TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

I have a letterpress print in my house that reads SKY BEFORE SCREEN. And I believe in that adage. I believe that humans need more real experiences in the natural world, and less time in front of computers. If I’m feeling burned out or stressed or sad, I feel better after spending a few hours outside—feeling the grass under my feet, feeling the wind and the sun on my skin. It’s grounding, and it helps me get out of my own head and into my body. It helps me keep things in perspective. 

I’ve done my best to pass these priorities onto my own children, encouraging them to “go outside” when they have free time. I think it’s stuck. My twelve-year-old son doesn’t have any video games and hasn’t asked for them. He’s twelve. He can usually be found playing soccer or wiffleball in a nearby park, or riding bikes with friends.

My daughter is sixteen and definitely loves to watch television and make playlists on her phone, like all teenagers, but she also takes more walks in our neighborhood than anyone else I know. Usually she invites me to join her, and we walk together, talking about what’s going on with each of us, or laughing about old memories or inside jokes. Those walks are usually the best part of my day.

She teases me sometimes for having my phone out on those walks, taking photos of clouds, or using my Merlin bird app to identify the calls of birds I’m hearing. It’s funny—I do prioritize sky over screen, but I use my screen to appreciate the sky. And you’d better believe that my algorithm knows how much I love birds, and trees, and clouds, and poetry. My feed is full of things that FEED me. 

Today’s poem speaks to me because, at its heart, is a deep curiosity about the world—a desire to know more and more. It recognizes that sometimes we can use technology to be more connected to nature, not more disconnected from it.

Hiking Moraine State Park
by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza

I keep seeing dragonflies I don’t know the names for: shimmers
over the marsh. Based on location, iNaturalist suggests

they might have been autumn meadowhawks or eastern amberwings
or shadow darners. The internet doesn’t say what do you know

about anything,  but makes the point anyway. I’m trying 
to pay better attention. My entire adult life, I’ve felt

whatever this is, it can’t last. Lately I fall asleep naming
the birds & trees as if my gratitude might keep them safe, pinned

to the Earth. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t believe that.
The wind’s a hem dragging across a hardwood floor & still, I want

the words & names & so…To help me identify the world
the AI would like access to my eyes, which is to say, my phone’s 

camera. What does an algorithm love if not a cascade
of data & yet no search yields the common name for blur.

"Hiking Moraine State Park" by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza. Used by permission of the poet.