Earth Day

The power went out at my house last night.

I thought it was fairly ironic that it happened on Earth Day! Other than my kids being scared and the fact that I had a large paper due today, it was rather nice. It was so quiet.

I could actually hear the wind chimes in my backyard. I have four different wind chimes and seem to keep buying more because I can never hear them. I don’t know if they are not hung up right, maybe they don’t have enough hanging swing or something…but leave it to me to not hang up a chime in the right way! Anyways, maybe it is just that there is too much ambient noise around my house to hear them. I still had all of the cars passing since my backyard backs up against a very busy and noisy street (somehow didn’t realize this when buying the house). And I did have one neighbor with a very loud generator, but could only hear that when I went into the kitchen.

I could definitely understand how life would be much different without electricity, or even electricity on a limited basis. I am not proposing going without my labor saving devices such as my washing machine, dish washer and vacuum or even my refrigerator as some people going green are doing…however, it forces you to slow down. There was no surfing the internet, no flipping channels, no cleaning the kitchen or doing laundry or really even cleaning my bedroom like I had been intending to do because I couldn’t see more than 2 feet in front of me.

I just had a desire to sit, to relax, to listen to the world. And try to figure out what is wrong with my wind chimes! No electricity is almost like a forced sabbatical – it can restore your senses and relax your body. I’m sure that somehow it is also healthier for you. Probably something to do with the natural rhythms of your body and the earth and sunshine….maybe if I went to bed when the sun went down I wouldn’t have such an awful time trying to drag myself out of bed when the sun comes up!

The only thing that bothers me about the power being out (and I realize it is not 115 degrees yet – not kidding, it gets that hot here) is that the world shuts down. Nothing works. You can’t buy anything because all stores are computerized. The clerks wouldn’t know how much to charge and most likely couldn’t add anything up and most definitely couldn’t make change. But then again, what would they make change with? Most people today don’t carry cash and we couldn’t get cash either since ATMs don’t work. It’s amazing to me how much we depend on something that really isn’t dependable…