A gray melancholy ocean. I went out beyond the gate and stared from the beach to the horizon as a strong wind made my eyes water. After being inside staring at computer screens all day I was feeling a bit numb and needed to feel alive, any type of feeling at all would do. I thought of my two neighborly ravens and if the Red Tailed Hawks had driven them off. There has also been a falcon in the neighborhood recently which might have done it. I had the thought, and turned around just in time to see one of my ravens alight from his perch atop the telephone pole and fly away. To have thoughts of the ravens only to have one of them watching me from behind makes me think the legends are true and that perhaps ravens do have a link with the spiritual world. Or perhaps it is just a coincidence since I might be the only one in the neighborhood who keeps his birdbath filled during this terrible drought and he just wanted a drink?
Looking at this restless, gray ocean with endless whitecaps puts me in a very reflective state of mind. I think of how social networks never sleep and the endless information eventually makes me numb and want to turn it off. I think of how incredible it was five or six years ago to suddenly be connected with everyone all at once. And now, I feel as though I want to turn it off, to cloister myself away like a hermit, and go back to the way it was before; back to a time when they were as distant to me as I to them – just a shadow, someone they once knew. I miss the long, informative e-mails from friends. Those too are only found in the past. It is almost time to buck this trend of hyper socialization in every aspect of life. It is time to withdraw and keep in touch with only those that are willing to make the effort. I’ve breathed the air of social-everything for too many years and it has become stale with not a wisp of fresh air left. It is time for something else.
