where I was touching grass, and also ledge

Kids these days – and by kids I mean my thirty-something first born – have a saying that goes something like/exactly like, “touch grass”.

They (including she) seem to say this during discussions about the use of our phones for everything from texting to social media stuff, because the use of such things may be excessive and also not good for us. Okay, if you are using your phone to read this, I am talking about exactly what you are doing now (except this blog is useful to the point of being practically medicinal so you can keep reading and then go outside when you are done).

Anyway, she and the rest of her generation (and maybe the one behind them) say that it is important to put our phones down and ‘touch grass’.

So this morning I did.

I got up.

I did not check my phone (other than to see that it was four-thirty a.m.).

Yes, I typed that out loud. Four-thirty a.m., and I’m still alive to tell the tale.

I splashed water on my face and pulled on jeans and a comfy sweatshirt and went out into the predawn with my camera in tow.

Also I had bare feet. So I was, literally, touching the grass .

I sat in an Adirondack chair by the water, where my feet then touched ledge which had been tumbled sideways by glaciers a very long time ago (my friend Alex is a geologist, so I know this is true (because science)).

A sparrow hopped by, checking around some newly planted bee balm for something snacky.

A catbird made it clear, from a nearby birch tree, that I was in his seat.

A seal splashed next to my friend’s sailboat.

And, as the sun passed through a cloud curtain, the very first bees moved in on the catmint and coreopsis and lady’s mantle just feet… from my feet.

There was so much to ‘scroll’, and it did not require the lifting of a finger or any swiping this way or that.

The tweets and twitters spilled from the beaks of actual birds – gulls, crows, cardinals, hawks, and the inevitable prehistoric morning brays of a heron my baseball-loving friend Chris named Hank (yes, I’m sorry to tell you, he is ‘Hank Aaron the Heron’).

It was all there for me, as it is there – in some form or other – for all of us.

Real life.

Also grass.

Touching both is… touching.

My brain just plucked Neil Diamond’s verse from “Sweet Caroline” from some random song lyrics file it had within reach.

Hands…
Touching hands…
Reachin’ out…
Touching me…
Touching you…

Huh. Who’d o’ thunk Neil Diamond would slide in to wrap up this particular piece?

Feels a bit like putting down the devices…

Touching grass, real life…

And reaching out, and connecting with, real people (could be me… could be you… could be – gasp – them)…

All that may be key to quite a lot of better stuff… the good stuff (‘so good! so good! so good!)… and possibly even the best stuff (for us all).

Don’t ya think?

Thanks for readin’ ❤️

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