Save toilet time

A sacred place

I am a morning poo-er. Like a well-made Swiss clock, I am quite precise in my regularity.

My morning routine. Wait in bed just long enough for my wife to wake first, walk downstairs, and make the coffee. I might need to work on my husbandly duties. She adds the not-bitter Arabica coffee grounds and water to the Keurig machine, hits the flashing blue start button, and the eight cups of coffee slowly drip out. After stumbling down the stairs, I sit in my black leather tufted-back reclining chair. Reading, journaling - - and then it is time.

The path to the bathroom is only 11 steps from my reading chair. Yet in those 11 steps, the choice inevitably presents itself. And that choice, almost a default action, is near to costing me my second to last sacred place. Before I head to the toilet, I grab my phone.

Don’t grab it, Brandon Lee. Resist. 

My last sacred places. The toilet and the shower. It is here, where my phone cannot override my brain. Dominate my thoughts. Consume my attention.

In that brief time on the toilet or in the shower, my mind is most free. Epiphanies, hopes, future adventures, remembering fun moments from previous days. The kind word of a stranger, or how much I enjoyed that lavender latte from Loyal Coffee. The design and construction of the brass shelves holding the potted meandering vine plants that seemed to float above the espresso bar were so simple yet graceful. 

During those minutes my breaths are deep and clean, inhaling and exhaling slowly in the steam from the shower. No option to reach for the tiny computer that never extends beyond one foot of my grasp. And it is a sacred place. My phone cannot be here, so I am free to imagine. Free to be afraid. Free to delight in a memory of my youth. Wonder how it was once possible to eat two BBQ bacon cheeseburgers and a vanilla shake and still keep my slender frame. Free to create a mental list of the fall European destinations once the majority of the tourists have left. Free to imagine how much more content I would be absent from this device.

The toilet is now compromised. It is becoming second nature to take it with me. The near end of one of my two sacred places.

I rise to begin my 11-step walk. I look at my phone resting innocently on the brown rectangular coffee table. The coffee table contains six metal drawers that hold my journal, the books I am reading, and the games UNO and Bananagrams. We used to gather around the kitchen table or on blankets on the front lawn, laugh, compete, and be present with our families and friends. Or, use them as a tool to make new friends. But I don’t see the games, or the books, or the journal that contains my thoughts - I just see my phone.

I reach down to grab my phone and my mind flashes back to yesterday. I was on the toilet, phone in hand, when my youngest daughter called me into the kitchen. A tan grasshopper, about two inches long, is resting on the backdoor screen. Below the grasshopper is an oval-shaped beetle, about 1.5 inches long, tan, with six dark brown stripes on its back. Could this be the Colorado Potato Beetle? My daughter Colette is fascinated by the grasshopper and now notices the beetle. “What are they doing dad? Are they dead? No! Do they want to come inside? Can we let them in?”

I wouldn’t have noticed the grasshopper or the beetle if I was staring down at my screen. I would not have noticed if not for the curiosity of my six-year-old. I already miss so many moments throughout the day, but toilet time can still be a sacred place. 

In that flashback, lasting only seconds, my right hand and fingers still extended, reaching for my phone, I chose a different action. Free will was still possible. 

I think of my kids, still without phones, and how they notice the squirrel running on top of the fence, jumping effortlessly, almost flying, to the large ash tree. I think of the strangers on the Washington DC metro, 20 years ago, and how many spontaneous conversations we had. I remember playing Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders as a kid, sitting in a circle with family and friends, uninterrupted. Remember those times, Brandon Lee. There were so many sacred places because iPhones didn’t exist.

I turned around, walked the 11 steps to the toilet, and sat down. 

Without my phone. 

---

It’s been a few months since this revelation and about 50% of the time, when I walk those 11 steps to the bathroom, I leave my phone on the brown coffee table containing six metal drawers. And that is progress. 

Save toilet time. It is a sacred place.