Holiday reconnect at Thanksgiving and gratitude for simplicity

By Jennifer Day-Thompson

I was born in the early 1980s, just in time to witness MTV still playing music videos, Madonna’s rise to stardom, and the transition from cassette tapes to CD’s. It was a simpler time, with only one landline, no cell phones, and no e-mail.

A trip back to my hometown recently made me realize just how cluttered life can get. [Article continues after photo.]

View of Lake Murray from a dock in the Prosperity, SC area. Many families in the area are of Swiss-German ancestry and a number of historical homes and sites are located in this small charming Southern town. [Photo by David C. Thompson; used with permission.]In today’s high-tech world we are accessible to almost anyone who wants to reach us. E-mail can be synched with our phones so that we know what’s going on at work, even on a day off. Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace allow people to tell hundreds of their friends what they’re doing at any given moment. There are even channels that especially appeal to  ADHD-prone viewers. My husband has found a channel that covers a different NFL football game every minute. I sit beside him on Sundays, completely confused, as he excitedly takes in the highlights whizzing by.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I visited Prosperity, S.C., a small town near the city where I was born. My Uncle John’s home where we stay overlooks a huge lake, and this time of year everything there is orange, red and yellow as the air is getting colder. There is one telephone and one TV, and my cell phone gets no service. Like most rural areas, every star in the sky is visible at night without the glare of streetlights and businesses. By our second day in Prosperity, I knew I felt different. I was energized and happy, despite the fact that I tossed and turned most of the night on an unfamiliar mattress.

I soon figured out that the “difference” I noticed was actually the sound of my own thoughts, loud and clear in my uncluttered mind. Since arriving in Prosperity, I hadn’t heard the buzz of Sports Center, cell phones, car horns or e-mail alerts. I hadn’t even heard people, for that matter. Furthermore, I hadn’t thought about work once. There’s something about going home that seems to make my day-to-day routine seem very far away, and life just makes more sense.

We had already returned to Jacksonville when I started thinking about how much my visits home remind me of being a child. Maybe seeing my old schools, my dad’s favorite hamburger-and-shake joint, the street I learned to ride a bike on and the houses I grew up in have something to do with that. But there was something more to that time, aside from my age, that made those days simple.

Before the technological evolution, with the house phone off the hook and my family gathered around the table eating dinner, we actually heard each other. Super Bowl parties consisted of everyone watching the same game, the only game, and no one was checking a Blackberry for e-mails or news updates. No one was searching YouTube for funny videos or texting friends at other parties.

People may have been less connected electronically, but they were far more connected to the moment, to the people sitting right next to them.

Whenever I feel myself overwhelmed by schedules, appointments and to-do lists, I remind myself to turn off the TV and put my phone on silent. I may ride over to my parents’ house and sit outside with them, a cup of coffee in hand, talking about relatives back home. I may take a nap beside my husband, letting the afternoon sun warm my face through the blinds as I fall asleep. I may take our two dogs for a walk around our lake, smiling as I watch them chase lizards.

Moments like these remind me that life is not about meeting deadlines and checking off to-do lists. It’s about reconnecting with the people we love most in this world, including ourselves.