I’ve been disconnected from the internet last night and today and it’s an eerie feeling.

Not like when you are on a trip where you are doing things outside of your ordinary routine and don’t miss the computer. But to be within your routine--and disconnected. I feel like a single nerve cell--and what’s the point of a single nerve cell? A nerve cell disconnected from other nerve cells, disconnected from sensory input or motor output--disconnected from the brain--the master collection of individuals and information hooked up online at any given time.

My one nerve cell just ticking alone today.

This is one of the most tremendous changes of the last century--how even when alone, we with our internet and cell phones and text messaging are no longer truly alone ever--unless we so choose.

There are few in their teens and early 20s so choosing. Few interested in the kind of aloneness where there are no electronics. In the kind of aloneness where if you are still, you might experience that great connectedness to all things. That connectedness that requires no technology.

Well. How I got so disconnected today is the phone is on the blink again (thus no internet). The strange phone problem leading to two more sheriff visits like the one in December because of false 911 calls--ah, technology--one at 2 in the morning!

When the doorbell first rang I woke up--but wasn’t sure I’d heard a doorbell or dreamed it, so looked to the cat for a clue. Her ears were not on alert, her fur was not on end--so I assumed--no doorbell.

Until it rang forcefully 3 times accompanied by loud banging on the door.

What’s with this cat? I’ve always relied on superior feline hearing and sensitivity to give me clues when something’s awry. This our only pet now apparently thought a stranger at the door at 2 AM is not awry.

And early this morning, was it Jupiter hanging with the waning crescent moon? Such a brilliant pair in--yes--again a clear sky--though Austin did get nearly a third of an inch of rain yesterday--what a stange and lovely unfamiliar experience that rain was--

Then there was the phone call from a neighbor boy--his cell to my cell. He was out of gas on Fitzhugh Road. And then the subsequent rescue. Ah, to be needed.

And the arrival of another sheriff--this one a blonde gal-- responding to another false 911 call.

And there are birds at 2 PM all over the oaks and feeders right now: Chipping Sparrows and Cardinals, and a Carolina Chickadee, and a Bewick’s Wren, and a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, and a single American Goldfinch, and a species I don’t recognize--I must look it up--and Tufted Titmice. All at one time. And earlier there were Blue Jays as well.

Perhaps the new visitor was a Lincoln’s Sparrow.

How can I feel disconnected?

And now they are all gone, not a single bird, and the cat asleep with her back to me.

They’ve all gone offline.