Within seconds of waking, I noticed the silence. No air filters, vents, or anything else whirring.
The power outage this morning was only an hour long, but there was no way to be sure how long it would last. Within minutes I noticed the trade off between heat conservation and daylight.
If I open the shades, I get enough light to see things, but now I’m letting the warmth out. If we didn’t have a wood stove for heat, this would be a serious concern.
What if the power didn’t come back for days? How would keep our food cold? Would we put everything outside in the snow?
We decided to fill up a container with snow and put it into the fridge when we some morning selections. If we did this every time we needed something from the fridge, we could probably keep it cold all day.
There was water in the sink soaking some dirty dishes. We carefully transferred this into a bucket to bring up to the bathroom. That way, when someone took it dump, we could still flush.
Despite being highly aware of the power outage, and trying to conserve things like cold in the refrigerator, warmth in the bedrooms, and water – reflexes would still attempt to turn on a light. We also didn’t anticipate how dark the fridge would be when we opened it: we needed a flashlight for the process of exchanging snow for beverages.
Amongst these concerns and precautions, I noticed a relief. Barred from using my computer, pressured to conserve power on my phone, now there wasn’t much to do with myself. I could relax, crochet, play board game, read a book. Cut off from the rest of the world, watching the snow outside the windows, it felt like Christmas: a winter time to focus on family, crafts, gathering, laughter.
And then the power was back. All of the sudden it seemed silly to be boiling water on the stove. Now there was this bucket of water in the bathroom that we didn’t need to be there. More containers of snow on the front porch. But as I write this, the power just flickered again. So we won’t put away our preparations just yet.
And perhaps I won’t sit at my desk all day. A taste of winter spirit is good medicine.
