Groxie

Right now in my apartment we have no power. It has been out for about 5 hours or so, and we think it probably won’t come back on tonight. John got stir-crazy and went for a bike ride to get some snacks. I decided to make the best use of my limited laptop battery, so I moved out onto my front stoop where the natural light hasn’t completely disappeared.

When the power first went out, John and I decided to get some cleaning and organizing done with the last bits of sunlight. We cleaned bathrooms fixtures, the cat fountain, the kitchen, and tidied the apartment. Then we went through the closets to put together a Freecycle bag—a task that we have been putting off for months now. When we sat down for a little break, I realized how nice it was to be without power for a few hours. I think it would be a great idea, and highly productive, to just turn everything off for a few daytime hours and really reconnect to your space and the people around you.

Now, out on my porch stoop, I’m experiencing a whole different kind of connection. My neighborhood is spilling onto the sidewalk. They’re walking dogs, lighting up grills, trading stories about the storm damage they saw, and generally interacting more than I have ever seen in my two years here. What else can they do? Nobody wants to be cooped up inside a pitch black, silent apartment with no air conditioning when there’s a cool breeze and plenty of activity outside.

Even though I have lost out on a night of one kind of productivity, it has been replaced with something more valuable. All of my good intentions for internet research and vacuuming have been trashed, and now I am waiting for John to return with a bottle of wine and some cheese and crackers. In the meantime, I’m spending quality outside time with my cats and finally getting to know some of my neighbors. I don’t think I could have planned better downtime if I tried.

So…the power’s obviously back on. But we’re still sticking with the quiet bottle of wine option, and I’m considering implementing a self—imposed weekly power outage.