Blackout

The electricity in our rural house came back on this morning. There was a big cheer, and our 8 year old ran to the computer looking for his skateboarding game and our five year old rushed to the TV to find "Revenge of the Sith", in which both of them had been happily absorbed yesterday afternoon when the power went out. No power means no water, too, since our pump runs on electricity. Coincidentally the phone was also out. The sun was still up, so we played checkers for a while, until the sunlight in the house started to fade.

Secretly I welcomed the break from the electronic devices, and thought sitting around in the dark would be fun. DH got panicky about "wasting" an evening away from the Internet. Eager to take action, we went out to the car to plug in the cell phone and started calling the electric company, the phone company. Once the sun went down, the darkness was deeper than usual, since there were no lights from our few and distant neighbors. The moon was almost full and there was a warm glow to the windy, silver land outside the car windows.

Inside the house was less pleasant initially. B is still afraid of the dark, so he clung to my elbow while I fumbled with the flashlights, matches, candles. We got a little oil lantern lit and decided to tell ghost stories. I started off with, "Do you know the story of Rip Van Winkle?" Too literary. Trash that. "Have you heard about the headless horseman?" B's eyes got BIG and he hid his face. Too scary, just the title. I did remember a fun ghost story that I had heard at a slumber party in the fourth grade: the story of the vinda viper. (I remembered the giggly girls sitting around in our pajama's in my friend Barbara's den, spinning hair-raising tales. Do girls still do that?)

If you want to know the whole story of the vinda viper, check back later.

We piled into bed without even having to brush our teeth! The kids fell asleep right away. I lay there for a while in the dark, trying to discern something about the quality of my life, whether being there in the very dark house in the middle of nowhere sharing twisted up blankets with sweet little kids was a good place to be. I decided it was ok.

Then I was up at four, antsy, wanting some time to myself and to get some things done.

One thing I learned is to prepare a little blackout kit, with matches, candles, water to drink, maybe even something fun like glow in the dark paint, for the next time.