Apr 13, 2020
My phone had only been off a few hours, and I felt my lungs expanding—sensing more space to be filled, as if inside the house I was breathing at only a fraction of possibility. No Audible, Amazon Music or YouTube self-development spiel penetrating my ears. I was standing in the dirt under a patchwork of shade from the citrus tree, raking leaves, trimming an outrageous overgrowth of lantana, breaking a subtle sweat, surrounded by the vibrating natural buzz of everything outdoors. Plants and bees and birds and so much I couldn't see—all the life—amplified. I straightened up my back and gulped a thick helping of citrus-laden air, sweet, zesty, invigorating, comforting—like lemon meringue pie. It fed me deeply, down to the cells, into my soul.
This was the life I'd been missing. The one right in front of me. Free of the teeter-totter of urgency and longing that had me grabbing my phone 80 times a day just to look and be let down somehow. Seeking a depth of interaction, something fun or enriching or someone sending me something that made me feel special. Most times there was nothing, or something that annoyed me—another email to deal with later or unsubscribe from, an unfulfilling interaction that felt more obligatory than fun. I voraciously consumed technology and it left me lacking a greater depth of connection I felt as simply as stepping outside and listening to the aliveness of my surroundings. So easily, I forgot this.
I looked up in the branches of the citrus, astoundingly sour and deemed inedible by most counts, plucked a bulbous, dimpled round and ripped into its pulpy hide, spraying juice in a glistening fan. I gulped the aroma, saturated lemon lungs eating the moist, tangy air. In that moment, suspended in the subtleties of scents and soft spring breezes, away from the minuscule todo's I'd made so paramount, I was content. With air and sun and little moving things all around, I had it all.