Phone Death

I’m grieving for my mobile phone. I’ve had it since 2009. It died on Friday taking with it most of my contact numbers and the familiar way I had of using it. The sweet young man in the Vodaphone shop showed me how to use the replacement one  - you have to touch the screen instead of the keys to make it work and most things are different - like where the space key is.....and my fingers are big and clumsy on the little pad. When I tried to send my first text it took me so long that I wanted to throw it out of the window.

I don’t want to learn a whole new way of how to communicate with my loved ones. I don’t want to take the time and trouble to read the manual. To understand it and practise it. I loved my old phone. I knew how to make it work. I want it back.

Like my old life. I don’t know how to do this new one.......how to swim between the sharks and the icebergs.

Maybe I could listen to my husband. On Saturday afternoon I leave my undiscovered phone at home and we walk by the river in and out of icy shade and bright sun. But I haven’t really left the phone at home and I’m swamped by loss, frustration. My husband is patient and understanding and doesn’t make me wrong. He says sorry a lot even though it’s not his fault. After a while he says the thing he always says,

We could just be here now and have a day of joy by living out of our hearts.

He’s right of course. While I’m having my tantrum about the phone I don’t see the white sprays of hawthorn blossom, or the yellow coconutty gorse flowers, or smell the wild garlic growing all along the path, or hear the crows squabbling in the branches of the beech trees above us. Or notice that my old life and my new life are the same - it’s just me that’s stopping me from loving it - waiting for icebergs....missing the joy....

Still pressing the old buttons  - not stroking the screen where the light is....