While I was unplugged, I read Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, mostly aloud to my dog, Mojo. He enjoyed the readings and would get very cozy and doze off to sleep after about twenty minutes of reading. I have an edition from the early 1900s and the pages flake sometimes, but I toted the little hardback around the house and allowed it to rest in my jacket pocket, where it fit so neatly and carried the appropriate heft for such a literary work. I could feel it there, the strength of those ideas and words. I love the way that Tennyson lingers on a description, crafting it out the long way. I found myself longing for the space, the way of wading into words and stories of old without the rush of time, the interruptions of technological life, and the self-consciousness of minimalism dragging the story down and making it less than it is…less reading enjoyment, less wandering in the world of a tale, less words.

I’ve also dwelt more on the words I write–in correspondence to others, in blog posts, and in my novel writing. I’ve allowed myself the words I want to use without making it less for the sake of other people.

The idea that I should shorten my statements and lessen my self-expressions is something I began when I first got a phone that would send text messages, and I was a late adopter so that was about 2011. Prior to that, I was quite old-fashioned (and still am) in my style of lengthy correspondence (and I prefer handwritten letters). After getting a smart phone, I very quickly learned that the majority of people I knew expected a text that involved as few words as possible. In fact, I wasn’t treated very well when I sent a text message that contained sentences. Some of my friends were downright rude, and justified their rude behavior based on popular culture. It was more okay to be rude via minimal text message than to communicate in complete sentences, even if they were short sentences. Being rude was cool; thoughtful communication was not cool. Finally, I experience changes to the above scenario, and many of my friends now communicate more akin to my own style of communication (and, I’m grateful for that).

All of this has reaffirmed my commitment to print books and handwritten letters. I’ve returned to my in-progress novels with renewed determination to finish them and to give them the full breadth that they deserve as stories, to use my breath as words penned down to the page, a motion of creation that has moved through my body and been born onto the page. As I breathe and read the words, write the words, speak the stories, they have lived inside of me. Yes, our stories do live any way, but there is no surer way of saving them for someone almost one hundred years later, and another hundred years later, and another hundred years later, than to tell the whole story out onto the page while loving the words and the process of creating with them.

Unplugging more has also reaffirmed my love of the spoken word and reading aloud. When I read stories and listen to the sound of the story, a new depth is present. There’s so much to discover in listening.