Phone. Wallet. Keys.
Phone. Wallet. Keys.
Phone. Wallet. Keys.
This is my mental checklist every time I leave my apartment. A few weeks ago I wrote about phone addiction, and I’ve been making attempts to curb my own. This piece is a bit different from what I’ve been posting these last few weeks, but I thought it could be fun to try something new and see if it resonates. To be honest, after I writing this I wondered, “is this really boring?” And it might be, but I’m still happy I did it for the experience alone. To prepare for this piece, I left my apartment without my phone on two separate occasions. As always thank you for being here, and I love you. Let’s get to it!
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I’ve decided to leave my apartment without my phone. This feels like an overwhelming (yet liberating) decision. Today my checklist will just be “wallet” and “keys”. The anxiety is already present, so I make attempts to calm myself. I’m not going too far. I’m just walking around my neighborhood. Everything will be fine. No big deal. Even if I were to collapse in the middle of the street, there would be plenty of people around, and at least one person would notice. I also have my wallet on me, so if this collapsing nightmare did happen, I would be easy to identify. I make sure I have my keys on me at least 3 times, and then head out the door.
My plan is to walk to the waterfront, about a 20 minute walk from my apartment, chill on a bench there for however long feels comfortable, and then walk back. I tell myself that it’s important that I take baby steps with this. Being without my phone feels foreign, and I wouldn’t want to do anything too ambitious yet. As I’m walking further away from my building — and further away from my phone — I feel my heartbeat quicken. I’m doing it! I left without it! Hooray for me!
Mere minutes into the walk, my muscle memory is aflame. I have an urge to reach into my bag and look at my phone, even though I know it isn’t there. Although my mind knows that I don’t have it, my hands are so used to checking it that my body asks, “Why aren’t you reaching for it? You usually do.” This is a bit disturbing to notice. It also makes a lot of sense. Addictions don’t go away immediately.
I feel more alert and awake without my phone: my senses are heightened. It feels extra important for me to pay attention to my surroundings and observe what is around me — in large part because I have nothing else to distract me, and am craving stimulation. I look at houses, trees, and people walking past me. I smell hot garbage steaming into the summer air and, when I reach the waterfront, I am greeted by the far more pleasant salt-and-algae-scented air. My thoughts have been racing this entire walk. Without the distraction of my phone, unpleasant thoughts — many of which I do not wish to confront at this moment — are front and center.
I sit on a bench and look out into the waters by the Verrazano Bridge (which I’ve since learned are called The Narrows), and watch the waves gently ripple. I don’t sit for very long because sitting still has always been a challenge for me, and it is even more so now, so I get up to leave and walk back home. I climb the single flight of stairs to my apartment door, unlock it, and walk in. Looking at the oven clock I see that I have been gone for an hour. I delight in my achievement and pat myself on the back. Then, I reunite with my phone.
I try this experiment again a few days later, but this time I bring a tiny composition book so that I can take notes on some of my thoughts and experiences. It’s a notebook that I used in college, but it still has pages left, so I figured I should use it. I put the notebook and a pen in the back pocket of my jeans, my wallet in the other back pocket, and my keys in the front pocket. I usually wear a small bag or fanny pack but, for some reason, today I feel very committed to walking with as little as possible, and refuse myself a bag. I pat all of these pockets again to make sure I have everything, and then I’m off. Meanwhile, my phone is safely charging on my kitchen counter.
The door closes behind me, and I am free (sort of). I feel triumphant, but am also greeted with the same physical sensations that I experienced last time. As I walk, I feel multiple urges to look at my phone despite knowing it isn’t with me. I want to check the time. I want to look something up. I think about a text I sent, and wonder if I got a response (and want to check if I did). I want to take pictures. I spot a funny license plate and a puddle that is reflecting the sky in a beautiful way. Under normal circumstances, I might take advantage of this stroke of inspiration and snap some photos, and maybe even share them on my Instagram story if I felt the content was worthy enough, but today I must appreciate beauty without documentation. Can you even imagine?
As I get closer to the waterfront, I spot a teenager jogging and hear him shout that something was “awesome!” He has earbuds in, so I assume he is talking to a friend. Seeing people exercise, while talking on the phone at the same time, will always amaze me. As I walk, I see what he might have been referring to. The road has large puffs of white smoke slowly dissipating into the air. I see a man sitting on his front steps looking at the smoke and something possesses me to ask this man if he knows what happened. It’s quite out of character for me to strike conversation with strangers but hey, I didn’t have a phone, so I guess my brain was seeking some other kind of stimulation.
