The Real Play Station

The Real Play Station

This past July I packed up two of my girls and drove to North Carolina to pick up the third from sleep away camp. The drive was 12 hours and filled with movies and Instagram posts and much more technology that a minivan could or should afford.  We ended up in one of our most favorite places to go in the summers, the Blue Ridge Mountains in Northwestern North Carolina.

You make choices in this life about how connected we choose to be.  You can visit places where WiFi is readily available for your phone, tablet and lap top computer or can venture out 30-40 miles out of cell phone range and many miles from the nearest human. We all pick what we are most comfortable with the level of connection we choose to have and/or need to have.

Hundreds of miles from home, 20 miles from the nearest cell tower, and far enough from the nearest human is my comfort zone.  I’m far enough away that I’m ‘disconnected’ yet close enough to check in with the office and family back home if needed.  It is deeply, amazingly, unsettlingly quite out here. An hour before the dawn come on so still, so windless, that the sound of your heartbeat, the shifting of the hair in your ears can wake you at any time.

It’s written about all the time, scarcity, that is.  We’re actually running out of silence – I’ll wait while you wrap your heard around that for a second.  The largest challenge I have is my children’s seemingly consistent access to stuff.  Together my daughters own iPhones, iPad’s, iTouch’s, computers, Netflix, Wii, and countless other distractions that allow then to do things virtually.  Out here, on the mountain, there are books, board games, smores and interaction.  They look for, chipmunks, skunks, deer and OH MY! Yes there were bear to watch and stay a safe and far distance from.

When the sun comes up and we make our way to the bottom of the mountain, there is a stream to play in with fish we will never catch.  The kids move the rocks around to watch how the flow of water will change.  There’s riding horses and white water rafting and let’s not forget the Mast General Store and a park that has sprung out of the landscape.  “Thank you” says the kids and I reply ‘thank you’ right back.  Thank you for unplugging, if just for a short while. Thank you for letting me take you out into the world that is always right there.