The power went out last night.

Up in Central California we were receiving some wind, rain, and thunder due to Hurricane Hilary down south, and the weather affected the power in my area for a couple of hours. Sitting there in the stillness of the dark, I wanted to make sure I took a moment to sit and document my feelings.

When the power went out, at first I felt shocked because electricity plays such a critical, "load-bearing" role in our lives and society. And when it's suddenly out, there's a sense of vulnerability and maybe a little fear losing something so crucial. In my area, when the power is out it's able to come back after 5-10 minutes, but last night it was gone for a couple of hours.

After the initial shock of losing power, I suddenly felt this odd sense of relief wash over me.

I felt relieved with how quiet the house was—all of the sounds and visuals that became every day white noise—

the hum of the fridge;

the spinning ceiling;

the bright LED on the stove displaying the time;

were just...stopped.

It was a beautiful stillness that one doesn't realise you truly need until you're in a place or space that's truly silent without intrusive man-made sounds. My ears felt as though they could finally breathe and relax.

I was forced to leave my laptop closed and not dawdle on my phone (checking only for outage report updates) so as to conserve their batteries. I'm not thinking about checking social media or mindlessly surfing the web looking for fleeting entertainment or stimuli—wondering how I'm going to pass my time this Saturday evening prior to this outage.

It gave my mind an opportunity to truly unplug and rest for an indefinite moment.

It reminded me of when I was a kid—no internet, and nothing on the television to watch (we didn't have cable)—and I was left with what I could do sans electricity:

Listen to old podcasts that were on my ipod;

Read books by candlelight (though my eyes would've protested);

Play with my dog;

Write and imagine;

Just sit and enjoy this brief moment of solitude and quiet that I didn't know I needed.