Starting today, 4 May—I’m writing this early 5 May, but you get the idea—I’m taking ninety days off all social media to reassess and re-enter my own life.
Joining Twitter in 2009 saved my life in multiple ways more literal than figurative. I was depressed, isolated, struggling with severe PTSD. Things were so bad I had no idea how bad they were.
Joining Twitter was intended to be a short experiment in learning a new technology. Instead, it became an experiment in connection, kindness, love, and seeing myself in new ways through the eyes of generous, compassionate strangers. Some of those strangers are now in-real-life friends, some remain virtual but as beloved as if we’d met, some are delightful acquaintances. All of you make me laugh, think in new ways, and introduce me to new things I would not otherwise know about. I’m grateful for all of it.
If you’d like to correspond by snail mail, please send me your address via private message on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. I’ll check those locations for the first week I’m off, but I won’t be online.
And, since I make sense of the world through poetry. Here is a poem for you by William Stafford. It speaks to the new glimpse, starting here, in this room, that I want for myself now. I wish you the same.
YOU READING THIS, BE READY
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life—
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
William Stafford. Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems of William Stafford. Graywolf Press.
