Disconnected Time


Beach Time Circa 1996

Long before our cell phones connected us to everything, it was so much easier to disconnect. Imagine going somewhere without your phone now…

That’s why it was so unusual to see two teens without phones.


I heard them before I saw them.  I was on our trail that heads down to the beach—doing my spring time clean-up of the foliage overgrowth. It was a Saturday—full of sunshine and promise. Normally, it’s quiet, except for the sound of the waves and the birds. But there was the unmistakeable sound of voices. I peered through the forest and tried to glimpse who was coming. It was coming from the creek.


The creek is mostly shallow this time of year—but it’s like an avenue to the sea. When we first came here it was a place lots of neighborhood kids loved to play. That was long ago.




The voices carried over the water so I could hear excitement and laughter. Then I watched as two boys made their way to where the creek meets the sea. They had their shoelaces tied together and their shoes were dangling like a necklace as they walked barefoot in the creek. They put on their shoes and ran to two huge boulders that my family has dubbed the Seal Rocks. They climbed them like my kids used to. They were probably 13 or 14.


Of course I could have come down to the beach and introduced myself, but I preferred to watch and enjoy them explore the rocks, the waves, and then attempt to use a driftwood log as a raft.

What I didn’t see were cell phones. No selfies or distractions from texts, no snapchat or whatever is their go-to app right now. I smiled and went back up the hill, leaving them to enjoy their time at the beach. 


I thought about how I enjoyed playing at the beach when I was a kid, and how my kids did as well, and now seeing a new generation enjoy the beach, untethered by phones, made my day.





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