So I switched both my screens off and read a book. Opening up the doors to the bedroom I perched myself outside on an old wooden bench to read my book under the stars. And as I looked up I saw the most magnificient screen ever created. :-)
Sigh. My whole body just relaxed and let go.
Out under the stars, with a slight breeze whispering through the tall avocado tree on my left and the new fresh leaved Mulberry tree on my right, I began to feel connected. Connected to Nature, connected to my life and connected back to me - my own heart.
I sat out there for a couple of hours just swooning under the moonlight and drowning in the deliciousness of my book. It was pure bliss.
And then it was morning and the first thing we both did was check our phones. I noted that this actually took a good 30 minutes of our precious time that we could have spent together doing other things. :-) During this time, 6.30 am, work emails flowed through and with catch up of international news on Google News and then a few rounds of my Facebook feed and it was 7am before I knew it.
We showered and dressed and I swear if there was a TV screen in our bathroom we would have watched it. Upstairs for breakfast and update before the work day begins and then we go our separate ways.
He in his car to the office where he will field 20 phone calls on the way. Me to start mine by you guessed it switching on the TV as I finish my makeup - a mindless activity that I've grown accustomed to doing in front of the big screen each day to multi task.
Yet today I felt quite antsy and couldn't settle down to sit in front of yet another fake screen of reality.
So I took myself out on the deck and looked out over our backyard where my mind had nothing to do but soak in the view of the mountains to my west and the Jacarandas to my east. Sigh. I felt my body slip into ease and my schlumpy shoulders arched and straightened in relief.
I thought to myself ' I have to walk away from this beauty and peace and go and sit in my office for the next eight hours in front of another fake screen." "In seemingly foreign lands, I have to navigate my way through the quagmire of HAVE TO emails and wade through everyone else's emergencies. Me and that fake screen of unreality."
I couldn't do it. Instead I walked downstairs and out the back and sat in amongst the tomatoes and the zucchinis in my vegie patch and dug my bare feet deep into the rich dark soil. I brushed the tops of the tall sturdy rosemary bushes and inhaled the wispy lavender that lined the path to my clothes line. I spent time unravelling the new Jasmine fronds heavy with new flowers rich with scent that wound their way around the bay tree nearby.
My heart longed to hop in the car and drive to the bush close to my house so I could breathe in the eucalyptus and rub my face against its bark. It craved the crisp thin air at the top of a mountain looking down on the farms and valleys below worn by weather in its shadow. It begged me to drive to the ocean and sit on the cool white sand watching the green and white curls ebbing, flowing and smashing in turn on the beach. It dreamed of a childhood spent in red soil and parched plains under a hot unforgiving desert sun.
But as much as I love listening to my heart, there is work to be done today and every day. And I wondered how many other people get so used to their daily screen time that they forget about the real screen that waits for them outside? How many other people get so used to the illusory connection on line that they forget what it feels like to be connected back to nature, back to life and back to their own hearts?
So from this moment, I made a plan - my screen time was to be scheduled to be balanced between the reality of my fake work screen and my REAL screen - which is just outside my door. A screen that won't hurt my eyes, isn't radioactive and reconnects me to my soul.
How will my work life cope with such an inconvenience I ponder?
Namaste. x
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