When The Lights Go Out

It's been a very long three days! I was working at my computer on Monday, the day of the April Nor'easter, when a tremendous roaring began outside. I brushed the curtains aside near my desk in time to see the evergreen trees behind my studio lay over as if a massive hand had pushed them aside. This happened over and over, each gust of wind seeming to be stronger than the previous one. I could hear limbs snapping and the rain was driven sideways into the windows of the house. As the intensity of the storm grew, so did the damage outside. The small broken trees of just an hour before were being quickly surpassed by trees of more substance. It was then that the lights went out. They didn't come back on until Thursday afternoon. It was three full days of burning candles, worrying about the meat in our freezer, wondering if the electric crew forgot us and pacing the floors because every time I remembered something I needed to do, it took electricity to make it happen. We have become so dependant upon the almighty wall socket, we become as disconnected as the wires do from our homes. That first night there was an unnatural quiet. No hum from the computer, refrigerator or florescent light bulbs. The three of us sat in silence until, out of boredom, I began to play solitaire, badly. My husband and grown son joined me and for two hours, we played rummy and laughed, but more importantly, we talked. Not the "did you take out the trash?" kind of dialog. It was more like three friends that haven't been together for a while. If you ask me, I say loosing the electricity did us a world of good.