Lack of Connectivity Builds Community

All morning long the notice, Cannot Send Message: connection to the outgoing server failed, loitered on the screen of my laptop like a bad taste lingers on the back of your tongue. Each time I crafted a response to an email, hit send and moved to another message, the warning reappeared. Countless times I navigated to settings, checked for network connectivity, hit refresh, and resent the email only to receive the identical outcome.

I’m a mother of four so my patience is practiced. I know when to blow my cork and when to bite my lip. I’ve put in my share of waiting in carpool lines, dental offices, and basketball games where my child received her only playing time during the final seconds. Now as an empty nester, I’m honing my inner calm with meditation and yoga.  Yet after several of the-internet-is-down cycles, my inner Zen evaporated.

Since the connectivity gods had stolen my patience, I did what I always do when I’ve endured Internet silence for longer than fifteen minutes. I sauntered over to the top of the stairs and yelled down to my husband.  His garbled holler back meant he was fully aware and equally frustrated. I leaned over the railing, listening for sounds, movement to the lower level where the Internet gods live in the closet of the rec room. Expletives wafted up the stairwell, so I returned to the office.

The desk chair and I rolled into place. I perused paperwork I had no interest in tackling.  I wanted to do my emails. I picked up my cell phone. One bar, then none. I flicked it over and looked away abruptly like you’d do when putting a child in timeout. Intermittently, my cell would buzz.  I’d snatch it up, thinking I was back online. Snapshots of emails trickled across the top of the screen. The number of unread messages rose, but my inability to access them stayed constant. The Internet gods had commandeered all my devices.

Locked out from the tech world, I pushed back from the desk and headed to the kitchen. I assembled a meatless, summer squash soup in the crockpot, then dragged out my sneakers and filled a water bottle. On impulse, I stuffed my mobile into my back pocket, in case I could tap into one of my neighbor’s unsecured networks.

At the corner where my street intersected the county road, I discovered that I was not alone in the punishments levied by Wi-Fi, the all-powerful.  My neighbors proclaimed that the outage was area wide. Our group of three quickly grew to five. All of us commented that we’d never seen so many walkers and bicyclists about at this hour on a Monday. As we quipped and chatted, we forgot about the downed Wi-Fi. The prevailing mood of ‘we-are-in-this-together’ loosened our tongues. We shared stories and gossip. Laughter echoed down the lane. We were communing as neighbors did before there was Internet.

It felt like a snow day, a day when streets are impassable, when commitments are cancelled, and the only options are shoveling or building a snowman.  With no snow to sculpt or remove in August, the neighbors and I entreated others to join our live group chat. As folks wove in and out of our enclave, the lack of tech connectivity ceased to drive our gabfest. The books on our bedside tables, the new restaurant opening in town, and the notion of a neighborhood block party or potluck picnic became the focus.  

With each proper introduction to a person I recognized but didn’t know I felt a stirring of belonging. With the warm surge of fellowship, technology’s hiccup and all my unread/unsent emails seemed trivial. My sense of community and my role in it surged. So did my optimism and inner calm. The emails could wait.

Perhaps this day will be infamous as the day friendships grew. The year the annual block party formed a planning committee, Not the day the Internet died. I’m grateful for the break that the lack of connectivity provided for I have different connections to foster now.