Re: Connected
While is Abaco last month, I did not check email, see a text message, look at social media, receive a phone call, read the news or think about work for seven days.
I highly recommend it.
In 2010 Rachel and I took a trip to Turks and Caicos, and upon arrival we stuck our phones in the dresser drawer and forgot about them until it was time to leave. That's where we connected for the first time, just three weeks after meeting. That's really the last time I unplugged.
Granted, I did use a Nook to read a Jo Nesbo book, an iPad to look up trip information, an old school phone to ring the front desk and I did watch Villanova's national semifinal and finals victories. So I wasn't entirely on an episode of Naked and Afraid, but the distractions of real life were absent.
I'm not obsessed with Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. I don't snap my chats. I am a consumer of news, and in recent days the news has been unfortunate. My hiatus from the United States was a hiatus from scrolling news stories on my phone, watching MSNBC, and wishing the country was in fact great again.
While Rachel did not accept my invitation to unplug during our week in Abaco, she did put her phone down more in the Bahamas than in Boston. It was peaceful to have a meal without a phone visible, or to extract the device solely to take a photo of a happy couple.
Although the sojourn itself -- with baby -- was not as restful as our previous Caribbean visits, the time spent together was needed and rewarding.
The final day of our week at the Bahama Beach Club was among the most beautiful days I've experienced. We spent time with Grey at the beach and the pool, and watched him play, laugh and smile for hours. We took a long walk down one of the world's most incredible beaches, and waded out onto the sandbar holding each other while. We cleaned up and headed to an off-the-reservation local eatery for a fantastic meal. We fell asleep to the sound of the ocean beneath a moonlit sky.
It has long been difficult among our daily attentions to just sit, to talk, to read, to nap, to play a game. To just be. Fantastically, as expected, vacation offered us the opportunity to reconnect in a way home does not.
Thus, by disconnecting we reconnected.
And it wasn't difficult at all.
I highly recommend it.
Granted, I did use a Nook to read a Jo Nesbo book, an iPad to look up trip information, an old school phone to ring the front desk and I did watch Villanova's national semifinal and finals victories. So I wasn't entirely on an episode of Naked and Afraid, but the distractions of real life were absent.
I'm not obsessed with Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. I don't snap my chats. I am a consumer of news, and in recent days the news has been unfortunate. My hiatus from the United States was a hiatus from scrolling news stories on my phone, watching MSNBC, and wishing the country was in fact great again.
While Rachel did not accept my invitation to unplug during our week in Abaco, she did put her phone down more in the Bahamas than in Boston. It was peaceful to have a meal without a phone visible, or to extract the device solely to take a photo of a happy couple.
Although the sojourn itself -- with baby -- was not as restful as our previous Caribbean visits, the time spent together was needed and rewarding.
It has long been difficult among our daily attentions to just sit, to talk, to read, to nap, to play a game. To just be. Fantastically, as expected, vacation offered us the opportunity to reconnect in a way home does not.
Thus, by disconnecting we reconnected.
And it wasn't difficult at all.
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