The Internet is coming

I've been waiting for years. Why am I so sad?

The only glamour shot I have of our satellite dish

For almost 10 years, our internet has been a joke.

When we moved to the farm from San Francisco, we didn’t fully process that satellite internet would be our only option and that our current cell phone provider would be unusable. We switched cell phones, tried tethering, tried a service magnifier, tried upgrading upgrading upgrading. We bought a DVD player and received everyone’s throwaway DVD collections including, but not limited to, Bjork’s full filmography.

Friends visited us, asked for the wifi password. We’d give it to them, watch as they realized that no, we weren’t joking—our internet really fucking sucked.

We had kids, started attempting to stream movies for them on Friday nights. They grew accustomed to watching movies in pixelated washes of color. Whenever they have a chance to watch a show in high def—say, in an Airbnb on vacation—they periodically emit small gasps and delighted cries at the vividness of the image.

My husband and I like technology and shows and films. At one point, in a previous life, I even had a membership to the Criterion Collection. We rely on technology to pay the bills—we are both remote workers, and have been for a long time. We are constantly balancing our cellphones in windows to catch a fleeting bar of service with which to do our Zoom calls. Our coworkers are so patient with our delays, our drops, our apologies. It’s stressful and inconvenient. When I have big, important work meetings I call in favors to friends. Can I sit in your mudroom and use your internet?

We found our way of dealing with it. But then, several years ago, we heard the internet was coming to “rural America.” This is it, we said. We saw the trucks stringing up the cables to the right of our house, and the left. One by one our neighbors were connected. But we, in our house buffered by 100+ acres of uninhabited land on either side, remained an island.

Then, about a year ago, the co-op that is giving internet to the rest of our county came by. It’s happening, the guy in the hard hat said. My husband bought a bottle of champagne. Turns out the guy in the hard hat was just a contractor and he had no authority. It’s not happening, a representative from the company said via email. We can’t figure out how to get it to you.

We drank the champagne in front of our eternally switched-off TV. My husband was deeply disappointed—and so was I—but I was also relieved.

I’ve been thinking about how, many years ago, shortly after we bought the farm, I slipped my cell phone into my coat pocket which happened to be full of melted snow. My cell phone immediately died. We were at the beginning of a 2-week stay at the farm and there was no internet yet, and certainly no Apple store within a 70-mile radius. Having no other options, I stuck my phone in a jar of rice and put it on top of the fridge. For several days, I felt sick in a way that is hard to describe, but I bet you’ll know it if you, too, have ever been unexpectedly separated from a device you’ve carried everywhere with you for more than half of your life. I’m not even a particularly heavy cell phone user, but I still found myself constantly feeling for it—patting back pockets, checking my surroundings, my hand shaped into a claw the exact width of my cell phone. It felt like a missing limb, like I was in persistent mourning.

Eventually, of course, I stopped thinking about my phone. Right before we left I took it down from the fridge and attempted to turn it on. It worked. I stood for a moment, looking at the glowing, polished face, feeling the weight of it in my hand. I wanted to slip it back into the rice, throw it to the ground, slide it into the dirty dishwater in the sink. Instead, I put it in my pocket.

I had, briefly, felt free.

I suppose that’s how I’m feeling about the internet, which we have officially heard, is being trenched toward us sometime in the next few weeks. (Absolutely no promises, however, when they’ll actually hook it up and make it live. Could be this winter, maybe later.) I know it’s absurd, to feel this way. I don’t want to be a Luddite. But I can’t quite shake the feeling that something profound is about to be lost.

My husband, unlike me, is giddy with excitement. Just last night I walked into the living room to see him attempting to watch an episode of Succession in 10-second bursts between buffering. “How do you do this?” I asked. He shrugged. “I heard it’s really, really good.”

I went to bed.