Tommia's Tablet

by Tommia Wright

When they say “No man’s an island,” it is amazing that in the ‘world-wide-webbed,’ and ‘overly-wired-world’ of ‘constant connectiveness’ that in this day and age, people don’t seem to see one another anymore. In walking down the street or through the multi-leveled malls, very few people talk with one another, discussing what’s new in their lives, or observing the day-to-day routines around them of shopkeepers preparing storefronts, of baristas, bakers and cooks preparing the orders to go, etc.

More than half of them walked by with an ‘ipad’ this or pda that, blackberry, bluetooth, smart-phone, laptop…In the cacophony of cellular conversation,  snippets of snapped retorts, shouted remarks, sarcastic suggestions, it makes one wonder if the same delivery would be made face-to-face. This isn’t to dismiss the benefits of technology or telephones and email or such – it does allow one to reach out to friends, family, associates further away. Yet is humanity destined to be ‘wired’ this way, in looking at pixels instead of pupils, in speaking technological shorthand instead of the basic, handshake?

Riverside on a fall day - by Tommia Wright

So now that the stumbling, fumbling and slow tumbling of figuring out the toggles that boggle this mind about blogs, time to look at things through a new light.

Why do I write? What words formed by the dots may not always be right, but a day isn’t complete unless something’s brought to light. In this case, the challenge of music, changing seasons and rivers flowing by.

What is it about Holst’s recording of the Planets that is so moving and powerful that a key piece was used for Carl Sagan’s Cosmos? Is it in the illustration through instrumentation that illuminates the infinite possibilities in the skies above and beyond us? Is it how the bass can beat steadily like our own hearts, or the playfulness of the strings and horns that remind us of children at play? Listen to Mercury – the Winged Messenger and it is easy to see a group of children playing outdoors in the park on a sunny – or in this part of the region, a typical, overcast day.

A few of us couldn’t help but marvel at the sight of last night’s full moon, the way it glowed in its own right with hues and tinges of yellow and orange. A couple of us wished we had a camera to capture the moment, the mystique, the magnificant sight. Imagine our surprise when one passerby took less than a second’s glance and shrugged. Is it because such beauty by day- or moonlight is taken for granted or that just the notion of getting through the day’s routine has dulled the senses to all that surround us? True, what time we have here, in this town, in this state, on this planet may not be long – it could be shorter or longer than we think – but it is important to remember that throughout the various stages of light (as Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity gives way to Saturn, Bringer of Old Age), that the world is more than what we see and hear and yet the most precious treasures lie just beyond or buried within what we see and hear.

I had cursed the idea of ‘web logging’ as an unneccesary item of time lost in front of technology until someone dared me and others encouraged me. It was more of the latter that has encouraged me to do something this insane.

Tommia’s Tablet is a collection of photography and prose, poetry and ponderings. 2011 is the Year of the Pen!