During this last month I have twice sat in waiting rooms and twice I have seen others waiting with (drum roll) books in hand, hardback books! And they have read while waiting. I had just about abandoned that image as I see people focusing on phones or tablets in all public places.
Two people with books. I no longer felt weird.
This is, of course, an old fogey attitude, but I like long sentences and paragraphs, even a new word now and then – like shambolic – that took a lot of thought before turning to the OED via Google. Decades of habit forming, I know.
But now and then I do read a factoid while wrestling with my phone to do something simple like dial a number. Recently I found that hugs between humans adds to the general health of both. And that between 8 and 15 hugs a day even an apple couldn’t equal.
Eureka Springs has allowed, perhaps forced, me into this medication. I am not a hugging person by nature or nurture. Scandinavian farm people spend more emotion on their farm animals – they know the animals need kindness and care to thrive – than on their children who they trust will be independent and strong. Trust feels healthy too, but in a different way.
In Eureka Springs, people hug, and I had to learn that. Not a handshake, no matter how strong, but a hug with both arms and drawn into the body. Eurekans do this a lot: grocery store, bank, post office, wherever we come across people we know, we hug. There is no place that doesn’t glow in an extrasensory manner because of the friendliness and ease of people looking each other in the eyes while talking, and end with a hug.
I find this all very satisfying, a good place to ease through my nineties as my movements slow down and the number of aching joints speeds up. I may yet join the IT people to appreciate pieces of information cut smaller and smaller, like pancakes on my breakfast plate, but as long as print remains large enough for these old eyes to see, I’ll prefer the long sentences and the health that comes with the next hug.
I don’t need a “selfie” to know I exist. I may never stop fighting with cellphone-it is. I love the post office that brings me letters and some time to think before I answer. And a hug to increase the pleasure of any day.
I like being an old fogey.
Marie Howard