If We Took A Holiday…

Emily and I were sitting at the Serenity Pool at what was then the Four Seasons Aviara Hotel in July 2009. We were on vacation with her family – her parents owned a timeshare at the Four Seasons Residence Club at Aviara and since at that time the hotel and residences were all under Four Seasons – unlike now where Hyatt has the hotel – we could use all of he facilities throughout the property anytime.

We were engaged, our wedding 11 months away and we had just moved in together. Emily had been a victim of layoffs at Cal State Los Angeles and Cal State Northridge as a result of the Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 and had begun to take up online teaching – which was still relatively new and growing. In fact, she discovered that once she began teaching for University of Phoenix – which didn’t pay well for all the work it required – she was easily able to get classes from the other online colleges that were popping up, many of which paid much better. By the point we were sitting at the Serenity Pool, it was clear Emily could earn as good or better a living from home. We had yet to discover how efficient she would become at online teaching and how down the line, she made far more than we would ever have imagined.

As we sat on our loungers, overlooking the Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad, California, drying off after a swim. Emily was flipping through a complimentary travel magazine the hotel scattered about and it had an article about a man who lost his big corporate job in the crisis and decided that instead of worrying about it, he would just pick up and travel for awhile until the job market got better. Nice work if you can get it.

Then Emily made a bold suggestion she came to regret during a few anxious moments and then was happy about again once we did it – she could already take her work anywhere, what if I quit the job I wasn’t thrilled with, wrote and we traveled the world for a year after getting married? It took me no more than three long breaths to buy into that idea. When would we ever be in a better position than we were right then to travel for a year? My parents spent about nine months traveling when they were younger and those experiences were good for them as a couple and formed the stories they often shared with others. Plus, Emily and I had each traveled and lived abroad – but hadn’t traveled internationally together. It would be a defining adventure.

And it was.

We didn’t have the term Digital Nomads in July 2010 when we left on our year – but that’s what we were. I had quit my job and secured enough freelance writing work to be useful while traveling even though it would have been a financial disaster at home. Emily’s online income had grown. We put our stuff in storage and our only bills were the car payments we were each almost done with, some manageable credit card balances and the storage itself. We didn’t need a fortune to live well. Some people were also kind enough to give us wedding gifts of spending money for our journey – so we had a fund from which we could splurge on special experiences and unexpected costs.

There are countless amazing things I can say about that year.

I didn’t realize at the time how transitioning into digital nomads would be the end of an untethered life. Emily brought her all-too-heavy laptop. I brought my new first generation iPad with docking keyboard that drew people’s curiosity wherever we went. No smartphones – they weren’t practical for travel yet and not nearly as functional as today – my iPhone 3G didn’t even have a camera! Therefore, high-speed WiFi (which was especially critical to Emily, more than it was me) was essential and we couldn’t go beyond its radius – which limited our freedom in countries like Nepal and Laos. We tried on a few occasions to get wireless hotspot-type devices – often in dongle form – but getting foreign tech to work with our tech didn’t go well. We needed good, stable WiFi. Which by and large we were able to find – sometimes in surprising places.

Because of the nature of asynchronous classes and needing to deliver live lectures in one or two schools, Emily preferred to at least keep up with emails daily so as not to fall behind on her portfolio of classes she juggled. She could realistically take off only one day per week without needing to login to any school or platform – and that was stressful for her. In fact, days with big travel – like changing continents – were stressful.

For totally good reasons, it was the first sign of devices and Internet truly getting their hooks in us. In some fairness, it may have already been happening for me with my iPhone 3G I had owned for almost two years at that point. The novelty of always accessible email, easy texting and internet access had me hooked quickly after getting it in August 2008 – especially as data and talk plans got larger and cheaper.

If we spent time in paradise and fascinating places with our eyes glued to screens, we just reminded ourselves that without the screens and internet, we couldn’t have been in those places at all. It didn’t take long to realize we enjoyed a place more if we gave ourselves time. We went at a slower place – staying in any given location no less than a week and often no less than two. We spent so much time on our devices that I intuitively felt the nature of the internet connection – its responsiveness, the ratio of upload and download speeds. In 2010-2011, while I would have expected it to be Singapore or Hong Kong, France won hands-down – its Internet as smooth as the cheese on their pizzas (which I argue are the best in the world!). Nepal’s was the worst, followed by Laos. But even between them, Laos was a giant step-up.

Emily and I once stayed in one of the lamest rooms behind the front desk of a Mumbai hotel because it was closest to the wireless router. We bought and setup a WiFi router at our Ayurvedic resort in Kerala because the broadband they advertised turned out only to be in the office. Emily had a lot of inner conflict about us possibly countering the ethos of the resort itself. A hotel in Hania, Crete had advertised it had Internet, but turned out not to make it available to guests… we ended up with the owners’ sister’s access card and sometimes if the sister wanted to go online, it would kick us off – and then we would kick her off – and it was an entirely ridiculous passive-aggressive broadband situation. At our very first destination in Alanya, Turkey where we had our true, no-working “honeymoon” week, the hotel didn’t offer guests Internet, so Emily went into a local Internet cafe a few times and got prickly heat because it was so humid and sweaty. I successfully diagnosed her condition based on a memory from an old episode of MASH where they all get prickly heat – I had never actually seen it before myself.

