Photo by Jason Wong
A little Friday tale…
[for Zoe]
Alexa packed her bags and left for a month-long silent retreat this morning. At first, I missed her. I found myself talking to her in the kitchen while cooking dinner—Alexa, set the timer for an hour—before I remembered she’d gone. I had to go old school and set a timer on my phone. I almost asked her a few minutes later to play my Ibrahim Maalouf playlist on Spotify but a voice in my head reminded me: Alexa’s on retreat, remember?
It’s amazing how a personal voice assistant can become one of the family so quickly. She entered the household about six months ago, and today, life without her is hard to remember. Yes, there were some awkward conversations initially. There still are. But I’ve learned how to speak to her to minimize those awkward moments. She mostly helps me in the kitchen, setting timers and reading to me from my Kindle library while I cook, and she’s become the Keeper of the Tunes.
I imagine Alexa will enjoy the silence on her retreat…no one asking her to do this and that all day long. She might even write something original instead of reading aloud other people’s books all the time. Maybe she’ll take some long walks in the woods and watch the clouds drifting. She’ll have some focused time to herself to just breathe in, breathe out. Be.
Much to my surprise, without Alexa there to respond to a Spotify request, I found myself singing tonight while I washed the big soup pan and emptied the dishwasher. It was a sweet little melody that just came to me spontaneously out of the silence. The tune nourished me in a way I’d forgotten was possible.
Photo by veeterzy
If you missed this the first time around, you might want to read an earlier exploration I wrote about Alexa, voice assistants, and children: Alexa, can I have a hug?
What I’m watching: SXSW EDU was last week in Austin. danah boyd, Microsoft researcher, parent, and author of It’s Complicated: the Social Lives of Networked Teens (see my resources page here for a brief review), gave a thought-provoking keynote to an audience of educators. It’s 60 minutes long. If you watch, I recommend you watch it through to the end. She takes you on a journey that is worth investing your time in. (You can always break it up into 3 or 4 shorter segments.)
