[2023-06-06] The wind phone
In 2010, a garden designer in Japan was mourning the loss of his cousin. To help cope with his grief, Itaru Sasaki set up a phone booth in his garden with an unconnected rotary phone. As reported in the CBC's story This unconnected phone helps people reach out to lost loved ones, Sasaki knew that his thoughts could not be relayed over a regular phone line, so he wanted them to be carried on the wind.
After the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011, which killed nearly 20,000 people, Sasaki opened his phone booth to the public to help people dealing with grief.
Like the words of those grieving the loss of friends and family members, Sasaki's idea was carried on the wind and took hold in other countries, including Canada. According to MyWindPhone.com, wind phones have been installed in Newfoundland (Deer Lake), Nova Scotia (Port Hilford, Digby), New Brunswick (New Maryland), Quebec (Chelsea), Ontario (Lindsay, Thedford), Alberta (Redwater), British Columbia (Port Moody, Langley, Sooke) and perhaps in other communities, since not all wind phone creators choose to list their locations on the site.
Quoted in the CBC article, medical anthropologist Mary Ellen McDonald explains the value of wind phones and their role in helping to make grief a normal part of life:
"What I love about the wind phone is, it's acknowledging the private nature of grief," she says. "It's in a public place, which is normalizing grief. It is bringing it out and saying it belongs in our world."
She says Western culture tends to shy away from grief because it is messy, uncomfortable and ugly.
"We kind of have this social pressure. Keep your grief private and then leave your private place and go into the world, into work, into your faith community, into a shopping centre. Leave your grief back in the private realm, don't bring it out to the public."
Jonathan Riley, who works for the Municipality of the District of Digby, set up a wind phone on Digby's Van Tassel Lake Trail. As per the CBC article, Riley says he has personally used the unconnected olive green rotary phone to talk to a late friend. He notes that the wind phone has opened up conversations about death and grief, which is healthy. And the wind phone has opened up another way for people to process their grief.
