The power in our neighborhood went out last night. Even the streetlights. It was not an eerie dark, probably because it’s summer, but certainly an all-consuming dark. No hum of electronics, no murmur of fans. Street noise, and the dogs tiptoeing through the apartment.
I’d been reading, and had to finish the novel using my camping headlamp. And somehow, I felt happier than I have for days. More rested. Calmer. The silence perhaps or the unyielding dark. And I wanted to tell you. I wanted to share the solace of it with you.
When I was a kid, I used to pray that the frequent Florida thunderstorms would steal our power. I wanted chaos, ghost stories, smores on a single flame. But the storms, although violent, almost never interrupted the monotony of our television, the insulation of our air conditioning.
Still, my mother insisted on candlelight at dinner. Always. This is how I grew up: family dinners where the talk of violin concerts and girl scout cookies was framed by flickering, the dark room around us of no more consequence than the future. Time was longer then.
I think what I loved was the halo around us — a light space we wouldn’t want leave: Communion.
It’s a beautiful thing to have, that light and the dark behind. I know; I know exactly what you mean about wanting to share it.
That’s exactly it: “Time was longer then.” Whenever the power goes out, I imagine the world before electricity, how days were governed by sunlight and oil lamps. The strange freedom of it. To have books and conversation and no machinery.
It makes me want to quash my Internet habit.