Would You Go Back to 1995?

Choosing to bring back into my life more silence and genuine connection, and less distraction and alert status.

I like change. My favorite season is the time between seasons. The transitions. The remnants of one season and the beginning of another. There's so much energy and magic in that between time.

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

The energy of new beginnings is all around right now. A new moon. New plants sprouting and budding. A mama Eastern Cottontail Rabbit has even built a form (a nest-like cavity on the surface of the ground lined with grass and loose fur) in our garlic bed, awaiting the arrival of new life.

The winter season seems to be holding on to me for a bit longer than I am accustomed. I still feel the need to go slow and steady for just a bit longer. May be it is all the grey days and rain. May be it is something inside me signaling that it just needs a bit more time to germinate.

I become unsettled when things become stagnant. I've been known to cause trouble just to move that energy; especially, in the Spring after being sedentary and reflective during winter. Probably not the best recourse, but it has worked in the past. I need my energy to move and flow and change.

I’ve recently learned that both of our kids love Easter. They proclaimed, independently, the other day, that it is one of their favorite holidays. They each have their own reasons - candy and peeps for one, all the colors and bunnies for the other. I suspect they also like the increasing Spring energy and sunshine.

For me, the holiday is all about change. The energy around birth, letting go, and rebirth. The questions being churned over and over again in my mind right now are: What am I birthing in this new Spring; what am I letting go of that no longer serves me; and, what am I re-birthing, bringing back to life?

I should clarify a bit before going forward. I do like change, but there are different types of change and some I like more than others.

I like change but there’s been so much change in the last 30-years. I know, that's almost a trite thing to say…almost. Of course there’s been change over three decades. It’s just, the rate of change feels so much faster than when I was a kid.

I should clarify a bit before going forward. I do like change, but there are different types of change and some I like more than others.

There’s adaptive change. These are the changes that come with living. They feel incremental. I’m not talking about adaptive challenges, adaptive change, and the six principles for leading adaptive work in an organizational and leadership context as described by Heifetz and Laurie in 1997 (See the Harvard Business Review if this speaks to you.) I’m talking about the adaptations that come with daily life. The resourcefulness and quick thinking that comes from living and dealing with anything, and everything, that arises in a day.

A sick kid requires shifting my day to pick him up and bring him home. Crossing a busy street and a bike courier comes racing towards me; I need to step aside to avoid being hit. The dog barking dramatically at the front door because a neighbor has dared to approach the house.

And, yet, this means I am constantly on alert status, whether I recognize it or not. These alerts would stress me out. I’d feel my pulse race and anxiousness rise. I resented those alerts; I had plans, after all. My yoga and breath work practices help me to manage an alert so that I am able to be in the relaxation response, rather than the stress response, while adapting to the situation. I have become so accustomed to these changes and managing my response to them, that nowadays, I sometimes forget they are changes. I simply adapt to whatever the change requires.

Then, there is transformational change. This is the one that brings a dramatic change to a basic structure of one’s life. They are often sudden, and usually quite dramatic. They transform life. My dear friend is a young adult fiction writer and a teacher. When talking with young writers in her classes she refers to these transformational changes as pivotal moments - the moment when everything changes.

When my father had his first stroke everything changed. I got a job teaching in a high school. My sister and I moved home to help. My mom and sister took on the lion’s share of the care and support. I was unprepared and ill-equipped for the situation. It became the journey and learning that has led to everything since then. That was a transformational change for me.

Transformational changes have dramatic impacts in my life. They don’t happen as often as adaptive, which is good because they seem to require time and discomfort.

Then, there’s planned change. If adaptive and transformational are at opposite ends of the spectrum, planned change falls in-between. These are the changes that are fairly predictable. Deliberate, the act of making a choice, usually towards a desirable outcome. This type of change involves seeing a need, identifying a goal, making a plan, and then implementation. Some of the planned changes we’ve made as a family include: working intentionally with the seasons; eating whole foods, (mostly) plant-based; implementing our own variation on older seasonal celebrations and festivals; scratch cooking and food preservation; minimizing possessions.

Planned change is the change that excites me! It means I get to research, and brainstorm, and dream, and organize information, and do something new. It also means that once implemented I can simply enjoy the new <fill in the blank> for a bit.

