the day. 

This boggles my mind. I once went to a silent retreat with monks at an abbey. We had classes during the day, but our work time, meals and night times were in silence. For several days. It was heavenly (no pun intended). And after it, I felt grounded and communal. But now, I feel even less connected to people. And feel "too busy" to: _______ (blog, sew, write, exercise, etc.) Instead of spending my time on things that fill me up, I'm wasting time on Facebook and Law & Order SVU marathons and blogging about these things during my work day.

I know silent meals aren't likely with my squawking, growing, language-learning boys. And I know I won't not check my phone periodically. But I'm experimenting with leaving it upstairs next to the iPad on the nightstand. Or at least in the other room. And I close the Facebook window after I've loaded up the page for work.
And... okay, I won't bring the phone with me to the bathroom anymore. Fine, it's gross and unnecessary.
And I won't watch SVU.
Unless it's an episode I haven't seen.