Wednesday. When I type that word I think of fifth grade, of the yellow lined paper I used to practice spelling it on in loopy cursive, Wed-nes-day. I still say it that way in my head when I write it out.
Funny how certain things stick and others evaporate in a second. Just as I was writing this I thought of the premise for a perfect short story. By the time I’d pulled up a new sticky note on my desktop, it had slipped my mind and all I could remember was the fact that I need to email several friends and am very remiss in doing so. Maddening.
Memory. It’s such a loopy, lumpy thing, like an old floral couch with little spots burned in the fabric from where the sun struck it, shining through a vase on the windowsill just so.
I remember my childhood vividly and sporadically. From fifth grade I remember learning the entire Greek alphabet, all of the prepositions in alphabetical order, how to spell Wednesday, and how I kicked Zachary O’Day in the crotch with those slouchy pointy toed boots that were all the rage along with acid washed jeans in 1986.
I do not however, remember yesterday, unless I put some serious mental effort towards the task.
No. That isn’t true. I do remember the way last night we decided to go with a red metal bucket to pick raspberries down by the pond and a quarter of the way there ran into two stray dogs. One was a yellow lab with one of those pronged collars that look vaguely threatening, and the other was a black wisp of a dog with floppy ears and lanky legs and pale ghost blue eyes, part husky for sure. They weren’t from around here. Not any of the neighbor’s dogs, and when we went towards them they ran, away from us, up our hill, towards our house and our free range chickens.
Incidentally, just yesterday DH decided that our two month old chicks were old enough to go free range, without the enclosure we normally put them into. And by decided, I mean he took the path of least resistance, as they had escaped him when he was trying to transfer them from the large wooden box where they spend the night in the coop, to the enclosure on the lawn. They escaped and he decided to hell with them. So they were out under the pine all day and just fine except that now of course two feral and rather hungry looking dogs were heading right towards them.
We ran back up our hill, pushing the stroller with Sprout who indignantly began to wail and Bean, who dropped his bike and skittered up after us, his yellow helmet bobbing, his eyes on the sky where thunder had begun to rumble. “I saw lightening,” he said, his voice all quavery. “It might get us.”
Seriously, when it rains it pours around here.
And so there we were, trying to deter the dogs by yelling and throwing rocks in their general direction, and then trying to catch and re-coop the not so big and definitely not so smart chicks who would make a mad dash for the coop door and then at the very last minute would scatter frantically in all directions.
I remember this. Yes I do. But what I don’t remember—unless I stop now and really think of it—is what I read yesterday, what I learned, what media I consumed. And I’ve been thinking about that since my last post: how I am maybe suffering from information/networking overload and what to do about it.
And I came up with this: For the rest of the week I am going to try to keep notes here about my media habits and see where this gets me. Likely, I’ll be back with my first record this afternoon. You in?
In as in fessing up? I wonder if just by keeping track I’ll be inclined to consume less.
Yes–as in fessing up
And I bet you are right… it will affect conscious choices about consumption. I’m interested to see if I can do exactly that: bring some intention back into this area of my life…
I’m willing to fess up right now. Too much facebook and huffington post… back and forth, not wanting to miss seeing something the moment it happens. I don’t know when that started, but I very clearly remember when Paul Wellstone (the beloved liberal, anti-war senator from Minnesota) was killed in a plane crash and I read about it minutes after it happened. And I wanted updates constantly. My first media obsession. I know my life after that moment was never the same.
It started for me with my last job, and the need to be constantly connected. Now with my iphone I check email all the time, sometimes facebook too. It was cool to read your post yesterday because I’d been in a phase recently of noticing that I’d been avoiding it all. Checking facebook less and less, getting news only a couple times a day from the bbc on my phone. But then I have a day like yesterday where my work feels like it’s completely untouchable, and spend hours reading new articles, seeking out “new material”, looking up professors, reading facebook updates, emailing constantly, and generally avoiding my own thoughts…. No concluding thoughts really, just that I appreciate your reflecting on media and making us all think about it with you.
Okay. I will try to be in. This is like Weight Watchers for the Internet, right?
Today I checked email and Facebook before taking my kids to summer spectrum. I updated my status and read other peoples postings and did comments. I came home from meeting with my advisor (Only have to revise and make title page etc and I am DONE! with my thesis!) Checked email and noticed that your post was up, so here I am. Facebook is next. Then I need to pick up my kids.
I loved what Willow said about when work (life) feels “completely untouchable.” I, too, am “generally avoiding my own thoughts” by using the internet to bury them.
I tried to say that yesterday, but didn’t have the words.
Found your blog from SheWrites…
I love your writing style, and the conscious thought you seem to give your life. It’s refreshing and lovely. You pose some very good questions here about media consumption: how much is too much? is there a line between learning and mindless consumption? how do we stay connected without becoming overloaded?
Okay, so maybe you didn’t directly ask all those things, but that’s what I got from it.
Oh, and did you manage to save all the chicks?
For me, it’s always an issue of what’s real, and what’s not: the red metal bucket, Bean’s yellow helmet bobbing in the evening light as he says “It might get us” (that’s real); feeling remiss for not having emailed several friends (that’s not real). I’m a writer, so what’s real for me is the gentle touch and creamy smell of 10-year-old Judy’s fingers on my face when — more than half a century ago — we kissed after school in the bushes where I’d lured her to audition for a fantasized production of Romeo and Juliet. When my mining of the present uncovers such seams to the past (or the future), then I know I’m doing the work I want to do. That’s real; that’s authentically me.
What a Fantastic mixed media!!
I love it!
congrats!
xoxo
Am pondering now, after reading back several posts of yours. Media interaction: it’s insidious!