Yesterday, for the first time in many months, I was able to walk on “Crystal Hill,” our path in the woods where Maria often finds crystals and beautiful stones. It is a beautiful walk, I love it there, but it was not until yesterday I was able to walk in the hills and on uneven ground. It was a joy to return there. On the walk, I noticed that my trendy new fitbit flex, the device I have used to monitor my miles and my steps had fallen.

I got anxious. How far had I gone? How many steps? Had I gone farther than yesterday?

I couldn’t find it. When I got home, I went online to order another, and then found myself browsing through the different versions – there is the Ultra, the Zip, bracelets and clip-ons that monitor steps, distance, calories, even sleep patterns.

There are some cool accessories, multi-colored bands, apps and add-ons. Very cool. I have been drooling to take my bitfit to Disney World in the winter. What a great place to measure steps.

I took a good look at the fitbit ultra, which costs $200 and monitors even more things more easily. I was hearing an NPR radio host gushing on the other day about how cool the fitbit was, how it counted his steps for him, and his guests were gushing on about it too. I noticed nobody talked about a people who seemed to have forgotten how to take a walk by themselves.

When I got out of the hospital, one of the first things I did was order my fitbit bracelet, it cost about $100 was easy to set up, was one of those hip and very cool things we love in America that come with cables, needs re-charging, fiddling,  syncs with tablets, computers and cellphones, uses satellites to track even more of the things we are doing. The idea of the fitbit is to be a motivator, to challenge and inspire us to get up and move, something I really needed to do when I got out of the hospital. It is also something else to charge weekly, plug into a computer or power source, and keep track of. I have good friends who won’t step outside without their bitfit, I got all kinds of messages from “friends” didn’t know asking me if I wanted to sign up with them and walk and take steps together.

When Big Brother comes, he will know just how many steps I take each day, and where. Maybe even with who.

I did well on the fitbit, I soon became somewhat addicted to walking for miles, going on my smartphone, checking my steps.  Bitfit likes me to walk 10,000 steps a day, it tracks the miles I walk, and I was thrilled to be walking between three and five miles every day, a good thing after open heart surgery. At the end of the day, if I had done well, my fitbit would buzz three times to tell me I had made 10,000 steps and then e-mail me to tell me how great I was. My cardiologist never did that.

I worried about not having a fitbit a month or so after surgery. If I went on Amazon I could get one the next day. It was hard to think of walking without one.

Four or five times on my walk, I found myself reaching for my Iphone, opening up the fitbit app and seeing how far I had gone, how far I had to go. At the end of each walk, sometimes tired and sweating, I would check my fitbit to see if I had topped the previous day, if I was a good patient. The fitbit advertises itself as an empowering technology, a new kind of device that would encourage me to be active and healthy. Groups of people with fitbits encourage one another all over the country to move, walk, run and eat well.

But I didn’t order a new fitbit, something held me back.

I thought of all the wires in the house, all the batteries that need charging, all the e-mails and notifications I get, all of the apps and messages. Could it really be, I thought, that I could not take a walk by myself, that I couldn’t figure out how many miles I had gone?

Did I really need a community to walk with me to motivate me to take care of my heart and live in a healthy way? Did I really need to spend another hundred dollars (I suspect I would have gone for the ultra?). Did I really need those messages from bitfit’s algorithms to tell me I was doing well.

I’m not being contrary here, or not trying to be. The bitfit is cool, the technology is astonishing, it works really well, people really love it, and many people think they really need it. A good friend told me she walks with a dozen “friends” and they all do 10,000 steps each day. Nobody goes home until they all meet bitfit’s step goals. Still, walking on the path, looking up at the trees instead of my Iphone, I thought, what if I don’t really need it? At the end of the walk, I felt my body. It was a good walk, a long walk, a healthy walk. I told that to myself.

What if I can motivate myself, walk myself, say no to yet another device flooding my inbox with messages and doing cool things that I might not really need or even want? That is who I would like to be with my refurbished heart.

Maria was shocked when I told her what I was thinking. You are changing, she said. For the next week or so I’ll see if I can take those steps by myself. For most of human history one of the things human beings – especially human beings I admire – were able to do by themselves is walk. I don’t see Robert Frost with a fitbit, or John Updike, or Thomas Merton. Technology is a good thing, I embrace change – just look at my blog, my computer, my phone, my tablet.

But isn’t there a limit, a point, a time when we have to ask ourselves who we want to be. What kind of a person, what kind of people. What does health mean?

On the path, I thought, “who, exactly now, do I want to be?” A man who can walk by himself without the support of strangers and micro-computers or a man who cannot figure out how far he has gone or needs to go? A man who can see that fences make good neighbors, or a man who can recite his steps?

I might change my mind, but today,  I think it would be truly great for my heart if I could take a walk by myself. There is something very empowering about that idea for me.