Stillness {Day 24}: I'm going to go THERE

I hinted at it in my post on airline travel.

Mostly, however, these posts have been carefully skirting the issue.

But [deep breath] I have to be honest with you.  I can talk Stillness all month long, but my dark secret is this:

[clears throat]

[eyes wander towards the ceiling]

Ok. I am a little bit a lot in love with my iPhone.

Seriously?  Is that all?  I hear you eye-rollers mutter out there.  So what?  I'm in love with my iPhone too!  IOS 5 holla! 

Well.  So then the party gets crashed by this guy writing about Henry Thoreau and Walden.  (Another holla! to my friend Don for the link.) Sam Graham-Felson writes about life with an iPhone - no, not just life, but full-time existence with an iPhone.  The first thing we check in the morning, the last thing we check at night.  Sigh.  I *really* wanted not to recognize myself in his descriptions.

I was slow to hop on the iPhone train, but let's just say the learning curve wasn't a burden. I love the email, the Facebook, the Pinterest, the all-of-it.  I love having something to whip out for the kids in a doctors office so that I can get my Achilles' palpated in peace.

But.  But.  To co-opt Mr Graham-Felson's phrase - the iPhone is making my life easier, not better.

When examining one's life through the lens of Stillness, it is hard to make the case for a 62x/day Facebook check. It is dicey at best to suggest that it is important to pin 16 images of Stillness to a Pinterest board in order to find Still in my day.

In our little Stillness experiment I've done a some examination of my phone habit.  I've consciously left my phone on Silent in the evenings when I'm hanging with my husband.   When I play with the kids outside, I leave the phone in the kitchen. 

I'm not quitting my phone.  Honestly?  It had me at the Hello apple.   But I will question the need to hold it in my palm at the bus stop.  I will stop myself before I sneakily check it during bedtime songs & stories. 

This evening I do apologize that I don't have a photo for you, of Ms 3 in a snowman sweater, red velvet plaid skirt, pink & black argyle tights and green frog boots.  It was classic.  But here's the thing:  I was busy playing TV Tag with that funny little girl.  Busy keeping them in hysterics with names of early-80s tv shows and getting smoked by my 7 year old.

Today, my life kicked my phone's ass.