My day off grid

Or when I left the house, forgetting to take my phone

We hear a lot about children and screen time, the dangers of over exposure to who knows, but can imagine, what.

We also hear that texting is replacing talking and that we are losing the art of conversation.

I like the idea that conversation is an art form, and I absolutely agree that practise at this as well as so many other areas in life needs refining, honing so it sparkles.

That said I love my phone. My Whatsapp groups are usually the first thing I check in the mornings. I have a friend in New Mexico who often wakes to thirty, forty fifty, messages from what her husband calls The Coven.

The support, the shared memes, the book, and film recommendations, the tips, THE GOSSIP. These groups have replaced the sense of community I used to feel when I logged on to Twitter, back in the day when it was mainly fun and you could be a little more open and reactive.

Now of course we must guard what we say publicly, and while I have only been piled on once, and then by someone who was needy and craved attention, it is a far from pleasant experience as I’m happy not to read how awful folk I’ve never met, feel I am.

I have a beautiful paper diary but also store all my engagements on my phone. My many hospital appointments, the legion of theatre tickets and restaurant bookings each with the handy “link to e-mail” function.

I no longer remember a single telephone number. Not my husbands, not my daughters, not even my own landline, when once I could pull my twenty or so most used numbers for my head at any time. I have even written the above-mentioned numbers on a card tucked into my travel pass so someone finding my unconscious body, could alert my family. I naturally have no intention of being found unconscious but once a Girl Guide…… one is always prepared for all eventualities.

I digress. My phone also holds my latest Kindle book, my Wordle app, my Duo Spanish app, my Times subscription and more. All there to guard against any moment when I might want something to look at, read, puzzle over. A shield against boredom. For sitting quietly on the bus is not something that comes naturally to me and since everyone else is plugged into their headphones, conversation with most other travellers is unusual now.

It also has my camera. If didn’t photograph the food, the picture, the dress, the view, was I even there?

You can see I’m pretty connected to a screen. I wouldn’t say it is my life, but it definitely holds quite a high place in my day to day living, much more than a simple replacement to a red phone box. And while I no longer have an infirm mother who relied on being able to reach me wherever I was, I still like the idea of being contactable.

Imagine then my shock, nay horror, at finding, halfway to the Tate on a day out that I’d put my phone down when putting on my gloves and had forgotten to pick it up. Not a bother I thought, I had my membership card in my wallet, nothing to worry about.

It was only when we got off the bus at Buckingham Palace Road that I realised I had no map. No handy A-Z. I was in an unfamiliar part of London and while I knew roughly where I needed to get to, the maze of streets, the new buildings, the pedestrianisation, all meant while I was not lost, per se, I was utterly disorientated.

And I couldn’t check my phone.

Think about being in a maze with no idea which direction is the right one. The terrain is flat, you can’t see the sky, each road could lead you wrong. It was a strange, uncomfortable feeling. My security blanket had vanished, and I was left exposed. My husband Bob never remembers his phone, so he wasn’t able to step up. Plus it was a freezing cold day so we wanted to walk briskly to keep warm.

We decided to find Vauxhall Bridge Road and take it ,reasoning that as long as we didn’t cross the river, we’d find the gallery. We had settled on the main road as the side streets led this way and that, often turning us back the way we’d come and the wind made it too chilly to linger.

Having no map I had little idea of how far we would need to walk, Vauxhall Bridge Rd is long, very long, each time I thought I recognised a junction I was wrong. Having no phone to guide us we needed to look more carefully at our surroundings and it was while doing this Bob noticed the street maps.

These were a revelation. There are street maps all over central London and I’d never needed them so had never noticed them. How unobservant using a phone has made me. I had constantly looked down rather than around.

The gallery experience was different too. We move at differing speeds through exhibitions so have long since developed a protocol that essentially meets both our needs. I, being the quicker, more slapdash viewer stop only at that which catches my eye, Bob is slower: reading, looking, taking it all in. I never go more than one room ahead, usually sitting to wait for him to appear. A such times I have been known to check my phone, read messages, post on Insta. Reprehensible behaviour I know. During this visit, with no distracting phone, I observed more deeply, spent more time contemplating the two artists work and without a doubt I got more from the experience.

My husband Bob has mild dementia. It’s in the early stages but I take comfort from knowing I can track him on my phone if he’s out on his own. When we’re out together I don’t insist he takes his phone as he does find it tedious.

Imagine then my horror when, after rather longer than expected, he hadn’t appeared and when heading back to find him, he was nowhere to be seen. Losing a toddler is terrifying, loosing one’s gently confused husband less so, but still chilling. I couldn’t phone him. I couldn’t see where he was. He couldn’t call me.

In the end it was fine, he’d walked twice round the room and had simply left by the wrong door. On arriving at the start of the exhibition and realising his mistake, he was on his way back to me. Panic over.

We felt lunch was needed so set off for Arlington Street using the useful roadside street maps to keep us going the right general direction. We looked for street names and counted turnings, until suddenly we were at St James Park and I knew absolutely where I was.

We were walking quickly and with intent to the restaurant as I knew it closed for lunch at 3pm and of course, due to my lack of phone, I’d not been able to phone ahead to book a table!

So many things I’d not considered that are bound up in my phone. So much of my daily life is made easier by my having it with me and yet, my day off grid, phoneless, had been a revelation.

I had had to use senses I’d neglected, be quiet when I would have filled every minute with information, words, pictures, news. I gained a new perspective on just how much of my life is connected to a small, expensive device that does, it seems, hold my whole world.

Do you ever, on purpose or by accident, leave your phone on the hall table?

And if so what was your experience? Pop a comment at the end.