“Trammeled” is a lovely word and so fitting for these modern times. It’s so soothing to be able to pull some old-fashioned comfort into a world changing so quickly that AI appears to be the answer to a lot of people’s love, parenting, and medical challenges, all things that used to be offline (remember offline? it’s hard, isn’t it, even for old timers like moi). Even just saying “my trammeled life” gives me leeway to slow down a bit, put things in perspective a bit, think about things from the inside out and how they affect me, personally, me, the Total Femme, instead of just hunkering down for the inevitable minute-by-minute barrage.
I have been thinking about the first time I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey and how the guy going into space talked to his daughter and wife on TV. It was so wild and weird and unbelievable! Obviously, it made a huge impression on me. But now… As I may have mentioned here before, it was so much more fun to read about or watch weird future-y things like computers and robots, than it is to live hand to jowl with them now.
My pixie-a-late-bloomers, my screen shot sugars, my jubilant updates-for-your-conveniences, let us pause (oh, for a pause! a healing pause), just for a moment, a momentary pause, to shake it off, all the crawling, mewling, grasping trammel-inducing clamors for your attention, no, your fucking soul, let us pause.
Look around. Rest your eyes on something old, something from before it all, something that has been always offline and still is, thank you, thank you, thank you. For me: my upright piano. Our tablecloth from New Mexico. Vinyl records (round and round and round!). A fountain pen. The cat. The dog.
Now imagine how you might keep just one of them untrammeled.
“As soon as they make us all have tablets, I’m quitting,” a fellow alto two said to me recently as we watched our director poke and fuss at hers.
She and I are untrammeled when we sing from sheet music on which we have scrawled notes and reminders.
I am untrammeled when I walk the dog sans phone, saying hello to other dog walkers, stopping to look in Little Free Libraries, watching his sniffing and purposeful peeing, hanging out with him in his world, as much as that’s even possible with my incredibly stunted sense of smell.
I’m not saying you have to unplug and go hide in a yurt in the woods (although Tex and I fantasize about that quite frequently), just remember a bit, untrammel a bit. Remember who is the boss of you.
Maybe your shoulders and your jaw and your gut will unclench. Maybe you’ll see something that makes you smile. Maybe it will help you next time you’re so stressed by technology that you just don’t know how you’ll go on.
I think untrammeling connects us to each other way more than connecting online. We do lots of that already (you know I would be coming to you in a column in a hearty queer IRL newspaper if I only could!). In person, people!
See you in the park.
See you at the concert.
See you!
* “something impeding activity, progress, or freedom as if by a net or a shackle” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, my emphasis
Many a Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.
Do you have a meditation to share? I would love to welcome you here! Email me at: thetotalfemme@gmail.com
The Total Femme 