volume seventy-seven

if I could turn back time

I arrive at 6:30am, exhausted after a night of travelling from one state to another, and Nan tells me to put my bags down and have a coffee.

I plop myself in The Quiet Room — the room I was never allowed in as a child — and although I am allowed in here now and the rules of my childhood no longer apply, I break another rule instead. A rule of my own. I watch the news. Nan has it on and my brain is fuzzy and weary. The fluffy cream carpet feels delicious on my (finally) bare feet as I stretch my toes out the way a newborn stretches their limbs after being compacted for so long, with appreciative hesitation, and I stare at the screen.

Nan says, “I want to see who won the tennis last night, I fell asleep”.

An immense pang of jealousy overwhelms me. I think about the fact I could grab my phone and look it up for her, tell her in moments. But I envy the fact that she doesn’t have that readily available to her — answers to everything — knowledge both wanted and unwanted a thumb click away. I sit with her, unaware of who the match was between or who she is rooting for, but thrilled there is something that is keeping me waiting, anticipating. There is an unknown.

I think about how every night she watches the news while I sit in the other room, reading or writing or “watching the funnies”. I love that Nan will come and tell me as soon as the report is done, what the weather looks like for the rest of the week, how that will affect our plans, or how she has made new ones for us on account of it.

I think about the love letter Miley Cyrus once wrote:

“The way you go outside when I ask “What’s the weather like?” instead of checking your phone.”

I hate that I could google that snippet so easily instead of writing it imperfectly as a memory.  I could have written you, dear reader, my takeaway from that memory that lives in my mind whenever I lose time staring at my phone. I could have written to you what it meant to me, what resonated with me. 

I think about how I could just make do with talk and text. No email unless I am sitting to do so. No social media, period. No calendar so full yet it still allows me to click and drag to say “yes” to things when a paper one would be an easier “I’m busy”. No banking readily accessible to send myself money from precious savings for an impulse buy. No notes app, but a small notebook in my bag for my thoughts and lists. No maps, just written directions and planning ahead or getting lost and exploring for fun. No compass, no reminders, no movie editor, no rewards programs, no step counter, no apps that are just clutter… No weather — just a window or door.

But then I think about podcasts I listen to on long flights, or on the long train trip that got me here to this couch. I think about voice memos from loved ones when time zones and life prevent us from phone calls for a while. I think about my recordings of comedy sets to reflect on and improve. I think about the camera and how easily I can snap a memory.

But then I remember, vaguely, a time when I would just live in the moment instead. The precious film saved for the best of moments and the anticipation of getting it developed to see how they came out, discovering that someone blinked and accepting that as the memory we get to enjoy, instead of taking ten to pick the best from.

I think about aeroplane mode and screen time limits and deleting apps and rearranging my screen and leaving my phone in the other room.

I spent the day researching flip phones and watching YouTube videos on how to make your smartphone not so smart.

I decided to simplify, one app at a time, one change at a time, and went to bed.

This morning I woke up as usual, to my battery-operated alarm and left my phone off. Like most days I wrote, I meditated, I exercised, I drank coffee and nibbled on strawberries.

Nan came inside from tending to her birds and said “It’s hot outside today”.

Lovely reader, what methods do you use to disconnect (if that is something important to you)?

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here are three things I struggled with this week:

❔ Fear of the unknown.

😴 Sleep.

🤹‍♀️ I never learned how to juggle when I chose “circus skills” as a sports elective in high school (yes it was a choice, so was beach games), so what makes me think I can learn juggling in life now with no further practice?

here are three blessings from this week:

👶 A new baby nephew was born!

📧 Something that was not guaranteed and I expected to hear about months from now, arrived as good news this week.

👗 I have been searching for a lightweight, breathable, loose-fitting dress that I can throw on in the sometimes unbearable Australian summer heat, that is also not too short in length for my liking. Until this week, checking all those boxes was impossible on my budget. But I found one. It’s perfect.

here are three goals for the coming week:

🗒️ The good news means I need to study, study, study for my Canadian Citizenship test in a few weeks!

📖 Read in the sun.

💌 Start to regularly write letters to people I love.

here is something I enjoyed this week: 

I have spent the last month+ complaining at how often they play ads for this show and saying to Nan I cannot wait for it to start just so I don’t have to hear this song again and well, it started this week and Nan was watching and I sat down with her and was hooked. For those of you in other parts of the world who have told me how much you love how wild Aussie reality TV is, enjoy this taster. (Looking at you Lolo).

3 BACHELORS BREAKDOWN:

JED: Teenage Lauren love interest (Tattooed drummer who is young and insecure therefore a bit of a rude dickhead but is fantastic at making you laugh. Hello!)

FELIX: Lauren in her early 20’s love interest (Cliche handsome dude who is tall and has a beard so he would be approved by my friends and my IG feed. He is actually very unavailable but appears to be very available with every girl, I knew this guy well in my earlier years. He is the kind of guy that tells every new girlfriend how “crazy” his last one was because the problem is never him.)

THOMAS: Lauren in her later 20’s love interest. (Romantic, well dressed and well mannered, likes to be read things you wrote for him, has tattoos poking out from under his polo shirts, doesn’t have a bogan accent. Actually a dream guy.)

ANGELA: Lauren present-day love interest. (Chose tennis as her first date because her grandparents met on a tennis court. She is bad at tennis and doesn’t care — perfect. Eyes I want to stare into all day every day. She is one of Jed’s bachelorettes and if it doesn’t work out I’ll be waiting.)

pics or it didn’t happen:

when my sister went into labour, I chose to educate and entertain her children in my own way (there was also pretending to be horses and monsters in the backyard and jumping on the trampoline and hide and seek and board games but this makes for a funny photo).

I love you. I’m so grateful to those who read my substack 🧡 because I really love writing it to you,

LD

xoxo