Chapter 2: In the Glow of Quiet Things

A few weeks ago, I could barely use my hands.

The pain had crept in slowly at first—an ache in my thumbs, a stiffness in my wrists—but that day it stopped me cold. At my StretchLab appointment, I asked Jake my therapist what he thought, and he asked me to hold up my phone. I did.

“There’s your answer,” he said gently. “It’s not just your hands. It’s the way you’re holding everything. You’re scrolling too much. Texting too much. Always curled around that screen.”

And he was right.

So I took a break. I didn’t make any grand declarations. I just… let myself step away. And what I found in that space was something I hadn’t known I was missing.

Peace. Stillness. The rhythm of my own breath.

I sat in the garden. I read an actual book—with pages I could touch and turn. I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I read without some kind of interruption: a ping from the New York Times, a message alert, a calendar notification. It had been years, truly, since I read anything without a chime pulling me back into the noise.

I don’t mean to say I’m leaving technology behind. I’m not. I love connection. I’ve been on the internet since the old MIRC days—when chats moved at the pace of dial-up and I was amazed just to send a sentence across the world.

But lately, the speed and volume of it all has been exhausting. The constant stream of opinions, updates, and algorithmic distractions—it’s too much. And I don’t think we were made for this kind of overstimulation.

So I’ve been returning to something older, something slower. And in doing so, I’ve found myself longing for more intimate spaces—for fireside circles and kitchen tables. For storytelling. For what feels real.

That’s what this chapter is about.

It’s about reclaiming the spaces that nourish us.

It’s about tuning out the noise so we can tune into each other.

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