Were Technology Changes a Transformative Change in My Life?

When I think about how technology changes in my life felt over the last 30-years, it felt incremental, not transformational. I even felt in control of each choice. Was I?

1995: House phone with call waiting and an answering machine. Pay phones when out and about. Changing radio stations to find just the right song and making mix tapes. Knowing the date and time of a favorite television show so it wasn’t missed. Mail order shopping by telephone and actually having to speak with a person!

Life before smart phones, streaming music, and streaming television. Life before online shopping and smart watches. I was teaching and none of us had computers in our classrooms yet. I had no idea how many steps I was walking and respirations I was taking. There was silence. There was day dreaming. I know it sounds like I am romanticizing that time but there was something innately less media-noise-information-cluttered than now.

I purchased my first personal laptop computer in 1995. This was the same year I received my first cellphone as a gift. One day driving home from work I was on the interstate and my car was hit by a log. It had fallen off a truck and came hurling at me. After it hit, I was stuck. I sat on the side of the road for hours waiting for a police officer or emergency services truck to stop and help. I had no other option (it was unsafe to walk down the interstate to find a ramp to walk down, and then there was no place to go for a pay phone). My boyfriend at the time decided that since I was driving on the highway so much I should have a cell phone “just in case.” I resisted, vehemently, even with my experience with the log. It was big and felt extravagant. I finally accepted it and I’ve had one since then.

My first cell phone, 1995

"What if instead of going all-in on mobile technology in the early 2000s, we just hadn’t?" -Jaron Lanier

There’s a New York Times opinion piece that has stuck with me since I first read it in 2019: The Land Where the Internet Ends by Jaron Lanier.

This piece was about life inside the National Radio Quiet Zone - 13,000 square miles with few cell towers or transmitters. The town, Green Bank, West Virginia, has the strictest ban on technology in the USA - no cell phones, microwaves, or any other device that generates electromagnetic signals. The ban exists to protect the Green Bank Observatory's radio telescopes. The author raises the question: "What if instead of going all-in on mobile technology in the early 2000s, we just hadn’t?"

By the time I finished this article, I was wondering, why did we? Why did we so easily make that leap? Why did we welcome technology with open arms? Why didn't we stop and consider all we stood to lose, or at best, stood to change? How did this change happen so seamlessly and quickly? And, now, why are we not trying to get any of that back?

By the way, there’s a book out about Green Bank, West Virginia entitled: The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence by Stephen Kurczy. I haven’t read it yet, but its on my short list.

I still think about this article often, but the pronoun has changed from we to I - why did I? Why did I so easily make that leap? Why did I welcome technology with open arms? Why didn't I stop and consider all I stood to lose, or at best, stood to change? Why am I not trying to get any of that back?

The personal laptop computer was a transformational change for me. It brought dramatic change to the structure of my life. As the computer became smaller, DVDs, Walkmans/Discmans, and handheld PCs came along. It was all about portability, ease, and individual access. It was new and exciting. And, I was caught up in the energy around it. My first personal laptop computer went with me everywhere — to work, to the library, on trips. I shared with my parents how it made life easier. I was hooked, and I became an early adopter of all of the ways I could use the computer in the classroom.

Unlike other transformational change in my life, it was slow, steady, and painless. But it was transformational, it was a pivotal moment. It changed how I worked, and when and where I worked. It changed the daily rhythm of my life. Finishing a day of work and going home to work some more became reality.

Over the years, the technology behind the personal laptop computer has continuously been modified into new products which gives the impression that it is continuing to change. Well, it is changing, but it is no longer transformational. The transformational change already happened for me years ago with my first laptop.

As it turns out, there is much discussion about whether we are living in times of rapid change or not. A couple ideas that are particularly interesting to me are:

• Jonathan Huebner's article (2005), A possible declining trend for worldwide innovation, concluded that “the rate of innovation peaked in the year 1873 and is now rapidly declining.”

• Donncha Kavanagh, Geoff Lightfoot, Simon Lilley (2021), Are we living in a time of particularly rapid social change? And how might we know? concluded that “a wide range of indicators suggest that millennial Americans are not living in a time of particularly rapid social change, at least not when compared to the period 1900–1950.” It’s their very last sentence that really strikes a chord with me: “there is so much talk of us living in a period of rapid and unprecedented change when perhaps the truth is that others have lived in more interesting and eventful times.”

