Wasted Hours, Arcade Fire

When the power goes out, you can literally do nothing.  The water goes out, so showering, cleaning, doing the dishes or any other activity like that is off the table.  You don’t know when it’s going to come back, and if you’re anything like me, you often forget to charge your computer, ipod (who recently came back to life) or other electronic device, so that’s out.  The signal goes out too, so all those phone calls you’ve been saving up?  Can’t catch up with anything.

I sit in my hammock a lot when the power goes out.  I do a lot of reading – that is, when my kindle is charged.  If my kindle isn’t charged, I do a lot of writing.  I guess that’s why I brought 17 different journals.  My current life is a blend between active movement and intrinsic thought.  The combination of planning three different projects for the next twenty months, I constantly have to think and plan.  But living within a Panamanian community, I must also be available for my friends and neighbors.  Whenever there’s something to do.  At any moment, unless it’s unreasonably late.  And doesn’t have to do with a turtle.  I am available for turtle conservation activities at any moment.  Every moment I am sitting still, I must plan, think and wonder.

But when the power is out, no one knows when it’s coming back, so everyone sits in a limbo.  It’s different than the raining limbo – the power tends to stay when it rains and if it doesn’t, you sleep, lulled by the noise of rain on a zinc roof.  When the power goes out without the rain, you can’t sleep – it’s too hot.  You can’t watch the rain – there isn’t any.  You’re stuck, without movement, without even a wind to keep you sane.

I’ve started going for bike rides when the power goes out.  It is at once a perfect way to pass the time, yet one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had.  When there isn’t light, there sometimes isn’t water.  After a bike ride in the hot sun, I come home, silently begging and hoping for the water to be back.  When it’s not, I lay in my hammock, or sit in my chair, feeling the sticky sweat on my back, my chest, my elbows, my knees and everywhere else.  I sit, staring and not thinking, praying for the water to come back on.

When the power goes out, life is paused.  When it comes back, no matter when, everything starts up again, with a cheer.  Unlike the slow transition when the rain finally stops, the light is sudden.  Suddenly, everything is bright again and a cheer goes up.  The movements can start again.  And I can finally shower.