I’d like to think that I can navigate the garden without the aid of a global-positioning system app, without holding my phone out to serve as compass or idiotic talisman, my own delusional weathervane. I’d like to think that I can remain in the emotional state two hours of chanting in the company of strangers affords me without whitewashing the walls, so that a mere ten minutes later I’ve forgotten the drone and the strange camaraderie unknown voices can lend when blended together in a dissonant kind of unison. But I keep diving back into the screen as if there were some answer to be found by swiping my finger across its face, as if the now universal motion of swiping left for “no” and right for “yes” has somehow become embedded in my unconscious, despite my better attempts to keep such a despotic wolf at bay.
K. Thomas Kahn, To Gethsemane, Published in Berfrois