The Lure of the Real

I’m writing this post—longhand and on yellow lined paper—sitting on a bench just feet from the Indian Boundary Park Lagoon in West Ridge. It’s 2:30 pm on a sunny, 60-degree Thursday and I’ve just watched eight fluffy ducklings follow their mother under the wrought iron fence surrounding the lagoon and into the water. Hesitating at first, the eight finally screwed up their duckling courage and, one by one, made the leap.

My own recent leap—not quite as dramatic—has been of a more technological nature. Since moving in with my friend HJ three weeks ago—what she describes as my “staycation between leases”—I’m no longer online at home, opting not to continue with my previous Internet provider in this new place.

For the past three weeks now, I leave the house, usually in the afternoon or early evening, and haul my Mac over to the local Starbucks or library, both within easy walking or biking distance. There, I sit, mostly sending and responding to emails and, of course, writing.

But something in this daily routine changed this past week: on Sunday, I didn’t go online at all. And today it’s looking like I’ll be doing the same. Instead, I’m sitting outside in a park watching baby ducks and writing with a blue pen on yellow paper. A bit old school, I’d venture, perhaps even old, old school.

I start out my mornings at Indian Boundary, and I’m not alone. As I walk the many paths that wind through the park, I see my fellow regulars, mostly adults, some my age, and we smile and wave as we pass each other. Blessedly there are no earnest joggers or cyclists to take refuge from, to break the rhythm of an easy ramble among the park’s more natural areas: the Neighbors Garden, the Native Landscape Restoration Project, and my personal fave, the Bird & Butterfly Sanctuary. It’s in these particular places that my five senses are overwhelmed with the sweet sight, smell and sound of spring: those bird calls and flowers—especially the purple and yellow ones—that announce this annual re-birth.

This leap—from less of the virtual to more of the real—has been seamless, surprising even me, let alone all of my colleagues and friends, each rather shocked that I’ve made it. Gradually I’ve been telling each of them to text or call me on my old lady flip phone if they need to reach me right away. To a person, they’re all smart-phoned, which of course expands their virtual universe well into the 21^st century, causing exasperation that I’ve opted to lag behind in the 20^th. Maybe even in the mid-20^th.

But truth is I kind of like it back here. Not being bound so constantly, so utterly to the virtual makes my experience of this world—especially the sensual world of Indian Boundary Park—seem all the more miraculous.