I raced out of the ladies’ restroom to rejoin my friends in the airport terminal, a collection of bags, pillows, and extra jackets swinging around me like rhubarb leaves in a summer garden. We were on our way to Mahuri Marae in New Zealand and our flight was going to be leaving from Auckland for Keri Keri any minute. I reached into my back pocket for my cellphone to check the time and, when I realized it wasn’t there, I checked my purse. “Yikes!” I thought. “I never lose track of my cell phone!”

How many of us are like that these days? That cell phone is our connection to everything in our lives. I frequently use mine to check the time and I stay in regular touch with my kids and my friends via text messaging. I check and respond to business emails and I can keep track of my schedule thanks to my Google Calendar app. I use my calculator at least once a day, document my life with photographs and upload them to Facebook at will, and my Google maps app helps me navigate when my vehicle’s GPS lets me down; Safari does everything from helping me find a restaurant to checking the hours of my favourite bookstore, and I have become massively fascinated by counting my daily steps. Do not even get me started on Siri. How did I ever manage without her?!

When did I become so dependent on an electronic box?

To be faced with the momentary loss of contact with my iPhone 6 was distressing, to say the least. I checked my pockets again and turned the contents of my purse out onto the terminal floor. I checked every cranny of both my backpack and my purse and, when nothing showed up, I came to the dreadful conclusion that I had somehow left my phone behind in the washroom. Would it even still be there? I know plenty of people whose unattended cell phones have been stolen in public places!

I raced back into the bathroom and checked everywhere. The sinks, the change table, the floors. Nada. This was getting more serious. I raced back out to rejoin my friends and I checked my purse again. This couldn’t be happening! My heart was racing and our flight had been called. What was I going to do? How could my cell phone have vanished so suddenly?

But there was one place I hadn’t yet looked.

With huge trepidation, I returned to the cubicle I had last visited and looked on the flat surface of the toilet paper holder before checking the floor.  Nothing. That left one last possibility. With a heavy heart, I looked down into the white bowl of the airport toilet and my heart sank. There, winking at me from under about six inches of clear water, was my cell phone. Is this not everyone’s worst nightmare? I have been cautious as heck for years trying to avoid this very eventuality and in one moment of carelessness, I had undone the pride of a lifetime.

In huge disgust, I wrapped my hand in yards of toilet paper and withdrew my phone. Although I was subsequently able to find a bag of rice to store it in, my phone was quite dead and I had to spend the next 10 days travelling in a foreign country with no lifeline.

It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.

I arrived at the Mahuri Marae unencumbered by the electronic gizmo that might have interfered with my energy there, and I had no distractions at all as I explored everything everyone and everything around me had to offer. I came to appreciate the feeling of being disconnected, yet more connected than ever.

It’s not often that we get a chance to look objectively at our communication tools. We use them and appreciate them. But it occurs to me that my reliance on my smart phone is not an entirely good thing. It has become a filter through which I manage my life and it is highly focused on measuring things – the length of a phone call, the distance to my next destination, the number of steps I take in a day. I’ve come out of my “phone fright” much more conscious of the need for flow in my life and I now look more purposefully at ways I can disconnect and “be,” rather than “do.” I’m still very careful with smart device, for sure. And how great that I know I can manage without it!