Remember way back, say, early in the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, when life presented whole new ways of existing? Overnight the skies had no planes, interstates were empty, there was plenty of time for loved ones, and all our gardens looked terrific. Inevitably things drifted back to the same, yet still they were somehow different and forever altered.

I’m facing one of those moments, an opportunity, again. And I don’t want to squander it, this chance for a reset. Although I will claim to have farmed full time for two decades, it is only as of this past Friday, the day I quit my outside job, that there are truly no major competing demands on my life. So, I’m going to try a few experiments and see how they work out. Perhaps in doing so I can come close to recapturing the magic of April and May of 2020.

First off, no cellphone. No smart phone and no flip phone. I got along 40 years without the latter and 54 without the former. I’m giving up the cell until at least January of 2023. Perhaps for some of you, not a big deal. For others, it may be unfathomable to forego texting while you’re still alive. Yes, there will be some minor adjustments. I will miss the CarPlay option that gives me access to real-time maps of road conditions. But since I don’t plan on driving too much, I’ll risk getting stuck in the afternoon traffic of downtown Sweetwater (pop. 5,894). And my sisters will just have to live without the occasional texted photo of an Old Fashioned.

Second — and how you feel about this ultimately depends on how much you use the technology — I’ll retool my computer usage. Because, again, for 40 years I never turned on a computer. I don’t plan on going all Wendell Berry, foregoing any computer in my life. For one thing, my day to day is too intertwined with technology, from banking to correspondence, to sever the ties completely. My goal is more modest. I plan to limit internet usage to three times a week and to no more than two hours at a stretch. This should be ample time to pay bills, correspond, print out interesting articles to read (I never read articles on the screen).

I’ll also have to develop some new life skills. Like trying to remember the weather forecast for 48 hours instead of 48 minutes. And focusing on the real world instead of actively doom-scrolling through endless apocalyptic posts and videos. Like many, as the past 20 years unfolded, I found myself more and more tethered by my off-the-farm job to the digital world, literally unable to walk away for large chunks of time. The question before me is whether I can untether those habits now that the need is gone. We shall see.

You may nod your head in agreement over this particular time suck: that tendency to idly while away the hours on your computer (or your smart phone) checking on trivia or any of the thousand things that you do not urgently, and often never, need to know. To combat that entirely useless pastime, I’m keeping a notebook on my desk. I’m writing down those things I want to know. And if, when my next allowable block of time on the computer arises, I wish to blow my two-hour allotment going down the rabbit hole of “whatever happened to Hootie & the Blowfish?” … well, so be it.

Hopefully, instead, and no slight intended to Mr. Rucker, by setting a time restriction, I will find more constructive ways to take advantage of what is both a marvelous tool and a crack pipe. (Although, even as I type “two hours” and “three times a week,” it feels still to be too much.) But for now, as a farmer, regardless of how that time is spent on the computer, and not at all on a mobile phone, I know I can find more satisfying ways to live this life outside the digital and in the physical world.

P.S. Forgive me if I don’t reply on the same day to your comment. I’ll be waiting on my next three days, two hours, and all of that. But please do if you are so inclined.