The Blackberry Bush

I don't know if she wants to be identified so let me just begin by saying a big 'thanks' to one of you lovely readers who has been emailing me questions and ideas for fixing my blogging problem. In her (your) last email some ideas for fixing the problem were suggested, I'm not going to try them tonight, I'm the kind that loses sleep over these things so I'll try first thing in the morning when I feel fresh. And trust me, that particular window is getting shorter and shorter as the years pass.

Onwards ...

A couple days ago I overheard a woman saying to her friend that she had left her Blackberry at home and felt 'Just utterly crippled without it.' Our eyes met just as she said it and she flustered an apology saying, as people always do when they mean what they say, 'That's not what I meant.' It was a brief moment, not really worthy of note or comment here. Certainly not the stuff of a full blog post.

Until today.

Joe and I went out, rushing a bit, on Saturday morning. On our way I asked him if he'd brought his phone. He hadn't. He asked if I brought mine. I hadn't. A few minutes later he asked me what time it was as we were worried about being late, I realized that I hadn't put on my watch either. No phones, no clocks, would we manage? When we got where we were going, I'm not going to tell you where and I'll tell you why I'm not telling you a bit later, we relaxed having got there in plenty of time.

We both started giggling at almost the same time. We felt like we were playing hooky from school. We felt like we did in those days of our youth when we snuck out of our parents houses at night. We felt like we'd ditched responsibilities and had hidden ourselves in plain sight. It was delicious. Lovely.

We had unhitched from the world and, unlike my non-disabled conversant who felt disabled without her phone, I felt completely free without mine. I didn't have an urge to check emails, or check blog comments, or check work communications ... I didn't go into withdrawal. It was just lovely.

So we had a hidden afternoon - completely hidden. And I have no desire, now, to undo that. It feels like reclaiming privacy and reestablishing boundaries. It feels like saying to the world - hey, back off, we're out and alone and loving it. We aren't, we decided, going to become that couple that sits beside each other in a restaurant texting people who aren't there about what they aren't doing with people who are there. Nope, we're going to still have things to say only to each other. We're going to be adults and go out alone every now and then.

A lovely private afternoon during which I felt like a rebellious child and an unencumbered adult all at the same time. Amazing.

I fully recommend it.