The man, whose name I learned was Rob, excitedly told me that a driver was doing “donuts” on the road. He had the kind of accent that made me almost positive he was a born and bred New Yorker. He went into a story — that was a bit hard for me to follow — about hot rods, cars he liked, and how cool it was to do donuts (but that he himself was too scared to). Rob was amused by my name, because it reminded him of the word “salon,” and then he told me a story about his daughter who recently went to the salon to get extensions, but they kept falling out of her hair. He told me I was a “cool girl,” which, in his defense, was a completely accurate assessment. This was the fit and vibe I had brought to this interaction (photo taken just before leaving my apartment). I really wanted to get on with my walk, and shifted my body language to signal my exit. We said our kind farewells, and I was on my way again.
I sat by the waterfront again, but this time I was there for a bit longer. I took out my notebook and was jotting down some thoughts and feelings, and my pen started to run dry. I decided to flip through the notebook, since there were notes in there that were about 6 or 7 years old. I read through old homework assignments, lists of story ideas, and also a funny exchange between my best friend and I. We were studying in our college library, in the quiet section, and we were passing the notebook back and forth to communicate.
After reading through all of that, I thought of another note I wanted to write down. The pen was inkless by this point. Of course it’s out right now, I thought. It felt like a cheeky joke from the universe. It said, “Didn’t you want to be present? The notebook is just another distraction.” I looked up from the notebook and watched the choppy waves crash against rocks. I wondered how many minutes had passed since I had looked up at all. My phone wasn’t with me, but I had seamlessly traded one distraction for another. I realized that I have quite an intense need to get sucked into things. I regularly get sucked into my phone and, since that wasn’t around, I got sucked into the notebook. The real question now is: how do I get more sucked into life?
I looked out at the water and saw idle cargo boats and ferries zooming by. I saw a man try (and fail) to kill a lanternfly. I watched fishing hobbyists cast their poles into the water. It’s common to see fishers with more than one pole, all lined up a few feet apart from one another to increase their chances of catching fish. I saw a woman clip tiny bells onto a pole, and I was delighted by this observation. Ahh, so that’s how they keep track of so many poles. Several minutes later, I watched her reeling in one of the poles, but unfortunately it turned out to be a piece of, what looked like, soft plastic. That was a little depressing to witness, but at least it got out of the water.
I decided to get up after some time, and took the lazy stroll back to my apartment. I played my observation game again. Houses, leaves, clouds, flowers, people. Naming and observing things felt meditative. “I am here right now, and this is what I see.” As I walked, a little girl on a bicycle with training wheels, wearing an oversized helmet, shyly said, “Hello” to me as she pedaled down the sidewalk. I smiled, said hello back, and kept on walking. I was surprised by the interactions I had. First Rob, and now this little girl. I suppose there was a change in my energy without my phone. Without it I was more open to human exchange, which is something I typically avoid.
I use my phone for so many purposes but I didn’t realize until this point the extent to which I use it to avoid interactions with other people. I use it in situations where I don’t want to speak to strangers, or if I want to avoid eye contact with them. On this day, I couldn’t do any of that, and my only distractions were my surroundings. I think I avoid the gaze of strangers because of my own social anxiety, but also because of innate fear responses. If someone looks at me for too long, or if I look at them for too long, will they harm me?
While it’s true that people can be harmed on streets, I’m sure the likelihood in my neighborhood is fairly low — especially in the broad daylight I was in. Also, most importantly, none of the interactions I had were negative at all. Maybe all this time, while I was trying to avoid other people, someone out there was waiting to be able to share their passion for doing tricks with sports cars, and a child just wanted someone to say “Hi” to.
When I got back home, over an hour had passed. I congratulated myself for staying out longer than the first time, and challenged myself not to immediately look at my phone. I didn’t want my phone to be the first thing that I attended to. All I did before checking it was drink a glass of water and wash my hands, but that was enough to delay my desire. My phone has quite the hold on me, but I’m confident in my ability to keep doing experiments like this to gradually detach from it.
Nothing bad happened to me when I left my apartment without my phone. In fact, after doing it, I felt more human than before.