Now here’s a concept: “I am here” days

I love the spirit behind an article in the New York Times, ostensibly about “Exploring Red Hook, Brooklyn, Unplugged and with Friends.” The writer and his wife started to explore a section of the city on weekend days, and used the opportunity to unplug. Soon their friends joined in:

They joined us in what grew into a kind of anti-modern communal experiment: giving our gadgets a secular Sabbath; reveling in friendship and conversation of a kind that Facebook doesn’t do; being thickly in one place, not thinly everywhere. We began to call them “I am here” days.

I love that phrase “thickly in one place, not thinly everywhere.” More and more, I long to return to — to seek out — those experiences where you’re “thickly in one place” (that is, when you’re trying to have one experience, and not many). Running does that for me, or a long, wandering walk in the city, but so does playing poker, writing fiction, cooking, being in the pool with the kids. It’s an antidote to distracted living.