Somebody Hit The Lights

There was a faint scent of cinnamon in the air, candles all around, and near silence. It was eerie, yet peaceful.

This is what my house was like earlier tonight--for about an hour. We don't know why, but the power went out. My dad says it's because of the heat. Seems like the power always goes out at night, never during the day. Weird.

The impervious darkness and unnatural silence are usually rather unnerving to me. I always hurry to find the nearest flashlight and the rest of my family and ask continually when the power will be back on.

Tonight, however, was a little different. After I lit a few candles, I ate my leftover ice cream [didn't want it to melt of course ;) ] and spent some time reading my book about Mary, Queen of Scots.

During this time I realized just how bright a single, small flame is. I find it amazing how powerful the natural light God gave us is and how calming and comforting it can be. [I also discovered that the ice dispenser on the refrigerator is run by electricity. For some reason that seemed silly to me.]

After a while, my dad decided to go out front and see if the other houses were out of power and it turns out only those on our block of the street were. When I went outside with him, I was able to again experience the beauty and power of natural light. The moon. It is a day or two past a full moon, but it still was so bright in the clear sky and rested next to a planet that might have been Jupiter (I don't really know much astronomy). The street looked almost blue and everything else was dimly lit not by the reflection of lights inside the houses or street lamps or porch lights, but by pure, gleaming moonlight.

We both went inside and my dad proceeded to complain that his iPhone was dying and that he wanted to play solitaire on it since he couldn't watch TV or surf the internet like usual. I offered to teach him how to play solitaire with real cards, but since he didn't feel like it, I played by myself while listening to Norah Jones on my iPod.

Even though I did cheat a little by using my iPod, I really enjoyed the simplicity of sitting at the coffee table with my dad, playing cards in the candlelight while petting my dog and reveling in the lack of synthetic light and stream of media that I'm constantly bombarded with. yet also drawn to. I admit I spent a lot of my day on Facebook, surfing the internet, and watching TV. It's not that I don't enjoy them--I usually do--but not as much as I should and there's something about them that makes me a feel slightly empty for wasting time with them.

These things are not bad, but they aren't genuine and I found that I actually cherished the time I spent reading in a hot, dimly lit kitchen much more. It's times like these that I kind of wished that I lived in different era.

When the power came back on, my dad let out a triumphal "yes," but I was slightly disappointed. My dad commented on this and also told me about how when he was kid they didn't have color TV or air conditioning, etc. I find it odd, then, that I appreciated the lack of electricity much more than he did, but perhaps that is why. I have been so spoiled and surround constantly by so many different kinds of lights and sounds and artificial time wasters that getting back to the basics and experiencing things in their natural state is a rare and unusual sight (or should I say gift?).

It must be savored because it will disappear as quickly as it came. And if you don't pause to enjoy the beauty of such things, your life just might be missing something.

Just a thought...