How to Stop Time

Death and counting steps. Stephen Dunn. New tunes for all who need it.

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On with the Sunday. — AJD

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In my attempt to be less phone-addled in 2025, I began to re-read "How to Do Nothing" by Jenny Odell earlier in the year, which has proved to be as much of a challenge as I suspected because my attention span is so warped. I don't have a doomscrolling problem – I have been successful at leaving the outside world outside, for the most part, so much so that it feels like it borders on hypervigilance.

However, I still have that compulsive pick-up problem, checking for emails, Instagram, and Substack to see if anyone exciting has reached out. You can probably guess that rarely happens, so I have spent, I estimate, hours per day picking up and putting down the phone with no real purpose besides chasing a fizzling dopamine charge.

I notice it more often than before, making me wonder how much of my actual, breathable, present life I miss. One of the ideas that stuck with me the first time I read "How to Do Nothing" is that the best way to slow down time is to stay away from the iPhone. iPhones are designed to "pass the time" quickly, but if you're not careful, it steals all of it.

*****

I had an uncle die last week after a short illness that turned out to be a fatal one. It all seemed to go from "run some tests" to "life support" with such evil rapidity. He was my father's only brother, and two years ago, at my father's service, he gave the closest thing to a eulogy since both my sister and I opted to say very little. He stood up there and guided the whole service on short notice. He always showed up for those moments for us. He was solid in a way that most uncles aren’t solid anymore.

As recently as January 23, he was still inquiring about the Los Angeles fires, even when we were safe and while he was awaiting news on what was next for him and his cancer treatment. "Love you, buddy," he'd sign off. He often called me "buddy," which I get annoyed with by anyone else but him. His came with an effortless, soothing tone. And in one of the last times he called me "buddy" while updating me on his low platelet count, he said, eerily enough, "Other than that, I'm still here, buddy."

And now he's not. His is one of those deaths that looms large, an actual loss to what I considered the real foundation of the Italian side of my family. He was gone, my father was gone: I thought of an ice shelf collapsing off a glacier, water closing in.

*****

While rehabbing after my minor knee surgery last year, I began to track my steps using one of my wife's old Fitbit watches. I was surprised that the Fitbit not only tracks steps only if you're power-walking or hiking a craggy mountainside, but it also tracks the steps you take shuffling from sink to dishwasher or sofa to toilet – regular, able-bodied movements that didn't seem all that consequential or calculable as physical exertion let alone exercise. Part of the rehab process was to try to get up to 10,000 steps per day initially, and I would always try not to let 4,000 of those be me thudding around the house.

In late spring, around the time I developed some quadricep muscles back, I'd go outside, sometimes throwing on a weighted vest like a real middle-aged LA jerkoff, and go up and through the hilly parts of Beachwood Canyon. On the days when I'd break some small milestone by walking to the grocery store, I'd double down and try to establish a new high in steps. But I was inconsistent and never serious about the Fitbit – I was more concerned with being able to run or golf again, but mostly to do BJJ again. Walking was part of life, not an activity.

Still, every once in a while, I'd focus more on my step count. My record, set last July 19, was 33,408 steps. I don't remember why. Most likely, it was a day when I decided to spend more time outside than inside, hunched over a laptop or tethered to my phone, so it was probably a wonderful day.

When I got the news last week about my uncle's death, my wife gently asked me what I needed, and I told her that what I wanted was a walk. A long walk without my phone. "Take all the time you need," she said. She's the best.

*****

I realize I have built this essay into something more than it is. I will tell you right now: this does not end with me walking for 50 hours straight and ending up in Temecula or anything like that. No, it was the usual route in Beachwood Canyon, the one I take when I'm not with the dogs because it's long and steep, and they get tired, especially our pug, who gasses out once he spots an incline. I also decided to wear the vest, too.

The first part of it is a climb up a street called Hollyridge that eventually takes you through the most canyon-y parts, where there are houses on stilts re-barred into the side of a mountain, a mountain teeming with gorgeous fauna that pops in springtime. Those same plants severely dry out in the summer, and the area is constantly red-flagged for wildfires. You can see the warning signs everywhere – all the expensive fines for smoking or double-parking on the narrow roads in case firetrucks have to zoom through.

We left the neighborhood early on January 8 and headed to Anaheim because I kept thinking about those signs and all the fallen palms ripped down by the wind and limited escape routes.

That night, a couple of friends who stayed in Beachwood shared footage of the bottleneck that came about later when the Sunset Fire peeked across the mountain. The one way out of Beachwood was a parking lot of people who remembered those red-flag signs and decided to leave before an official evacuation, which seemed inevitable at the time. My uncle texted that night. "Hey, Bud – you guys okay?"

At the last curve of the walk at the bottom of Hollyridge, a large house is nestled behind an intimidating gate. On one of the outside cement walls, next to a mailbox, is a mirror engraved with a cryptic, lyrical sentence:

"I never learned to let go, so I keep dragging my belongings."

I have walked past it dozens of times and wondered why it was there because it seemed so purposeful. After finally Googling the phrase tonight, it's a piece by the artist Michele Lorusso who has a whole series of mirror installations engraved with poetic slivers of conversations he's had with houseless people on Skid Row. He uses mirrors because they help him create "moments of confrontation, catharsis, and reflection, both individually and collectively."

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The downslope of the walk brings me back towards our current house we're renting, but it also allows me, if I have the time, to climb up one of the sets of secret stone stairs to the other side of Beachwood, where our old house used to be on Belden Drive.

The stairs are very popular tourist attractions for people who want to investigate the old secrets of spooky Hollywood and also for fitness influencers who post themselves doing inane workouts on the stairs for TikTok. I was wearing a 25-lb weighted vest that's a little strenuous, but some freaks run up the stairs with truck tires around their necks.

And then – at the top of the stairs, to the left, sits our old house, the one we lived in for three years until the pandemic. I have walked by this house a few times since we moved away, but I was overwhelmed by nostalgia and a deep sense of loss that day. I've always maintained that Los Angeles hasn't felt like home for me much, but this house did for a spell, simply because this is where real love came into my life – the three kids, a wedding, a first dog.

The new owner has kept some of the stuff we left behind. There's a passive-aggressive sign Julieanne put up near the mailbox asking people not to park in front of it. I purchased two giant containers with heavy cactuses that are still on the front stoop. So many good memories here.

But it mostly saddens me because when we lived here the babies were 3 and 2 and five months old. Five years have almost passed since then. I stand in front of the house, hear their laughter inside, and I want to bust through the door to join them.

My uncle came out to visit us here, too. There's a wonderful picture of us, two babies, and the dog on the couch. It's nice to find out how intact and clear these memories are without the need to locate their exact timestamp on my phone.

As I passed by our old garage, I said a prayer, thankful for the time we shared. God, but the vest was so heavy. I was sweaty and crying, still dragging my belongings.

I realized I'd spent almost three hours without the phone when I got home. By the end of the day, at night, I looked at the steps I had accumulated: 33,811. A new record.

I also decreased my phone usage by almost five hours. I saved so much time.

*****

A couple of days later, George Bilgere's newsletter arrived with a poem called "Evening" by Simon Armitage, which absolutely dropkicked me. I was frustrated enough that I emailed George Bilgere to tell him that I thought we had a deal: he was supposed to figure out how to stop time for both of us so our kids would stop growing up and everyone we loved would stop dying so much. He wrote me back quickly.

A.J.,

I'm working on it! These things aren't easy!

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