Day 108: A Silent, Dark Corner of the World

Ah, I thought I would not be able to blog tonight due to a power outage. I tried at first by using my iPhone, but it will not let me enter real text, just the title which is strange. After pondering my first day of non-blogging however I went mobile to find a location that I could pirate free wifi from my soon to be dead laptop. Luckily, I found a signal and it's allowing me to stay on track.

I remember as a child and young adult how much I enjoyed power outages. I love candles and for whatever reason, the world just seems so much more quiet without electricity. It forces us to slow down. Before the outage, I was sitting on my sofa blogging about something else while the TV ran in the background, the dishwasher and air conditioner both ran with softly buzzing efficiency. All is quiet now. I have candles and whiskey and the steady hum of crickets, the latter coming back to me as a companion from my past.

Growing up we did not have air conditioning and while Summers could get very sticky in my room, I loved the feel of breezes coming through the window and the oddly comforting chorus of crickets and cicadas throughout the night. Every now and again I could hear the high pitched whine of a crotch rocket and the sexy, reassurance of a Harley in the distance, but the rest of the world seemed to fade away. After so many years in New York I have become accustomed to the white noise of city living, but the midwest girl still lives in me and nothing soothes my soul more than a dark night sky full of stars and the winds capturing the sound of nature and distant life.

The power went out because of some traffic accident not far from my place and the whole neighborhood is dark. It's very peaceful as no one seems to be out. This is partly due to it being Wednesday night I'm sure, with all the working world quietly tucked into bed, but I think it also might be the power outage. People tend to get quiet without electricity. Have you ever noticed that? As long as we have TV's and phones, lights, radios, etc., we're buzzing about talking and doing, but take away the electricity and people just . . . settle. It's nice and just what I needed without having consciously recognized it.

My life is more complicated now than when I was child and so I do need the power to come back on, if for no other reason than I will soon run out of matches to light candles. Right now, however, I'll take the darkness, the silence, the candles, and yes, my whiskey and I will exist in the moment. It startles me a little now to realize just how many moments I let pass me by because of all the noise of the world. I am feeling this one, every second, every minute that passes is lived. Shortly life will be back to it's normal buzzing, noisy self, I just hope that I manage to remember the importance of taking that moment to truly settle and feel all that passes us by on a normal day.