I could feel my shoulders relax as soon as the red-rock landscape of southern Utah sprawled out in front of my car’s windshield. I’d been operating in overdrive for months—juggling work, kids, the daily hustle. The weeks seemed to pass in fast-forward, a warped medley of emails, interviews, deadlines, and bedtime stories. We all needed a break and the desert was just the place to find it.
So, my husband and I packed up our van with all the essentials for week of camping near Moab, Utah: bikes for us and our two young children, camp kitchen, sleeping bags, a hammock to string between trees, a stack of books, a kite to fly in the wind.
Not on the list? Tablets, laptops, anything requiring a plug. I even forgot my phone charger, so that quickly stopped working, too. I took photos with my real camera instead. Disconnecting was perhaps the most beautiful part of the whole trip.
After six nights of sleeping under the most stunning starry night sky, we all felt restored. Long days spent wandering trails and peaceful evenings roasting marshmallows around the campfire were just the antidote we needed to hit refresh on our lives. A week without email and social media felt liberating, like I was the kite flying through the wind. I wasn’t missing a thing on my screen because everything I needed was right in front of me.
During these many months at home during the COVID-19 outbreak, we’ve all been physically disconnected from each other but perhaps endlessly connected to our devices. We’ve bounced between scrolling news headlines, social media, and email inboxes to attending Zoom meetings and electronic happy hours. Reports showed a spike in screen-time usage during the health crisis, with adults spending an average of 10 hours per day on screens, up from 8 hours a day in years prior to the pandemic. Kids haven’t been spared either: They’ve gone to school via a computer, attended Zoom birthday parties, and played who-knows-how-many-hours of online games.
Now more than ever, figuring out how to disconnect from our devices while we reconnect with each other will be an integral part of our healing process. Putting away the distractions of our phones may be necessary for humanity to recover. To find creativity and stillness, we have to silence the noise — the tweets, the buzzing, the notifications.