Portsmouth Unplugged in 2017

Whew, it’s good to be back on the grid after 36 powerless hours following Sunday’s storm. I know what it’s like to live without electricity. I do that every summer for a week on Smuttynose Island. But blackouts here in Atlantic Heights are rare.

I was typing like the Energizer Bunny long after midnight when–BLAM–total darkness, and total silence. No more humming lightbulbs or buzzing refrigerator motor. No more New Age background music on Pandora. I felt my way to the bedroom with only the vague glow of the waxing gibbous moon.

There was still no power the next morning, nor the next. No newspaper, no computer, and thanks to a cleverly bundled Internet deal, no phone. I found an old wind-up alarm clock, but couldn’t locate a single battery-operated radio. It was great, at first, having an excuse for not working, or loading the dishwasher, or vacuuming, or making that appointment with the dentist.

Then suddenly it was dark again, and cold. I found six candles, all with different uncooperative scents. I found three flashlights. I wrapped myself in a blanket and drank melted chocolate ice cream and watched the candles flicker.

Funny how quickly a house turns into a cave when the power goes out. Curious too how briefly we’ve become addicted to everything that feeds on the electricity that leaks mysteriously from the walls. There are people my parents age who recall living without electricity. By the second day, I swear, I was already adjusting. Although, I will admit, making a toasted cheese sandwich on a gas stove by candlelight could be fatal.

Sure, I was thrilled when the lights came on – all of them at once – at 2 p.m. on Tuesday. Apparently I had tripped every switch by habit in the dark. But it was important, if only briefly, to feel a connection to my ancestors, all of them, whose minds were clearer and whose thoughts were deeper before the wires and the plugs and poles and the cords came. As an historian, I need to visit those times more often because, since pretty much the dawn of humankind, the phone never rang and darkness came early.

Copyright 2017 J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.