At approximately 10:42 pm Wednesday, October 9, 2019, the lights quietly extinguished at my house as if the aliens had landed. Our power was cut as a preventative measure in case of fire from a downed power line, blown over in the wind. Facebook updates at that hour were like saying “Good Night John Boy” from everyone to everyone. “Lights out in Orinda.”  “Dark in Berkeley.”  “And…we’re out.”  I was too; I didn’t want to use up battery power with too many goodnights.

The next morning was weird too. The house was cold and dark. Lucky for us, we could contemplate our day over hot coffee by hand-lighting our gas stove. But after that, then what? It’s not like you could curl up on the couch to read a good book without lights or heat. My friends and I texted back and forth and even talked on the phone about the weirdness. Then I had to stop, fifty percent battery. So, Hubby went to a “coffice,” Peet’s in Alamo and I went to a “coffice” in Walnut Creek with my writers’ group; both towns were packed with “powerless” refugees.

I stayed for lunch in this progressive town with lights, coffee and food. My phone was dying and I was starving. KoJa’s Kitchen was down the street where I could get a small rib sandwich wrapped in sticky rice and a “jump” for my phone.

“Hey, can I charge my phone here?” I said holding up my phone and charge cord.

“Oh, we have a cord. Are you from Orinda?” Hundreds were fleeing our dark towns to the “powerful” city of Walnut Creek.

“No, Lafayette. We’re out of power too.” I said handing him my precious lifeline to the world.

“You can leave your phone here as long as you want,” he said with such compassion, like he was watching over my child.

my baby!

“Wait, I need to set it to airplane mode. It charges faster.” I recalled my all-knowing tech-teen’s advice.

“I can do that for you!” It was so sweet how much he wanted to help the tech-impaired. I kind of wished I had my laptop so he could organize all my files and delete thousands of ancient emails.

I sat at my table, writing in a composition notebook because what else was I going to do without my phone or my laptop. I’m sure it was a sight for my phone babysitter. I can imagine what he was saying to his co-workers.

“She had paper and pen! No emojis or scrolling! OMG! She turned the page by hand! And, she wrote in this swirly font we learned way back in grade school.”

Old-fashioned laptop for writers.

I kind of had to agree, it was weird writing in a notebook, scratching out my re-writes instead of hitting a delete button. At the same time, it was freeing and relaxing. My phone was in good hands and I was productive despite the setback.

Despite how archaic I might have looked with my composition notebook and power begging for my old iphone 6, I did own a power block. I was saving it for the evening at home when I sat by candlelight with Hubby, waiting for power updates via texts.  We had a lot of practice over the summer with three nights of power outages so I knew what to do: Buy back-up power!

The power outage was inconvenient but inadvertently convenient for other things. I was glad for the forced time to write. I was also glad for the kind people out there that charged my phone over lunch and to my Walnut Creek friend who took in Hubby and me for dinner and a power refuel. All of the human connection made me happy, Hubby too.

“I enjoyed tonight,” Hubby said.

We had a lovely Thursday, returning home with full tummies, working lights and outlets, at last. Ahhh. We could charge our phones with reckless abandon.