A / Part

The boards were out, casually placed against the side of the building, a single customer at the counter.

I felt a twinge as I passed Mr. Freeze, the local ice cream shop, which was closing for the season.

Perhaps this regret was payment for the giddy exhilaration last spring when Mr. Freeze opened.

Winter was gone and it was Spring! School years were nearly over and the long bright jewel of summer was on its way.

Once the ice cream is dripping in your hands, you can take your kids to the park; while you slurp, you can watch them burn calories, enjoying their energy and the nice feeling of the warm sun on your face and the contentment of knowing that, for just this moment, all your chicks are safe under your care.

*****************

When my office first installed computers, I saw someone email a person in the room next door, separated by not more than ten feet. It would have taken five seconds (maybe less) to shout it but he did not want to see her face.

*****************

In 1999, the first handheld phones were called DoCoMo, meaning everywhere.

Decades later, Johnny texts his mother in the kitchen or perhaps, even with a relative half a planet away.

Everywhere.

*****************

We lived in a small utilitarian house my father built on the East side of a blue collar town.

People often awoke to an oily residue after the Sun Oil Refinery's nightly belch, but neighborhoods were cozy and people watched out for each other. If a neighbor scolded a child, the parents followed up at home.

Nearby was LaPlantes, a small neighbor store which held long counters of pristine glass jars filled with brightly colored penny candy.

A child barely standing eye level with the counter faced the kind Mr. LaPlante (whose only son was lost to Vietnam) who patiently fished out whatever licorice stick or jujube was desired that afternoon while asking me how my school day had gone.

Convinced I had a picture of LaPlantes, I pawed through dusty boxes of old photos slowly realizing I must have dreamed it, its memory gently resting in the back of my mind for years.

(Over time, memories like that come back, sometimes as clear as if they happened yesterday, sometimes clearer.)

*****************

The ever present phone in hand in a sense brings us closer because of ease and frequency, serving similar function as the 1800 letters Emily Dickinson wrote in the nineteenth century, which must have made her feel nearer to the world (which never spoke to her), as she secluded herself in her quiet home in Amherst.

I wish my great-great-grandfather could text me; he was in the Civil War and saw Lincoln; I wonder if he would like who I am and if he would give me peppermints as he did my father.

I wish my farmer grandmother could text me because I never knew her. Would she post funny cat videos on FaceBook? Would she use the word "ain't"? Would she still can hundreds of jars of fruit every year and line the kitchen cupboards with the bright and generous bounty of summer?

I wish my uncle Ted could text me and I could picture that daring and reckless smile on his face again and maybe listen to his excited encouragement, because he was good at that.

It unsettles that some describe the evolution of the internet as the Evernet. The internet is a living thing (without breath) that is always there (but not really), which really happens (whether you are online or not), but without form or substance.

(But then, is that rather not like a memory?)

Maybe information overload isn't all bad; at least we communicate. Perhaps the human longing for intimacy has triumphed after all.

That is, as long as on-line never replaces off-line.

*******************

I visited Monet’s garden; I stood at the edge of the pond and looked over this luscious landscape an artist had created and nearly stumbled over a boy hunched, sitting directly in front of the pond, playing noisy games on his phone.

Surrounded by splendor, I want my, I want my, I want my MTV iPhone.

And so I ask: are we a part of something greater than ourselves? Or are we set apart in this incredible time of technological advances?

Whose flag is wrapped around my heart?

These are the thoughts my little vignettes are meant to inspire.

Or, some might say, provoke. ************** Carriage colored pencil on paper