We are at the cottage and the hydro company had designated a planned outage day a couple of days ago. As I was right in the middle of this, I was thinking “How can I make my life better under these circumstances?”
There are so many things that you can no longer do because it is all dependent upon electricity and power. No more surfing the internet for you! No more googling information at lightening speed access at your finger tips or oogling other people’s profiles or posts on Social Media. No more access to TV or Internet programming like YouTube videos. You are cut off from the world at large so to speak.
You can’t phone anyone unless you have a landline which we don’t. Being in the wilderness, so to speak, we can’t call anyone because we are out of range of cell towers and can’t call over the wifi internet because it is down too. I guess we will have to resort to smoke signals or sending telepathic messages with our minds.
We have a wood stove and although it is spring, it was quite cold at only about 10 degrees Celsius at mid morning. It warmed up a couple of degrees throughout the day.
Actually, going to the bathroom is even a problem because you need the water pumps to be working if you want to flush the toilet and get rid of the evidence of your business. We have buckets of water to the ready for that exact purpose.
It is great to have fridges and stove but they are not usable in a power outage. Food won’t go bad right away especially if you don’t open the fridge door or freezer that often. Cooking requires a BBQ with propane fuel or over an open fire pit or an old-fashioned camp stove. You can’t just microwave something easy to eat nor can you go to a restaurant because you are miles and miles out of town or the city. Neither can you call a food delivery service. Can you imagine how expensive that would be for the distance and gas costs if they even considered coming to your locale? And the tip for the service? Be ready with a manual can opener or fresh food that won’t spoil.
I had planned and followed through on making a batch of coffee before the timed power outage occurred. I was SAVED for sure!
So, we take our lives for granted and all the wonderful infrastructures that society has given us. Thanks to all those people throughout ancestral history and those more recent people who have contributed to a more modern and technologically advanced society with conveniences and those who figured out the paths to take forwards for an improved state of life.
With the experience the other day we needed to experience and to start living the way previous generations had and did. We had to be ingenious and enjoy doing things that other people used to do before the luxury of electricity and power which is not that long ago of an advancement in civilized society.
I have started an initial or tentative list of things to do when there is a power outage. What do you think and what would you add to the list? Here is the list in no particular order of priorities. Feel free to add your two cents worth and contribute to the discussion. The list will be more comprehensive one day.
- Breathe
- Think, Process and Glean Information
- Plan Your Future
- Reminisce about Past Memories and Events
- Reflect upon Your Life
- Light candles
- Eat
- Drink
- Cuddle, Snuggle and Hug someone (or yourself)
- Sex (if you are mature enough)
- Get dressed or not (stay in your pjs all day if you so desire or just feel like it)
- Brush your teeth and comb your hair (We are not savages or wild ones, you know – not yet, anyways)
- Read books or magazines or encyclopedias (remember them?)
- Draw
- Paint
- Colour
- Write poetry or words of wisdom or Stream of Thought Consciousness Writing
- Print by hand or learn calligraphy
- Journal
- Clean your abode
- Organize (everything from your living spaces to your wardrobe and most importantly, your mind)
- Study
- Work (AKA chores and tasks)
- Go for a walk (jog or run, if you still can)
- Cycle
- Lift weights
- Stretch
- Exercise
- Isometrics
- Yoga
- Go for a swim (if it isn’t freezing cold out still)
- Sit by the water’s edge (Enjoy the water of the lake wave in and out with that lapping sound and sight against the shoreline)
- Take photographs (Oh My, Yes, Of Course!!! )
- Sleep
- Nap
- Dream
- Relax and Release
- Visualize
- Say Affirmations
- Sew by hand (or mend someone’s heart)
- Forgive but do not forget so as not to repeat the experience
- Do Puzzles
- Hobbies
- Interests
- Passions
- Do a Vision Board
- Arts and Crafts
- Chop wood or kindling outdoors
- Split wood (not hairs)
- Meditate
- Be mindful
- Sit outside
- Enjoy the sunshine (when it comes out from behind the clouds)
- Appreciate Nature (by watching the leaves and flowers grow, for example or watch the birds fly by overhead high up in the sky)
- Feel the windy breeze (as it passes you by on its journey across water and land)
- Invest your eyes with gorgeous colour and beautiful sights
- Talk to yourself or somebody special – like Billy Idol’s song from 1981 of “Dancing with Myself” that my husband changed into “Talking to Myself” as he often changes the words and lyrics to songs for fun and amusement and why not?
- Sing, Hum, Tone or Chant
- Play musical instruments like drums
- Dance (solo or with someone else – Umm – again…Billy Idol…)
- Tell or make-up jokes
- Whisper to one another through the Silence and Quietness (for fun, of course)
- Play board games
- Play with toys
- Play cards
- Do magical tricks – pick a card, any card…
- Play paper and pen games like tic-tac-toe
- Play games like skipping rope, tag or hide and seek (old-fashioned games for the little ones or big ones too)
- Play sports
- Sit around the wood stove or fireplace or fire pit
- Tell stories
- Go for a drive
- Pray
- Count Your Blessings
- Write a Gratitude List
- Laugh
- Love
- Live
- Kiss (especially SpiderMan Kisses with the upside down kind between Peter Parker and MJ or Mary Jane Watson)
- Use your 5 senses of touch, sight, smell, hear, taste
- Cuddle or play with your dogs, cats and other loving animals (even hug your plants if you want to although technically, they are not pets, you know…)
- Use your 6th sense called Intuition
- Be happy, joyful and content!
- Appreciate and Celebrate Your Life!!!
- Send out positive vibes and energy!!
- Send out thoughts and feelings of LOVE!!
- Finally, use your Imagination and Create Something Wonderful and of Beauty and Goodness to Benefit the World !!!
Maybe in the future, we will get a generator and will be able to utilize an alternative emergency power source but for what happened a couple of days ago, we were living old school. Here is the thing, YOU CAN AND WILL SURVIVE!!! We will too and we did!
In the meantime, while I have dealt with this unusual situation and circumstances, I just may have decided to not do much of anything at all and simply enjoy life and the passage of time.
So Be Well Everyone!!! Hope this helps someone someday.
Lots of Positive Energy and Love Being Sent Your Way For Sure!!!
Mary Mikawoz
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