1927

 

 

If you have talked  in the past week the only thing I’ve been talking about is my grandmother’s 90th birthday. The woman is freakin 90!!!!!!

For being just shy of a century old Grammy D, as we loving call her, is still keeping up. Aside from the poor eyesight you would really never know she was born when the toaster was invented and gas cost .23 cents!

She grew up in a farm in Canada with a slew of siblings. Ate the food she grew and rode horses to school. Medicine was seen has something you could go without, while the newspaper with Babe Ruth splashed on the front must be purchased. Instead of grad party season there was potato picking season.

The most treasured Christmas gift was not an iPhone or hover board but an orange or grapefruit wrapped in newspaper. She had two pairs of shoes, one for the farm and one for the town. Not four different sandals that only vary by the beading or straps. Grammy D mode of transportation for the first 30 years of her life was feet, sled or horse. Only getting forced to get her license the same day as her 16 year old son.

My grandmother has claimed, on more than one occasion, that if her father ever saw people walking around with phones he would have dropped dead, or claimed he was on an alien planet. And there are days where she herself, cannot believe the length that technology has gone.

Her party was excellent support for her anti- technology claims. While my loud and bossy family belted out “Happy Birthday” I looked around to everyone with their phone in front of them, recording. Why do we do this? In a group of 40 people why do we all need to record the same thing? How many of us are going to truly show this video to someone else, who isn’t already at this party? Is it out of habit? Do we just feel called or pulled to put something on our snapchat stories?

With all of us with our phones in front of us, recording the song I feel that we robbed my grandmother of her moment. Instead of all 40 us singing to her, we were all singing into our phones. And when she looked up from her seat, she saw a sea of iPhones staring back rather than smiling faces. Man, is that just depressing. Seeing different colored Outerbox cases rather than your 6 children and 25ish grandkids. Its like when those celebrities, like Emma Watson decline selfies with fans. Herself, and others, claim that fans are just trying to take the moment like its a piece of merchandise and show it off and wear it when they post on different social medias later. And to some extent I do agree with that, I would like to think that if I did get the chance to meet her (which would be like the best day ever) I would like to talk to her and introduce myself first, and then maybe just maybe ask for a pic.

After that situation, I realized how much we feel this urge to show others, what we are doing. And we are all guilty of this, posting that story or selfie in hopes of that certain person to view it or like it. But is that really what it has come down to, just this urge that we feel that we need to post? I will admit that I opened snapchat to record her blowing out the candles. Just because I felt like it was the right thing to do not because I really wanted to post that video to my story.

The key thing is, that everyone else around me was.

Our social media presence and activity is so heavily influenced by the people around us. If one cousin posted a picture with their child, another followed in hot pursuit with an even wittier caption. It was like some sick game of follow the leader.

For it is when we are unaware about what is going on around us that we miss the real good stuff. The stuff that cannot be boxed into a snap video or 140 character tweet. You probably and hopefully have a few of those, and I hope that you want to add to your collection of moments that really can’t be explained unless you were there. Truly and fully there.

So my challenge for myself and for the rest of the summer is to take a bit of a back seat on social media. To really invest myself with the people I am with and the things that I am doing.

To channel a little bit of Prince Edwards Island in the 1930s, when the tomatoes were ripe and Babe was up at bat.

sincerely, emma