If you had asked me then, all the time, energy and mental space given to Internet access and speed was just part of the adventure. It was also a transition into something we would never come back from. Faster computers, subsequent generations of iPhones, iPads, watches,  LTE, 4G, 5G, dead spots, personal hotspots, iCloud, Photos, synced calendars, SMS, iMessage, RCS, wireless gateways, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, YouTube, Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo…. We didn’t start the fire. But we certainly didn’t try to fight it either.

The power of devices, apps, communications is unbelievable. We are so empowered – and so connected. I can be on a small island that’s closer to Turkey than the heart of Greece and work, manage banking and bills, participate in video calls, make and receive phone calls that sound like I’m next door to people at home, stream American entertainment and text/message everyone I know. In many cases how close I am to someone – how involved we are in each other’s lives and consciousnesses – doesn’t necessarily relate at all to our physical proximity and how often we see one another. That doesn’t really change whether I’m in Westlake or Patmos or anywhere else.

I realized last week that it’s easier to count the amount of time I’m not on a device than it is the amount I am. Even when I’m cooking (and I really like cooking in my kitchen here), I have the music on via a Bluetooth speaker connected to my phone. And sometimes I change the playlist or look up a song I want – when I could really relax and just tend to my veggies and chicken.

I am completely, unabashedly, addicted to my devices. And as I just did, I can give you all the excellent reasons for me to be on a device. I couldn’t even be here without my devices and I’m effective in so many ways because of them. And who wants to listen to a song they don’t like when they’re cooking….?

All the science shows our devices and platforms are more addictive than cigarettes – or opioids for that matter. They change our brainwaves. We are raising a generation of children who literally think differently than we do – or at least did. The only thing – and it’s a big one – is cigarettes don’t make sure your kids can reach you or that you can keep an eye on them. They don’t manage your banking, order things to be delivered to your doorstep, bring business meetings into your home while you’re wearing pajamas thinly dressed up with a sweater or necklace (one person I talk to throws on a chunky necklace onto her casual clothes when she has a Zoom call and I kinda love it), keep up with the news, monitor wildfires in your area, link to a camera at your front door, book your yoga class (!), activate your car’s climate control system or call for an Uber. Our phones are the world’s most useful cigarettes.

Obviously, a FOMO, jonesin’ for a dopamine hit anxiety overcomes us when we try to walk away from the devices. I typically get one hour a day when I’m not around any device – yoga. It’s really great – for many reasons – but I suspect one aspect is that hour truly cuts me off from the world. I decide everything will be okay without me for that hour and try to be in the moment. So far, everything has been okay.

I’ve been wanting a bigger reset for some time. A day without devices sounds like a real vacation. What would a day of being present with only books for distraction even be like? I can’t remember.

Our rabbi talks often about having a device Shabbat. He does his every Friday night and Saturday while peeking once or twice over the course of the day in case there’s an emergency like someone dying or a war breaks out (that happened on Simchat Torah….). He talks about the good it does for him. I was the temple president who didn’t put my phone away – but I absolutely understood the idea that maybe it’s not really Shabbat without the device.

The kids are at camp – I can’t talk to them. If God-forbid they have an emergency, camp’s going to call Emily and she’s a lot closer to the situation. Tomorrow is Fourth of July – no work. If there’s a day to put away the devices, it seems like it doesn’t get more ideal.

I almost did it on a weekend last year. ALMOST. But then I thought if anything happened – and that was the one time I didn’t have my phone, didn’t respond – that I would be crushed with everlasting guilt.

Then I remind myself that my dad first got a cellphone when I was in college. My mom maybe a decade later. When they went out for the evening, they left the babysitter with a list of numbers. When I drove off in my car at 16, they had to hope for the best. When they went out of town, they had to trust my grandparents. It was just the way of the world – and in some ways a little more sane. It’s healthy to let go of what we can’t control and to be fully present where we are.

So I’m going to take the plunge. Tomorrow, no devices. No blog post (!), no texts, no emails. I’m going dark like an Ohio-Class nuclear submarine. I envision it being glorious – like I’ll be able to catch my breath. However, it’s always possible I’ll end up a sweaty, itchy, shivering mess found in the doorway of the pharmacy in the back of town needing a dose of the Apple equivalent to methadone or narcan. What is that – methaphone?

If I really like the outcome, maybe I’ll do it for a second day. MAYBE. But for now, I’ll take Madonna’s advice and take just one day out of life. It would be so nice…

In the meantime, Happy Fourth of July. I hope everyone takes tomorrow to rest their eyes from reading this blog. I’ll be back Saturday – MAYBE Sunday. Happy 249th birthday America! Here’s hoping for no emergencies, crazy world events, personal crises or Belgians in the Congo 🤞