I know what my old driving instructor would have said if he'd seen me that day. I should have been keeping my eyes on the road, aware of what the sea of cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles were doing around me as we all crept wearily along the same roads to get home.
But there I was: bored, pregnant, nauseated and sitting in gridlock traffic so tight it creased in on itself like folds of a fan. After an hour of listening to the same loop of news and traffic on the radio -- and having budged only a block -- I needed an outlet. Something to take my mind off the gasoline and garbage smells of deep downtown. Something to help me forget the exasperating meeting that had brought me across town in the first place.
I needed my BlackBerry.
"It's not like I'm using it on the highway," I reasoned.
For the next hour, between stops and starts in traffic, I deleted old messages from clients, colleagues, friends and family on the little wireless e-mail device. A complete housecleaning. I'd been meaning to do it for a while. Then I e-mailed my husband to let him know I desperately needed Chinese food.
By the time I reached home, BlackBerry purged and food on the table, I felt much, much better.
If you had asked me a few months ago how I expected the BlackBerry would change my life as a freelance writer who works primarily from a home office, I probably would have repeated the same Research In Motion Ltd. marketing pitches it fed me when I was sent a free device to try: new freedom to roam, loosened office binds and increased productivity.
But that's not exactly what happened -- or rather, those issues were merely byproducts of a more significant transformation.
In short, simply knowing that I could communicate with a friend who lives across the Atlantic, while riding a subway in Canada, changed the way I grew to understand space and time. Especially time. It's the same feeling you get when you step off a plane after only five hours in the air and find yourself clear across the country.
I've also begun to look at my BlackBerry differently since that moment on Sept. 11 when I turned on the television to see an airplane thunder through the steel and glass of the World Trade Center.
I heard reports of New Yorkers offering their BlackBerries to strangers so they could send e-mail to family when cellphones failed. Trapped employees also used them to send their last hopeful e-mail messages. When I look at my machine now, I see an emergency device, not simply a means to communicate.
Of course, when I first got the device from Waterloo, Ont.-based RIM, my expectations were simpler and untainted by tragedy. I pulled it out every opportunity I got. Parties. The bus. On the street walking to the salon to get a haircut. While in the chair getting a haircut. I was in awe of how my fear of missing an important or urgent e-mail vanished. I could e-mail people while waiting in line for the automated banking machine. I could send an e-mail to a colleague in Vancouver while strolling through the park, just because something I saw reminded me of her. Neither geography, time nor even hefty hardware kept me from communicating when I wanted. I felt in control.
But as the months wore on, those urgent incoming e-mails became more frequent. As people started to learn that I could be reached anywhere in the city, not to mention in other cities, that little exclamation mark denoting the need for a quick reply made its appearance often. One of my favourites:
"Kira, I know you're 'technically' on vacation, but can you turn these documents around by Friday?"
And suddenly, the control I felt I had over my work and my life was gone. I soon realized that if people thought they could find me anywhere, they felt entitled to do just that. While my own view of space and time changed, so did theirs.
I realize now that, in some ways, I brought this problem on myself. One of the first weeks I had the BlackBerry, my husband and I were in the grocery store and I was awaiting an important e-mail from a real estate agent. As I reached for a loaf of bread on the shelf, I felt my BlackBerry vibrate in its holder. I had an incoming message and, scrambling for the machine, I nearly dropped the bread.
My husband watched me and rolled his eyes.
"Just because someone is e-mailing you, it doesn't mean you have to check it right away," he said softly, patting my arm. "It's not like a phone."
"Then what's the use of having something like this if you don't plan to get back to people immediately?"
He looked at me as though I'd sprouted a new head.
"You have a choice. Either be there for everyone or be there for yourself," was all he said before wandering off to grab some cheese.
He had a point, but it still took me a couple of months -- and a few clients becoming unreasonable about expecting an immediate reply -- to finally accept his advice.
I still find myself in awe occasionally when I write a message to someone who is half a world away and get a reply by the time I've finished checking my voice mail. But frankly, indifference has finally worn through the gleaming novelty.
With one notable exception. I do plan to take my BlackBerry with me while on vacation in North Carolina this month, only a five-hour drive from Washington, D.C. I believe that the terrorist attacks were an isolated event, and that feeling that I must have a BlackBerry for survival is a slippery slope. But while I have one, why not use it?
Would I buy a BlackBerry myself?
Until I started using the device, stepping out of the office for even a half day made me feel anxious. What kind of fires would I have to put out once I got home? Who needed to talk to me as soon as possible? But lately, I've noticed myself chilling out. Calming down. Some of that internal switch has come from how I've tried to alter the way I see the world. But some of that also comes from the security the BlackBerry gives me.
Is that security worth the $499 purchase price? Sure. Is it worth the monthly fee on top of that price? I'm not so sure.
Now, when I leave my home office to take a walk around the block, I leave all forms of technology back on the desk. For a while, the purse was getting heavy as I carried around the BlackBerry, my cellphone and my personal digital assistant. Now I simply carry my keys and a quarter.
And I delete old messages when I have a few spare moments at home. Because I finally realize few things in life are that urgent. Not even my cravings for Chinese food.