I will go one day
without Facebook, internet
news. See what happens.
Postscript: I wrote this poem several days ago, thinking I would post it that evening and begin the next morning as a single day without Facebook and internet news. That did not happen. I’ve been sitting on this one and I find that especially worrisome. Can I do it? I am beginning to have doubts. I made up all kinds of explanations: it would be good, because it’s nice to see the holiday posts of my friends, to wait until after Christmas. Maybe it would be even better to wait until January the first, you know, as part of a New Year’s Resolution. And then the pull of the train wreck that is Trump’s transition into the presidency keeps tugging. I’m still grieving. I keep going back to the news with a delusional wish that today’s controversy will be the one that will finally bar him from becoming our new commander in chief. And if today is the day I abstain and this glorious news breaks into the webnets, I will have missed it. But the fact of the matter is that I’m a little bored with so much free time this holiday break, and the things I really should be doing, making music, reading and writing, are too hard, take too much energy and self-discipline. How crazy, sad, and scary is that? –not to have the gumption to do the things I really want to be doing? So, there are the bargains that I make with myself about the “best” time to begin, and then there’s the reality. Q: Why don’t you stop doing that thing you’d like to stop doing? A: Because I don’t want to. I’d like to but I don’t want to.
Postscript to the postscript: Just as I was reflecting on how difficult it is to stay away from social media, I took a break from the postscript above to check Facebook. Here I found almost immediately why I am grateful for social media and simultaneously why it’s crucial that I take a break from it. I learned that a writer friend of mine, Carlen Arnett, had suddenly passed. She lived clear across the country and if I was lucky I saw her once a year at the annual Warren Wilson MFA Alumni Conference. I saw her last two summers ago. It’s not that without Facebook I would not have learned of her passing, but the experience would have been different, less visceral, less visual, less social–our community of writer friends immediately began an outpouring of grief with pictures and poems and memories. So I am grateful to have learned of it here and to have witnessed with our mutual friends this immediate memorial for such a kind, loving, generous soul. And yes, I need a break from social media, if for no other reason right now, than to spend the next day without distraction to pay tribute to my dear friend, reflecting on the gift of knowing her, trying to be present and loving for my own family and friends–as she would have been, playing some music, reading something brilliant, trying to write something good. For Carlen.
Tomorrow will be a day without social media and internet news. It’s a tiny, baby step, only one day off the air. Somehow, though, I do not predict it will be easy. I may post a blog entry tomorrow with reports of my success (or failure).
michael jarmer 