Hello Darkness My Old Friend...
It was a busy weekend in my house. Lots of things to do and
running around. Like many families even when I think we have a
"quiet" weekend, it turns out to be busy.
As it tends to, Sunday night
arrived faster than I expected or was ready for. Seems like one minute
it's Friday night and the next thing I know I'm telling my son to take a shower
before "Bob's Burgers" so that we can watch it and "The
Simpsons" together. It's kind of a Sunday night ritual that all of us (or
at least two of us) sit down and watch together to wrap up the weekend.
My son made it downstairs just
before the start of the show and flopped down on the sofa. I was sitting
on the love seat burning off some calories with my stand alone pedal exerciser.
I'm not the biggest "Bob's Burger" fan, but this weekend's
episode with the reading contest and the mystery of the "attacked"
therapy dolls drew in my dark sense of humor and I was really enjoying it...
That was until everything went
dark and a "pop" (or maybe it was a boom?) went off in the
distance. It wasn't just our house that went dark; it was the whole
neighborhood as far as I could tell. The popping noise had me guessing
that somewhere in the vicinity, a transformer blew. So much for finding
out who the perpetrator of the therapy doll crime was. Instead it was
time to climb upstairs in the dark. (By the glow of my Nook which I had
downstairs with me.)
Looking out the back window on the
landing, I could see SOME light from the east, but it was obvious that some
sections of the highway/road were without light while others (slightly to the
south) still had power.
I had my son brush his teeth by
can light...well, fake candle light as it was a battery operated Halloween
candle with "blood" stains on it. Then I got to shower in the
dark while my husband read from his Nook and my son watched videos on his
phone. All good until the power on both would run down. So it was a
question of which would happen first.
Because our electronics are
usually pretty well charged, I could read as well. I was also able to
find out via a text from PSEG when they expected the power to be back on
(before 10) and check my local news page to see who was affected by the power
outage. (I figured the larger area the quicker they might be to fix
especially if it was a busier area of town.)
After reading for a little bit,
I put my book down and enjoyed the darkness. Strange? Well there is
always so much ambient light in my life. (Perhaps in all of our
lives?) The glow from electronic chargers. The street lights that
seep in the cracks of the shades. Tonight I could have the shades up and
still be in darkness. (Though still not complete.) It was quite nice
and I almost wished that this happened more often.
Not that I'm for losing power
or transformers blowing out. But there was a calm that came with
this. It being autumn, it wasn't too hot so that we were suffering from
the lack of air conditioning or a fan. It wasn't too cold that we were
shivering under piles of clothes and blankets. The windows were open
bringing in nice breeze and the sound of neighbors who went outside to talk and
find out what was going on. It was peaceful.
After a busy weekend with
running around, it was a time to just be.
I called my son into our room
and the three of us sat on our bed (which is not king sized which makes things
a bit cramped) and just talked for a while. Not about anything special,
but just talked. It seemed like my son opened up a little bit. (Like many
tweens, he's not a big talker with his parents.) No one wanted to play
the geography game. (A great game that I believe my husband made up where
someone names a place and the next person must name another place that begins
with the last letter of the first place. You need to use your brain a bit and
it can also help put you to sleep on those frustrating nights where you
can't!) So we just talked and laughed a bit. Not a bad way to end a
hectic weekend.
Then the power came back
on...earlier than expected. It was time to reset clocks. To turn
off lights that had been on. To reboot computers. To double check
things and make sure everything was "ready" for the work week. "Normal"
life had resumed.
But in some way, I miss the
darkness and the calm that it brought for just a little while.
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