• Robert Gordon (2017) in The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War suggests that, “After the transition year of 1970 innovation no longer altered all aspects of human activity as had the earlier great inventions. Rather, it became more narrowly focused on the digital revolution that introduced mainframe computers and subsequently personal computers and the Internet. By 2006 most of the digital transformation…had already occurred, and today we are using desktop and laptop computers hooked up to the Internet in much the same way as we did back in 2006.”

• Wade Roush (2019) Despite What You Might Think, Major Technological Changes Are Coming More Slowly Than They Once Did, points out, “That's how fast technology advanced in the 20th century. One man, Lindbergh, could be the living link between the pilot of the first powered flight [Orville Wright, 1903] and the commander of the first mission to another world [Neil Armstrong, 1969]. In our century, for better or worse, progress isn't what it used to be.”

Whether we are or aren’t living in times of rapid change isn’t really the question. It’s pondering that question takes me some place interesting.

Here’s the thing, if we aren’t living in rapidly changing times, and we aren’t just caught up in an uncontrollable fast flow of change and innovation, then we still have choice. Choice, well, that’s where my individual power lives.

Would I go back to 1995?

I’ve been re-listening to Forest 404, which I first listened to in 2019. Forest 404 takes the listener through a deep time thought experiment to lead the listener to their own answer to the central question: “What are we willing to lose, and who are we willing to become?” It’s a chance to use one’s imagination to envision the world in the 24th century based upon choices made now. [If using imagination in this way is interesting to you, I suggest 2 resources to check out: (1) Phoebe Tickell’s Substack especially her post: Imagination Activism (2) Work that Reconnects Network based on the work of Joanna Macy, PhD.)

Forest 404 is set in the 24th Century in a world where forests, and all of nature, have been erased from history, There are nine episodes that include the story, a talk, and a soundscape. It is an immersive sci-fi thriller that raises the question: Can you feel loss for something you have never known? From the BBC: "Forest 404 is set in the 24th century, after a data crash called The Cataclysm. Pan, our protagonist, is a young woman with a boring job sorting and deleting old sound files that survived the crash. She uncovers a set of sound recordings from the early 21st century that haunt her. There are recordings of rainforests – places which no longer exist – and Pan feels compelled to hunt down the truth about how the forests of the old world died. All the time she is pursued by the agents of the new world’s ruling powers.”

By the time I finished all nine episodes I found myself pondering how to prevent the same catastrophe, and more intently, how would I respond if this was my world?

I can’t imagine a world like the one in Forest 404 — a world without trees, birds, water, etc. But we are so clearly on the path to just that. In 2018, we learned of the death of the last white rhino. While visiting Nature—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City, I saw The Substitute, an installation by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. In this installation, Ginsberg digitally resurrected the extinct male Northern white rhino using artificial intelligence and state-of-the-art visual effects. I was able to watch the rhino emerge and then move throughout it’s virtual environment. I remember the ear twitching as it looked at me. The installation can be viewed on Ginsberg’s studio website. “Scientists are seeking to resurrect the species from the brink of extinction using genetic engineering and surrogate gestation. But as Ginsberg points out, the survival of the species will depend on social, not genetic, engineering. The project is a commentary on the human preoccupation with creating new life forms while neglecting existing ones.”

Is this our future?

Would I go back to 1995? No, but…….

No, I don’t want to go back to 1995 but I also don’t want to continue on a path towards a future where neglecting our relationship right now with Mother Earth and the more than humans results in a world where the only way to know a forest is from a recording or a white rhino is from AI.

I don’t want to go back to 1995, but I want to live my life in a way that respects all who live on this beautiful planet and ensures a thriving Mother Earth for future generations of humans and more than humans.

I don’t want to go back to 1995, but I want to remember what it felt like to not have a digital footprint that connected to e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e in an instant, all of their thoughts, feelings, images, and experiences.

I don’t want to go back to 1995 because I have choice, right now, in 2025. I can make the choice to bring back in to my life more silence and genuine connection, and less distraction and alert status. To feel the interconnection amongst our community and this amazing Earth. To continue to connect with nature and to lessen our families impact on the Earth.

