I realize the irony of what I’m about to say, especially as you read this from the glowing screen of your phone, tablet, or computer. Bear with me.
The best experiences I’ve ever had, and the ones I’ve been able to share the most fully with fellow wanderers, family, and friends, the ones I remember most fondly and have had the most influence on my life and my perspectives on it?
They were those where I gave the technology a break.
Sleep is also pretty incredible. But if you can’t have one, you can enjoy the other.
Don’t get me wrong–I’ll snap a photo, snag a few-second video. I’ll scribble a memo in a journal, notebook, or napkin to remind me exactly what I want to remember, perhaps write about it when I’m not smack-dab in the middle of the thing I went to see/try/enjoy. In fact, there’s something richly connecting in taking a moment to all-caps jot your bullet-point thoughts with an eraserless nub of pencil on a ticket stub. To procure those items often requires asking a stranger for purse-bottom remnants like a deposit slip and a Bic from the bank. That in itself is a new experience, one that forms a connection between you and possibly a new friend, a someone who sees your enthusiastic need to memorialize your involvement, maybe sparks a bit to aid in the situation.
Travel is a way to connect myself TO myself by doing something completely new, different, and/or exotic. It could be a new restaurant down the street, a hike in a park across a state line, or immersing myself in a different culture halfway ’round the world. But in order to fully commit myself to the endeavor, I feel it necessary to dedicate my full attention to the task at hand. That means I actually put down my device.
There is a certain amount of disconnect, of shut-down when I reach for my phone or laptop. I don’t know how long it’s taken me to develop this zombified response to putting myself in front of a blue-lit cyclops, but I’m aware of it enough now to know when it’s happening. Another grand part of the adventure when I go new places is being able to know when I’m engaging with the experience around me, especially when there are people with me who want the same from our new surroundings.
My experiences deserve all my senses. What am I seeing? What memories does it spark from past adventures? Or better–is this something completely new and different? That aroma–that reminds me of summers at Aunt Vera’s house. “Do I taste…curry? Is that the secret ingredient the chef uses to put that “zip” in the sauce? NICE.” “Ooooooh. This feels like silk. Is this silk? It IS?! Wow! Beautiful!” Not every moment needs a comparison or a parallel drawn, but being fully present in the moment conjures a richer observation of where I am, what I’m doing, why it’s important to see it, come in contact with it.
When I return to my “normal life,” those recollections can color the mundane with peculiar new hues. “This tastes just like that dish we had in Vietnam.” “I haven’t seen a sky this chock full of stars since the camping trip in Utah.” I take a little of me wherever I go, from here to there and back again. And sometimes my Monday to Friday could use a dash of “that week in Uganda.”
So while I’m always eager and excited to share these experiences with just about ANYONE who will listen, that usually comes later, after the fun is had, the plate is clean, the sunset has gone dark. After I have wrung the last drops of amazing from the day’s “to-do.” That is when I can organize, compose, and share what made the moments memorable. And if that requires candlelight or a headlamp, all the better.
Love y’all. Unplug. Being fully present is a gift you give yourself and others.
