BOB Snapshot from a Stay-At-Home World
Smartphones are great, aren’t they? Talk, snap, click, play, buy, connect. What did we ever do before their rise to global ubiquity? Apart from talk, snap, click, play, buy and connect, on version 6.2. Well, here’s one answer. Once, we used to look closely at individual photos because we couldn’t fill megabytes of memory with endless evaporating exposures. Now Apple and Samsung have given us the power to capture every tiny moment of our day-today lives. But have we traded our patience to pause and reflect over them?
Sunday morning, out of bed and ready to start the day at 5.45am. It’s what happens when you trade lock-ins for lockdown. I catch the view from a window at the front of our house. Over the neighbours’ rooftops, silhouettes of trees are rising from early morning ground-mist. We’re lucky. It’s a lovely view away into the distance at that time of the day. Click, snap, save. Obviously, I have my i-Phone to hand to check the latest football results – specifically, who exactly has Gary Neville wound up from his kitchen table last night and who won the argument. Gary 2 – Jamie 1. Again.
Trot downstairs for coffee and marmalade. Toast intervenes merely as a support system to the all-important marmalade. Think Boris Johnson’s premiership to Dominic Cummings’ special advisor-ship. I digress, but come on, its 6.00am on a Sunday – cut me some slack please (see what I mean about patience)!
So, back to my point. There’s my phone and I’m about to check on the next big match result: Gary L v Piers. At home (of course). Doubtless it will have been fiercely competitive and inevitably a pointless draw. But oddly, I don’t check. Instead, I’m thinking how much I liked that moment looking out of the window at the top of our stairs. Click, retrieve…pause. There’s my fleeting photo and even more oddly I’m actually pausing and reflecting on it.
Yes, there are those lovely trees in the far distance. And I’m asking myself why I’m increasingly spending time admiring them? Am I becoming my Dad? “Ooh, look at those trees. Just look out of the window at those trees”. Suddenly it’s a childhood summer, travelling to Wales in a Tardis, or rather, packed in an Austin 1100 breaking all the known laws of physics: 4 children, 2 parents and 1 Grandpa. Not even quantum theory’s allowance that matter can occupy two places at once explains how this was possible. Though it does of course justify my loud complaints that I am the only one being squashed by two elder sisters who are clearly simultaneously occupying at least four spaces. Heather, being a responsible 4-year old, has been put in charge of the handbrake, entitling her to her own luxuriously cushioned box-seat inserted over the said handbrake. Next year, I’m going to persuade Dad to let me work the accelerator. There’s got to be more room sitting in the footwell…
The car stops and we’re out, but I’m reflecting on another tree. It’s a few weeks ago and I’m pleased that after years of neglect, we’ve finally properly pruned the apple tree. I’m an experienced Dad myself now, so by “we” I of course mean Nick did all the work but luckily benefitted from my advice as a master apple-tree pruner. Click, search, play. Thank you, i-Phone and You-tube.
“Ooh look, Saskia. Isn’t the blossom on the apple-tree beautiful now. Ally, see how the sunshine is getting through to the lower branches now I’ve done all the pruning…”. Mother and daughter rightly conclude that social distancing and self-isolation might work better if not limited to the boundaries of the family home. In the sunshine, I notice more birds chirruping and a breeze rustling the leaves. I hear no cars and see no vapour trails in the blue spring sky.
The toaster pops and I’m back with my photo. And yes, there is a clear, cloudless early morning sky which reminds me of all the clickbait ‘before and after’ pics of skies over Beijing, Paris, Delhi, Milan. And it makes me think of the Apple news piece announcing Milan’s decision that when it relaxes its lockdown, it will open its streets to cycles and pedestrians, not cars. And I’m not thinking of Paris accords, or EU Green Deals. I’m just remembering Mexico City on a Sunday with cars banned once a month from its central boulevards. The avenues are flooding with families and friends, sampling the street food, hiring bicycles and doing outdoor gym classes. There in my photo I see the car opposite parked up, unused. Into my picture of our own backwater village road cycles yesterday’s memory of two little girls on their bright pink bikes, mum leading, dad following. Never seen them do that before. Not on that road.
I look closer at my picture. This time I make out the black lines that cut the sky. They are the phone wires that connect our houses. On the left is the line-carrying telegraph pole hacked from trees like the ones I’m admiring in the distance. I think of the Facetime call to Ally’s parents in Cyprus talking about the blossom on the cherry tree which they gave us to grow and hide that telegraph pole. I feel myself feeling grateful to be in touch so easily before remembering the magic wi-fi needs the phone line from the pole we’re intent on hiding.
And now, sipping my coffee from Latin America via our local supermarket, I’m confused.
I like my i-phone. I like to talk, snap, click, play, buy and connect. But I like my trees, and I like the blue sky and the rustling leaves. I want Saskia and Nick to snap holograms for their grandchildren of landscapes they love. And suddenly quantum theory comes to my rescue. Why can’t we build a world that is in two places at once?
Progressive and protective. A lesson from lockdown?
Something to reflect on before the day begins. Something to act on before the day ends.
Images owned by Bob James
