Why I do not own a cell phone

I do not own a cell phone, and do not plan on getting one.
Here are my reasons; I think they are good ones:

*I worked as a pediatrician for many years, essentially on-call at least 80% of the time. It's nice not to be tethered to the human bustle. It distracts me from the infinite hum of life around me.

*I cannot be two places at once. When I am walking, I am walking under a sky of infinite variation. I feel the twigs beneath my feet. I see the faces of those who walk by, though many cannot see me. If I cannot be two places at once, I have a choice to make--which place matters more to me? Surprises me how few folks realize they have a choice.

*I do not like being tracked by anything farther than my voice can carry. That a grackle eyes me before going back to rustling through leaves, looking for bugs, makes me feel more whole. That a cell phone system can do the same unnerves me. I do not like it, and have liked it less since the Patriot Act.

No, I am not a criminal, I am a school teacher who knows a little history. If I cannot use a cell phone without a perpetual electronic collar, I have a choice to make. Surprises me how few folks realize they have a choice.

*But what if someone needs to call you about this calamity or that? I do not spend my waking hours worrying about catastrophes. Bad things will happen even if I carry a cell phone, and knowing them a few minutes earlier than I otherwise would is not going to change a thing.

*They're expensive. I have to make about a grand before taxes in order to pay for a year's worth of service. If I used a cell phone, much of the money I earn teaching would go to support my phone use. I would rather spend my money on a few decent books, decent ale, another clam rake (I got a bad habit), or give it away.

*It's one more thing to worry about. I clam, I kayak, my wallet has salt stains on it. It's a rare week when at least some of me is not in the bay.

And maybe the bay is the biggest reason I do not plan to get a phone--so many evenings, as the sun settles on the bay's edge, I remember, at some deep level, that I am, and (perhaps) always will be, a part of this thing, whatever this thing is, and I  fear the phone leashes me to schedules independent of the stars, to ideas contrary to what we know is true.

 
The ancients may not have had the sophisticated grasp of what we call science, but they knew the natural world. They lived in it, of it--the abstract cannot truly represent the real. The cell phone separates me, incrementally, from what I think matters.

So I don't own one.
Thanks for asking!

This is NOT a diatribe against cell phones in general--I fond them incredibly useful for students in school.

Most of my students are walking around with phenomenal personal devices, and I encourage them to use them.

But school is already so artificial it hardly matters.

And yes, I am aware I am coming off as a sanctimonious ass here--it's just a blog.

Photo via The Blog: Spellbound by Our Own Imperfect Lives...., permission pending

On the mosquito

I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween,
Has not the honor of so proud a birth-
Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green,
The offspring of the gods, though born on earth;
For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she,
The ocean nymph that nursed thy infancy.

--William Cullen Bryant

I witnessed a miracle tonight,
Well, maybe not a miracle, it happens millions of time a day, but today it happened in my classroom.

I saw a pupating mosquito larva erupt into a tiny pale adult.

***

The late January sunset floods the back wall of or classroom. I have a small tank of elodea. A few snail keep the plants company. About a week ago, I noticed a few wrigglers in the tank. I have no idea how they got there. 

Just before I leave, I make my rounds, checking our plants, our roly polies, our snails. I love watching the elodea bubble off oxygen. It's a nice way to end my work school day.

Just under the water's surface, I glimpsed a violent wiggling. A glassine wriggler struggled at the surface, occasionally contracting violently, reminiscent of the last violent transition stage of human birth.

In this tiny universe, the glassine mosquito struggled against the water's skin. The pupa looked like fine crystal, lit by the setting sun and the tiny light above.

I watched for about 15 minutes, until, finally, a pale adult mosquito emerged, paused, then attempted flight. Three times it jumped, three times it came back to the water, with the tentativeness of a newborn foal testing its legs. 

It needs nectar, and it won't find it tonight. I suspect it will be dead by morning.

***

Where did it come from? How do the countless microscopic critters alive in our room find their way here?

I encourage my students to draw conclusions from the observations they make. They now have a decision.

They can trust me when I tell them spontaneous generation does not happen, that all cells come from pre-existing cells, that life only comes from existing life. The ponds outside a frozen, the snow over a foot deep. We have not seen flying insects outside for over a month.

And I have a tank full of wrigglers sitting in the back of my classroom.

Or they can quietly believe in spontaneous generation. For a few moments tonight, as I knelt watching the emerging pale ghost of a mosquito erupt from the water, I would have quietly agreed with them.

The poem excerpt is from The Mosquito, written in the 19th century.
The music is from Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, "I'm Nature's Mosquito"--I'm playing it in class tomorrow.