I confess: We don’t have a microwave. We line dry our clothes. We can and ferment fruits and veggies. We bake from scratch. We shop ethically, and reuse, recycle, and reduce. But, I do love how all of the family can have one digital calendar to keep us all on the same schedule. And, I do love being able to text our youngest to let him know if I am running late for after school pick up. I can choose to choose what is working for me and what’s not.

I’m feeling the nudge to let go of practices that aren’t serving me right now. Back in March I shared that I was taking a break from Instagram and social media. I don’t want to add to the noise for somebody else and I don’t like how the noise feels inside of me. It has been a wonderful change so far, and I’ve realized along the way that there are more choices like that for me to make.

• I put away my Garmin watch and have returned to my analog watch.

• I’ve depersonalized my phone and updated my restrictions.

• I’m deleting apps on my phone and keeping only the ones I need access to on the go (and that’s not many of them).

• I always carry a book and a notebook and pen with me, but I’ve also added a craft so that I always have options rather than scrolling on my phone.

• I’m enjoying listening to music on CDs and watching movies/shows on DVDs rather than always needing WiFi or streaming services.

• I’m limiting my smartphone use to an aggregate of 2.5 hours a day. I have a dear friend who has limited his usage to 90-minutes, and I find that so admirable. I thought long and hard about 90-minutes and realized it was not practical for my life, right now. Our kids need to be able to reach me when plans change. However, it’s interesting, on most days I find myself coming in under 2 hours.

Nature is our greatest teacher. Our family will continue to carve out opportunities for silence, no tech, daydreaming, crafting and making, reading and writing, and exploring nature. All of these are opportunities to refresh the internal flame and listen to the wisdom of wildness.

Would you go back to 1995?

5 Notes

Five final notes on what I’m celebrating, collecting, doing, planting, and practicing in yoga.

• Celebrating: Earth Day. Earth Day celebrates the beginning of the modern environmental movement in 1970. 1970 saw:

  • creation of the EPA,

  • passage of the National Environmental Education Act,

  • passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act,

  • passage of the Clean Air Act,

  • two years later, passage of the Clean Water Act,

  • one year later passage of the Endangered Species Act,

  • and then the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

  I remember the Earth Day 1995 observances in Washington, DC for, the 25th anniversary. It was amazing. The weather was beautiful and there were so many people on the mall celebrating together. So many speakers, exhibits, vendors, and great music. So much hope and so much energy. The celebration can be viewed at Earth Day 25th Anniversary Rally.

  My own understanding of what it means to support the Earth has evolved so much since then. It has shifted from humans as protectors and change agents to the need to pay attention and integration. On a regular basis humans make decisions that negatively impact the rest of our Earth community and generations into the future. And, then we act as though we are higher beings than all others and can "save" the Earth.  Its not about taking action to make myself feel better about my impact. Its not about taking action to "save" something else. Its not about protecting resources so that we have them in the future. We fail to see our place in the web of life, that we are a part of an interconnected community. It is about paying attention to the details, nuances, messages, and teachings all around us. It is about respecting all of the more than humans. And, it is about living in a way that is harmonious, loving, and in service to Mother Earth.

  Gardening and working with the soil, growing my own vegetables and cutting flowers, restoring native plants to my little patch of the Earth are ways that I practice my expanded understanding of supporting the Earth. The air, water, soil, seeds, remind me that humans are a part of nature, to pay attention to the obvious and to what is underneath, and that how I live can be my own act of resistance and activism. So, this Earth Day I will do the things I do - practice attention, integration, connection, respect, and love in the place where I live.

  Today more than a billion people around the world celebrate Earth Day, April 22nd, as a day of action. 52 ways to celebrate Earth Day every day can be found here.

• Collecting: My Kashubian ancestors believed in the power of Easter water.  “The water of the jasava ô (North-Easter) at midnight gains the most magical power, and loses it with the sunrise. This ritual took place either at midnight on Easter Saturday, or early morning on Easter itself, while maintaining complete silence and seriousness. This magic water, which was attributed to everlasting freshness, was also brought home, where it was used for women for cosmetic purposes. It happened that even horses and cattle were rushed to the water at night in Jastra (Easter) for alleged protection against diseases.” - Ritual Year in Kashuby by Longin Malicki. Under the light of the Easter Saturday moon, before sunrise, they took a purifying bath in rivers and streams.

