A man and a woman sat together across from me in an airport seating area, where I was among those waiting to board a flight. I did not have interesting material to read, so I was looking around, observing people. This couple caught my attention because they leaned against each other’s shoulders with what seemed to me a comfortably intimate familiarity, yet each was engrossed in the operation of his and her cellphone.
The cellphone — or more specifically, the “smart phone” — has become an important and indispensable tool, a handheld time machine that can take us anywhere in the world, at any time, can answer any question posed by anyone, in any language, and show us movies from any era. And can make, and receive, phone calls, the purpose for which it was originally intended.
One day at my favorite cider house, I looked across the bar at some other patrons. Eight people lined the counter, a mix of women and men, and before each one, flat on the counter, was a cellphone. This is the new normal for so many people, and I wonder if the fascination with the technology drives a wedge between our social and emotional connections to each other. In this same place I was the quiet observer of a moment of spontaneous intimacy between two people I know: a woman sat down next to a man and laid her head gently on his shoulder in a way evocative of a sigh. When I saw them together, I was reminded of James Wright’s poem, “A Blessing,” where he wrote, “They love each other. / There is no loneliness like theirs.”
My cellphone is always with me, always on. I sleep with it by my bed; its alarm feature wakens me. I answer calls from people I know at any time of the day or night. When I fly, the phone is on “airplane mode,” which disconnects it from all wireless networks and blocks incoming information. When in a movie theater or at a play, I put it on “silent” (although I may have been directed to turn it off). When driving, my phone activates a “Do Not Disturb” mode, where incoming notifications — such as text messages and news alerts — are deferred, though phone calls are not. But after noting the presence of the cellphone on the surface before most of the people I see seated at a table, I have tried to keep my phone in my pocket when I am meeting with someone. But in an accidental meeting with two friends, the phones on the counter changed the interaction.
Holly and Sydney were seated at the counter when I had stopped by Ash and Elm Cider Company to say goodbye to Melissa Davis, who was on her last shift before leaving for employment with another company. Both women greeted me with hugs, and after some good-bye shenanigans with Melissa, we tried to close the gap between the last time we had shared a space. We spoke of work and play and children and grandchildren and Sydney’s art show at Clowes Memorial Hall, and at some point, I brought up the beauty of my favorite poem. Holly and Sydney grabbed their phones, and both were able to read Wright’s poem. My eyes leaked a little, as they are wont to do when I talk about what the poem means to me.
The arc of this narrative was altered when my friends were able to share in my joy, in real time, and the warmth of human contact and the technology of the cellphone helped to define for me, a new intimacy.