#30: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
The picture is in my mind.
Earlier this week I left Facebook and its sister app Instagram. I spend way too much time under the guise of I need to do this for my social media presence, but the reasoning that I engage in to justify the way too many hours I spend clicking and scrolling is more of someone who is an addict—a social media addict. Yes, I have tried to leave before but without complete success sneaking in the backdoor as if I had never left.
I sit too much, stare at a screen too much, stay inside too much, and when I do go outside, slip my phone in my pocket where it vibrates with calls, messages, and emails. Although I’m not one of those who walks with head down glued to phone and disrupting traffic flow on sidewalks and crosswalks…I don’t want to be that person either.
Those who have followed me on social media over the years have a glimpse in to my life. I live in a little blue house near the edge of a bluff above the water. I have a dog and cat. I raise chickens. I garden. I cook. I bake. I teach. I write. I post…and I weary greatly of I must take a photo of this and post about that. Posting is posting. Living is living, and I very much want to put living first once again.
After I let it be known on social media that I am turning away, I head outside for a walk, come back to pick ripe tomatoes…the fifth pick of the season which may be an unexpected benefit of the heat bubble we had back in June…and begin the process of making sauce to can. While it bubbles, I do take a look to read the comments left. (Hey, no one said leaving was going to be easy.) Although some are sad that I am going, most say they are very happy for me and are considering doing something like this themselves. Are we all a little more than burned out on it?
Yesterday, my friend Molly arrives to give me a lift to a potluck. When she opens the door and gets out of her car she exclaims, Will you just look at this rainbow! I walk across the street to where she stands and turn to see a bright and brilliant rainbow forming a complete arch over my home. I feel like it is blessing me and my entire little town in its glorious splendor. We pull out phones to snap shots and I attempt a few more as we drive, but finally just put the phone away and say, I can look at a picture of a rainbow on my phone, or I can take this picture in my mind and enjoy the feeling of it forever.
A Thank You
If you are one who has followed me from Facebook and Instagram this week, I want to thank you for coming. I am very grateful that you are here. I hope you will enjoy pieces that I have already written as well as the ones to come. To those who have been here since I started this newsletter, I thank you for your continued support. As I embrace more fully the life of a writer, my fervent hope is that I will be able to support myself though paid subscriptions.
I love my little life. Thank you for letting me share a bit of it with you.
Iz always makes me cry. We played this version of Somewhere Over the 🌈 Rainbow at my brother's funeral. As a 12 year Ovarian Cancer survivor I agree with you. Life is for living. My social media "presence" is posting meaningful poems. By the way, I wore the pink 🤠 hat that you knit me years ago at a local protest a few days ago. Saw this on a t-shirt: "Equal rights for others doesn't mean less rights for you. It's not pie". Hope you have a wonderful day. 🥧
Kate, all of this. All of it. FWIW, I have seldom found readers through social media, anyway. So many "likes" and comments are performative: People who are addicted to social media are seldom interested in what reading lies beyond it, because they're addicted to social media. Lots of reasons why walking away is hard, and even more reasons to do it anyway. Thank you.