Every year, many of my family friends get together and go to a cottage for a few days over the summer. The first few times we went, we ended up in areas without cell service and Wi-Fi, but we weren’t as big on electronics back then anyway, so it didn’t make much of a difference. Still, I remember those times as carefree — when we were too busy playing outside and spending time with each other to be worried about whether or not we were missing out on something else. This year, I thought we could try simulating that experience again by all agreeing not to use our electronics (to an extent — right before bed and right after waking up were allowed) so that we could focus on each other away from the little blue screens.

I reminded everyone that the time together we had was precious since nowadays most of us only saw each other for those few days a year. I was pleasantly surprised when people readily agreed to the idea — it was only three days, which seemed reasonable. There was nostalgic enthusiasm all around as people got excited at the idea of spending uninterrupted time together, and the results I observed were astounding.

The first night, we had a spontaneous ukulele singalong session, singing everything from "Taylor the Latte Boy" to "Riptide" while simultaneously doing cool hairdos on each other. Later, we were sorted into teams named after the Hogwarts Houses and ran around the entire house solving clues for an incredible treasure hunt organized by some of the adults. We sat around the hot tub having deep conversations and challenged each other to do crazy things in the pool. We surprise serenaded the adults by singing "Edelweiss" from the top of the stairs. We managed to get every kid and many of the adults to secretly paint quilt squares to put together as a surprise gift for the first kid to graduate college in our group. We played badminton poorly and then even more poorly when we decided each shot had to be a trick shot. We played Dictionary (a game where you make up fake definitions for obscure real words and try to figure out which definition is the correct one) for hours and tried to describe super complex specific feelings.

We talked about the violence our world is enduring right now. We laughed together, cried together and bonded more than ever. We have done many of these things individually in the past, but it was amazing to see it all happen together in the span of just three days.

Unplugging in order to be more present in the moment was incredible, and I’m excited to keep actively doing it.