Category Archives: The Temporary & The Enduring

Three-Inch Screens

March on Media:
Part I in an Ongoing Series on the Place of Technology in Our Lives

A few months ago, at a family get-together that took some pains to arrange, I looked around our assembled group and saw just about every single relation staring at the small, glowing screen of a smartphone. They hardly noticed one another, let alone my staring; their attention was held captive by a series of three-inch squares in shifting shades. That family picture has stayed with me since then, although I never snapped it with a digital camera. No electronic copy of it sits anywhere on my laptop or Ipad or Blackberry or e-mail inbox. I simply see it in my mind’s eye and it still saddens me. Continue reading

Sacred Traces

Since fall has finally settled upon us, I’m starting to savor memories of our recent summer vacation – not because I am pining for warmer days, but because summer in Reykjavik, Iceland is very much like autumn here in New York. In the photographs we took this August, I’m standing bundled in a gray scarf and woolen jacket with cheeks ruddy from the wind. The weather tends to get nippy at the edge of the world. My husband and I started planning a trip to Iceland after the two of us watched some footage in a documentary film where the camera panned a desolate graveyard beside a simple country church there. The stark beauty of it was striking. “What an amazing place,” I told my husband. “Let’s go.” Continue reading