To Quote Sir David Attenborough

Life on Paradise Lane is, well, Paradise. Let me explain …

My stellar view: inner elbow curve 3D screensaver-scape of the—as of noon on Friday—calm Pacific Ocean.

It’s like being an extra on a movie set: the foreground is dewy grass lush with occasional worm-devouring black birds and scampering lizards; the background is a misty, perpetually moving green-grey reel of bumps and velvet blanket rolls. Short sleeve and capri pants weather. Pelicans gliding overhead. A pod of dolphins surfing just past the waves. My babysitting puppy-luv writing and reading pal, Indy, at my side, while my brunch-stuffed, summer-chilling grandson yells commands to his VR device mates. 

I’ve been gifted the spectacular assignment of hanging out with my niece’s sweet doodle dog and devoted bearded dragon, Tiger, here at the amazing, relaxing, joyful resort paused along the intoxicating California coast as my niece and her family enjoy the wonders of Europe, . 

Life can’t get much better. 

My man, surfer crooner Jack Johnson, says it best: 

“We’ve got everything we need right here, and everything we need is enough.”  

I could sit here forever and gaze and gaze and gaze.

While I was hoping to get chapters of writing done, returning to a novel I’ve re-started numerous times since retiring five years ago, looks like I won’t get much accomplished as I’m hanging out with one of my grandsons who’s growing up faster than a SpaceX satellite launch. He reminded me today as he, his dad and I discussed an upcoming camping adventure to the Eastern Sierras that he doesn’t want his summer dictated like he was a little kid; he wants a say in his destiny; he wants to chill out with friends, play video games, and stay connected—to the internet. 

As a former 8^th English Language Arts teacher who, over 18 years in the classroom, grew increasingly concerned about the negative impact chronic device reliance has on the adolescent brain, I have a lot to say about the topic. Don’t get me wrong, I love technology, in fact, I just bought a new laptop and iPhone because my old ones were failing. But as an old school schooled adult, I have interests beyond the screen. Young people, at least the pre-teenage boy in my world, not so much.

What I know sitting here, barefooted, zany-haired, excited about tiptoe-ing into the cool water, is that one of my jobs as a grandma is to help The Littles and The Olders realize that there are better, more important things we can than be constantly online. Like learning how to surf, like picking up sticks and rocks and building a Roxenboxen village in the sand, like sharing a conversation over breakfast or playing Bingo or taking the dog for a walk and identifying cool birds. 

Bronson and his peers don’t know—-unless we teach them—-that there’s life beyond technology, that it’s OK to be quiet, bored, to read, write, create art, music, that the constant internet noise is filling a void that needs space for originality and invention. Instead, my grandson and others of his generation, stuff, stuff, stuff their brains with junk until there’s no space left for beauty, unique thought—for poetry.

To sit still in Nature and contemplate simplicity expands the soul as Mary Oliver writes in “Breakage”: 

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It’s like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Bronson, you don’t know it yet, but soon you and I will be walking along the beach, discovering Paradise Lane, a shoreland wonderland littered with seaweed and conch shells. We’re going to find a log chair, then gaze at the horizon;  I’m going to ask you to write what you see, to feel and experience the environment in a way that might feel uncomfortable and strange. But I’m your grandma and this is what I do, this is why I’m here, to tap into the stars hidden by clouds so you can see for yourself what lies beyond. 

We are here for a reason. Technology, at its highest form, is merely a vehicle to illuminate and clarify, not stunt our vision and smear what’s important. To quote Sir David Attenborough, “No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced.”

Carving a path away from devices is getting more challenging every day I’m with Bronson. The dopamine addiction is real. But armed with colored pencils, watercolor and paper and the lull of the sea, this grandma’s going to try her best to lure him away, if only for an hour or two.

So much, as William Carlos Williams noted, “depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens”.

Wish us luck.