Death of an Internet Connection
'Til Wi-Fi Do Us Part
Photo by Danny Meneses from Pexels
When my partner and I moved to Puerto Rico, we were excited about starting anew. We were especially excited about setting up our humble abode—a small cottage two blocks from the beach. It’s our first real place together, so everything seemed fun: outfitting our kitchen, choosing bedsheets, hanging up hammocks and artwork and photographs.
A new house is a blank slate onto which we can hang our hopes and dreams. A new house holds all the possibilities of the ideal version of our life.
And so, with my insistence, my husband and I decided to keep our new house internet-free. Back in Miami, Norbert had worked from home, which meant that work was always a few steps away. In San Juan, he was going to have an office where he could, in theory, leave work at the office.
When I’d been a grad student completing my MFA, I’d kept my home internet-free (and wrote about the experience for The Washington Post). Without internet to distract me, I found that my productivity sky-rocketed, and my general happiness level was also higher. I had an office at the university where I could scroll and browse to my heart’s delight, but home was my sanctuary. I also didn’t have a smartphone at the time, so I was truly internet-free in a way that’s impossible now that I own a handheld computer that also occasionally (but rarely) makes phone calls.
Ever since my blissful, internet-free grad school years, I’ve longed for that simplicity. But, having hitched my wagon to a software developer means that the internet is not something we can live without.
So, we came up with this solution. Internet-free house, internet-full office.
The set-up works great for me. I walk to a nearby café once a day to check my emails and dive into black holes like the history of traditional midwifery in the Caribbean islands.
I’ve developed a two-computer system. There’s the laptop I take out into the world, to check emails and fall into internet rabbit holes; that’s the one that’s got three browsers open, each with a minimum of thirty-five tabs open. (I have a problem.) Then there’s the laptop that I keep at home, that never feels the thrill of an internet connection, that I use purely for the creative pursuit of writing. It definitely helps that this laptop is so old, it cannot be unplugged for a second without dying and it weighs about a ton. There’s nothing mobile about it. Anyway, I’ve found it immensely helpful to keep these two worlds separate: creative and business, internet-free and tab mania.
Like I said, the system works for me. My home is an internet-free sanctuary—only slightly sullied by the presence and constant connectivity of my smartphone.
The only, tiny problem is that… I rarely see my husband. In his field doing…computer stuff? he has a reliance on the world wide web that I don’t share. The internet is a tool that use for my work—connecting with editors and writers, submitting my work, etc.—but I don’t do my actual work on the internet. In fact, being on the web is a hindrance for my creative work. On the other hand, Norbert needs an internet connection to do his work (which he also claims is creative, in its own way). The programs he develops exist on networks where other developers can also access them. Internet is more than a tool for him; it’s the medium.
I’m not sure how we’re going to solve this strange quandary, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something. Leave it up to the software developer…
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