SKYE stephenson

The other day my husband lost, and then found, his cell phone. He was so happy to get it back, thanks to the kindness of a stranger who found it on a road in Marlowe and returned it to him.

 This experience, he told me, reminded him just how dependent he was upon a cell phone. And how important that small machine had become in his life.

The next day, he thought he had misplaced his phone again. Where could it be? This time it was more easily located in the house.

I called him to my meditation room and asked him to bring along his cell phone. “Why?’ he asked, puzzled.

I lit up some sage and tabaco and passed it around that that recently lost phone. Then I told him to thank the phone. “Why?” he asked again.

“Because it’s important to you. You realized how much the cell phone meant to you when you thought you had lost it.”

“But it’s just an object,” he said.

“Really?”

On my May trip to Japan, I spent two days in Toyama, on the west coast of Honshu. I had once lived there for a year teaching English, and I was interested to see how it had changed in the ensuing decades.

When I was an English Teaching Fellow, we had no cell phones. Or computers. Or any of these recent devices. Now all the Japanese I saw in Toyama did have a cell phone. And yet, some things remained the same as I had recalled in this traditional part of the country. Some things that taught me many things back then, and did on my recent trip as well.

For instance, strolling along a canal park that was not there years ago, I found myself passing a section with gushing natural springs and a series of small shrines. The shrine in the center had the slender figure of the Buddhist Kanzeon Bosatsu, or the Goddess of Compassion, with flowers around the fountain. I read in the tourist brochure that the water here was believed to confer longevity and good health.

Of course, I drank some water from this fountain, and then splashed my face with the cool liquid. It felt refreshing, and calming.

I decided to sit down on a nearby bench, under the shade of a tree branch, to enjoy the site a bit longer.

I observed an elderly couple fill a large plastic container with this water, and then carry the heavy receptacle to their car. They drove away.

Then a middle-aged man drove up and parked his car. I figured he was going to get some spring water for his own use, like I had done or the recent elderly couple who had just left. Instead, this man took out a cloth and wet it in the water. Then he proceeded to wash his car with this wet cloth front to back and roof to tires. Then he wet the cloth again, and passed it over his steering wheel and dashboard.

As I understand, Japanese tend to imbue many items we consider inanimate with a livingness. Cars, for example. Or swords. Or artwork. Or clothing. Or stones or trees and the like. And, yes, I am guessing these days cell phones could be included in this list.

What makes something alive, or more alive, is the kind of relationship we have with the item. It is this relationship, this connection, that is key.

“Tell your cell phone how much you appreciate it. How helpful it is for you. And that you are very glad you got it back.” I suggested to my husband.

He hesitated. Then, a bit awkwardly, he softly said “I really am glad to have you back. I realize how important you are in my life.” He was speaking to that cell phone, not to me.

Published in The Monadnock Shopper News August 16-22, 2023