Most of my blog posts aren't made at 2 or 3 in the morning. While there are many fascinating reasons for this, the main reason is that my brain just doesn't function all that well in the middle of the night. Even now as I'm typing, I feel like there's a bunch of mushy gobbledy-gook sifting through my head, the chaotic confusion of my mind twisting my words and sentences into something that resembles the haphazard dyslexic mess you find on Silly Putty after smushing it against a newspaper too many times in a row. Sure, I think I'm writing a brilliant Pulizer-prize-worthy blog entry, but when I read this tomorrow, I'm sure I'll discover that all I really typed was "See Spot Run. Run, Spot, Run!"
Enough of that.
The reason for this post is to celebrate the fact that I now have power in my house. Sure, my refrigerator and freezer are full of spoiled and rotten food, and my garage door isn't working quite right, but after 3 days, power has finally been restored to my house.
If it sounds like I'm complaining about not having power, I'm not. Saturday's tornado tore through houses, barns, roads, and a firehouse all within a half mile from my house. The devastation was horrifying to see, both because of the severity of the damage, and also because of the nearness of it.
In comparison, going 3 days without power is just not that big of a deal.
In fact, the truth is that while I didn't enjoy the reason for the outage, I did enjoy the outage itself. I liked the fact that the loss of power forced me to disconnect from my electronic identity for a few days. You see, lately I've found myself struggling to find a balance between my personal life, my writing, and my online social networking. The outage forced me to take a vacation from technology. It forced me to relax, step away, and fill my time with things that aren't electronic.
No iPhone Kindle App? No problem. I read my hardback copy of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, as well as volume five of Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
No stove or microwave? No worries there either. Most everyone in the neighborhood grilled out, creating a huge block party that was full of laughter, kids playing, and incredible food.
In fact, by Sunday evening, I was starting to get used to the quiet imposed by the loss of power. I was able to sit outside and watch the stars without a single street light messing up the view, and without the hum of air conditioners drowning out the frogs and crickets.
Of course, the power's back on now, and I'm happy about that. But I did learn that disconnecting from everything is good for me. It's not something I want to happen all the time, but I'm going to remember the peace I've felt over the past few days so that the next time things get hectic, I'll know it's okay to stop, turn everything off, and enjoy the silence.
