When The Lights Go Down

No, this isn't a dirty birdy blog entry.

Major power outage this morning. East side of L.A. and San Gabriel Valley area. Had just arrived at the office, talking with students, looking forward to the end of finals week, and mini-vacations and trips coming up.

And poof! The lights went off.

Thought it was just my office, but found out it was the whole neighborhood around where I work. So I'm not crazy.

But anyway, something cool happened for like the last hour and a half while the lights were off. We talked. Built community. Laughed. Had time to connect.

Many times we're so consumed with our deadlines, personal issues, to-do lists, that often we just pass by with a quick "Hey, how are you?" without really caring. I'm guilty of that at times, I admit.

But for the past hour and a half, we sat in the darkness (we were told not to evacuate) and talked. It was nice just shooting the breeze and talking to people who, in a normal day, we'd just be manager/client, or co-worker/colleague. Real cool.

And then it got me thinking. This must be what it was like in the 1800s, or even the early 1900s, when electricity was a luxury, when there were no computers, no radios, no phones to distract families from connecting and talking with each other. When the only entertainment people had was each other. Interesting to think about.

Must have been cool when the lights went down.

fs