I am on holiday where the stars are so bright my daughter and I didn’t need a flashlight last night. Olive could hop through the grass and hunt crickets along the roadway. The sky was actually crowded. We craned our necks and stubbed toes watching upwards, walking up a hill, silent for the beauty.

Here it is summertime and as the song goes the living should be easy. But we need rain in a bad way and forget social media. Have you noticed how the conventions escalated super-bad-form behavior on FB and Twitter? This week I have read a lot of good ‘take your finger off the keypad friend’ reminders. As well as a lot of ‘unfriending.’ A hearty dose of not very nice emoji, too. I turn on my phone and usually end up wincing.

When I first came to this island thirty years ago or so there was no technology: neither Internet, or cellphones, or television. One phone booth at the Fish dock. It worked just fine — I would liberally spray myself with bug spray, grab my piece of paper, walk down to the dock in the pitch dark and stand by the phone booth to await my turn to call in my groceries. This was fun, truth be told.

When I get here now I practice leaving my phone behind on walks and keeping it on silent. I remember to concentrate on what is happening around me. I am reminded on night walks like last night that I am very, very small. That I am part of a greater planet watched over by the sun, the sky, the stars and the moon.

Not to get too other-worldly here, but try this. Even in the city. Park the square of plastic and glass that bring you such distress and walk away — into the street, the back yard, the field.

Cuttyhunk Island, August, 2016