  I’ll be collecting moon water this month. Moon water can be collected at any phase depending on the intention. For example, a new moon is good for transformations, a full moon is good for celebrations and release.

  There are lots of directions that can be found on the internet about moon water and ways to use it if you want to take a deep dive into it. My process is to gather rain water (or fresh spring water, river water, sea water) in a mason jar (bottle, or bowl). Place the jar outside where the moonlight will be able to reach it. Yes, even on a cloudy night the moonlight will still be there. Bring the jar in by morning well before the sun rises. Sometimes I decant it into smaller jars and sometimes I save it in the mason jar. The moon water can then be used in rituals, baths, sainings, or spritzs. I’ll be using some of it in a homemade bath salt blend I am using on the new moon this month.  

  Sometimes I add essential oils and/or herbs to my water before I place it outside. If I am including oils and herbs I include ones that support my intention. For example, rose to open my heart, rosemary for my memory, lavender to release tension, etc. 

• Doing: I’ll be watching the sky this month.

  April 13, the first full Moon of spring goes by many names: Pink, Sprouting Grass, Egg, or Fish Moon; the Pesach, Paschal, or Passover Moon; the Hanuman Jayanti Festival Moon; and Bak Poya. This month it is a micromoon because it is at its farthest from the Earth in its orbit.

  April 21-22 is the Lyrids Meteor Shower. It averages about 10 to 15, with peak being 18, meteors per hour, although there can be as many as 100, according to NASA.

  About 30 minutes before sunrise on April 25th the waning crescent moon will create a triangle with the Venus and Saturn, and will create what looks like a smile. This may be a folk tale but I am usually up before sunrise and outside with Augie (dog) before sunrise, so we’ll see.

  New moon on April 27th. It’s the 3rd of 5 new supermoons in a row for 2025. It will be the closest new supermoon for 2025. You may be saying to yourself, wait how can a new moon be a supermoon when we can’t see it. Well, the world doesn’t revolve around us so whether or not we see the supermoon doesn’t matter, it still exists. A supermoon occurs when the Moon is at or near its closest approach to Earth in its orbit. On April 27th the Moon is both (1) at its closest point to Earth, and (2) in the new moon phase, which means the far side of the Moon is facing the Sun, away from us, and that is where it is illuminated. Thus, its a super new moon even though we can’t see it. And, all of that energy of the new moon is still there.

  New moons are a great time to focus on transformation, planting seeds for new personal growth. I will be lighting a candle and taking a ritual bath that night to support my new personal growth intentions. Ritual bath's were part of my ancestors celebrations at various times of the year and I have been gradually adding them into my practices.

  Here's my process: A green candle will be set on the windowsill near my bath. Green represents sowing seeds and growth. I will write my intentions on a small piece of paper and fold it three times. I will light my candle and set fire to the piece of paper.

  The candle will then burn while I take a hot bath using a homemade bath salt blend that includes: sea salt, pine (Pinus spp.) needles, juniper (Juniperus spp.) berries, violets (Viola spp.), cedarwood (Juniperus virginiana) essential oil, fir (Abies balsamea) essential oil, and a splash of new moon water collected during the last new moon. After the candle burns out I will bury the residue by the Juniper tree in my garden.

  These plant allies are a nod to my ancestors as well as supportive of emotions, relaxation, forgiveness, self-acceptance, and grounding. To learn more about these herbs, visit  The Herbrarium.

• Planting: American Plum Trees. When I was little we had apple trees and a pear tree in our backyard. I loved being able to go outside and pick an apple or pear right off of the tree. Those trees have not been with us for a while, so I have been slowly adding edible fruits. We tried blueberries at one point, but they didn’t survive a flood event. We have a fig, recently planted raspberries, and now we will have plums. I’m so excited!

• Yoga: As I mentioned above, this season is full of the energy around birth, letting go, and rebirth. The questions being churned over and over again in my mind right now are: What am I birthing in this new Spring; what am I letting go of that no longer serves me; and, what am I re-birthing, bringing back to life? My yoga practice right now is about creating conditions to engage with the energy of Spring and the energy of Earth. It’s a time for me to practice attention, integration, connection, respect, and love in the place where I live. My practice right now, looks like this: