This might be taken the wrong way, but as a child I was deprived of power outages. We always had a generator, so even in the most inclement of weather once you heard that buzz kick in you knew you were on reserve power. There was no stash of candles, flashlights or extra batteries. We didn’t have to entertain ourselves sans-electricity, our regular rhythm of life was in no way disrupted. I sort of feel like I missed out.
Wednesday night I was watching a movie with my fellow Americanska ucitelkas (female American teachers. I may have conjugated some of that wrong…). In about the last third of the movie (Stranger than Fiction) it started raining outside. I thought about how nice it would be to cross the hall, crawl into my bed, and listen to the rain through an open window. A few minutes later a far-off thunder begun to rumble, which was exciting because there hasn’t been much thunder since I’ve been here, mostly just precipitation.
Suddenly, a red flash (perhaps tinged that color by the garish orange blinds in our apartments) lit up the room and was immediately —if not instantaneously—accompanied by the loudest CRACK of thunder I have ever heard. It sounded like it was right above the building. The lights in the in adjoining room went out, thought about coming back on, before the fuse most definitely decided to be blown. The entire town was washed in a thick blackness, except for the mine on the hill which obviously is equipped with generators.
After bumbling around in the dark for a while and locating my headlamp I set about finding the few candles I have. Over New Year’s my kitchen light blew and since it was a holiday I had to wait a few day to get it fixed. Especially in the winter there is plenty of dark-time here, so instead of just camping out in my bedroom I decided to find alternate illumination sources. I found some empty beer bottles (don’t worry, you save them up and then return them to the store for a small refund. It’s not like I’m some crazy lush drowning in empty bottles…) and jammed some candles I had purchased into them. As I believe I mentioned in earlier posts I don’t have the most furniture, and candle sticks are definitely not part of my Spartan décor. So I improvised, and the bottles worked fantastic. Anyways, I bring this up because since January I haven’t really felt the need to light them, and just this week I was contemplating throwing them out—half-burned candles and all.
Glad I didn’t. Those two candles served as my primary light source, as the other candle I have is near the end of it’s life, and the essential oil burner thingy I have is more for vaporizing pleasant scents of lavender and cypress—my attempt at neutralizing the more unpleasant odors of cigarette smoke and grease that creep under my doorframe and saturate my existence with stink—than providing light.
Anyways, back to the power outage. At this point it was about 10:00 at night. I had lit my few candles, opened one of my windows, and crawled into bed to listen and take it all in. Even though my computer had a solid battery charge I refrained from pulling it out and listening to ambient music. I was going to BE in this blackout! I also could have just gone to sleep, 10:00 is an entirely reasonable time for me to retire, and maybe I should refrain from telling you how often I go to bed before then… And since I like to sleep in the dark I don’t really need electricity for that.
But it was the novelty of the whole experience—the only reason I could possibly be so tickled by the blackout is because like I said, it hasn’t really happened to me a lot. It feels so pastoral I guess- like this mandatory timeout from the sky. But I only get internet at school, and as of late that has been incredibly sketchy and unreliable. When I see that blank screen or failed connection however I don’t think “oh yay! This is so great! Guess I’ll just have to sit around and wait till it works. Board game anyone?” Instead I get practically belligerent and want to damage things or at least say angry words.
Also, my power outage lasted all of an hour if that (some people in Tisovec claim to have been powerless all night). I got to play with my candles and feel “off the grid” but before I was even done writing about the ordeal in my journal the refrigerator started to buzz again and the kitchen light flicked on of its own accord. If the blackout had lasted longer, if I had needed to shower in the pitch black or couldn’t charge my computer anywhere or make coffee in the morning I probably would have been over it. It wouldn’t have been so cute anymore.
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