Drawn away/Please hold, 2026

When I migrated to rural Angus in Scotland from Brooklyn in 1990, the internet did not exist. The farm cottage we rented had no phone, but there was a red phone box a mile up the road. Walking there, a jar of change in my hands, I would call my twin sister in California, my parents on the East Coast. Using the phone box was a commitment; it was usually nighttime and often inclement weather. There was uncertainty. Would they be home? Did I have enough change? Would we be able to say all that we wanted to say?

Calling from a phone box is a lost way of communicating. Single-purpose, point-to-point, and tied to an exact location, the electric signal travelled through copper wire and powered itself. It was dependable in emergencies. Calls were virtually untraceable.

To draw is to call; to call is to draw a line through distance.