The power went off. We were trapped in a little lake cabin about the size of an area rug when it happened.
Mid-afternoon, a small storm came rolling in. The sky was instantly transformed from a lush blue into an angry gray-black.
The summer wind whistled. The trees creaked. The lake whitecapped and churned. It sounded like a small hurricane was sweeping over Lake Martin.
Then…
The lights went off. The A/C quit. The refrigerator stopped humming. And finally, the Almighty Internet Router died a cruel and hapless death.
The storm ceased. The clouds parted. And everything fell silent on the lake.
The first thing I did was try to use my phone, but nothing worked. No service. No internet.
Next, I went into the basement and fetched the emergency kit. I loaded batteries into the lanterns. I actuated the flashlights. I set up the Coleman camp stove on the porch. And, most importantly, I fired up the walkie-talkies.
“Why do we need walkie-talkies?” asked my wife.
I just rolled my eyes in exactly the manner a former second-class Boy Scout would roll his eyes when someone asks why you need interpersonal communication devices during a severe weather crisis.
“We don’t have phones,” I spoke into the handheld radio. “So we use these. Over.”
She replied into the radio. “Okay, but this is stupid.”
“You have to say ‘over.’”
“What?”
“When you finish speaking into the radio. You say ‘over.’ Over.”
My wife did not move a facial muscle.
So, I went into the yard and cleaned up. Small limbs had fallen during the squall, along with a confetti of leaves. Then I used the weed eater to trim weeds. I laid fresh pine straw. It felt good to sweat.
“Still no power?” I said into the radio. “Over.”
Static.
“Nope,” came the reply of my wife. “Also, we have no running water.”
“That’s because the cabin isn’t connected to city water. It has a well pump,” I said. “Over.”
Static.
“So, this means we have nothing to drink,” she said.
The former second-class Boy Scout just laughed silently again. Then he held the radio to his mouth. “What do you take me for? An amateur? Over.”
Static.
“What?”
Static.
“Look in the lower cabinet. There are dozens of gallons of distilled potable drinking water. Over.”
“Seriously?” she said.
“Do you know what the Boy Scout motto is?”
“Be a dweeb?”
I did a little more busywork outside. After a few hours, I checked my phone again, which still had no signal. Which meant no texts came through, no emails, no direct messages, and no meaningless notifications or pocket vibrations that bombard my device hourly informing me of things I don’t really care about but continually check my phone every couple of minutes to read.
No, my phone was now a useless brick in my pocket. And oddly, I felt free. Like my leash had been removed.
Of course, no internet or power meant I couldn’t work on writing projects for a few days. Neither could I submit a column, like the one you’re reading here.
But then, this column has been a daily routine for me for 12 years now. I have written upwards of 5,000 columns. Believe me, I love this column. But I have also surrendered large pieces of my life to write it.
I realize I have let my work and career stunt relationships and steal my awareness of this present moment. Sometimes I have lived more of my life in pixels than in the majesty of Right Nowness.
“Nobody is going to die if you don’t write a column today,” said the little voice inside my head. The same voice that has been talking to me a lot lately. This voice is very wise, and has been trying to teach me things. But I seldom listen.
When I got inside, my wife was reading a book by candlelight. The candles are religious votives I bought at the Dollar General. They have labels bearing the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary printed in Spanish, and an illustration of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I am not Catholic; the votives were $0.50 apiece.
The candles flickered, lending a convivial glow to the old cabin. The windows were open. A cross breeze graced the three tiny rooms, playing with the shades. The dogs were lying on the floor instead of the sofa to keep cool.
“I’m going to make supper,” I announced. “Over.”
“You don’t have to use the radio,” said my wife. “I’m looking right at you.”
I walked onto the screen porch and lit the propane stove. As I cooked, I sipped a lukewarm beer that was sweating in the dead refrigerator.
We ate a simple meal. Over plastic camping china and tepid longnecks, we laughed together and retold stories we’ve told a million times before, half pretending it was the first time we’d ever told them.
At dusk, the sky turned purple and gold, with striating clouds across a feckless summer sky.
I smelled myself. I was ripe.
“I’m going to take a bath,” I said.
My dogs followed me to the dock and watched me ease into the lake water, wearing nothing but flip-flops and the joy of the Lord. My dogs stared confusedly as they watched the middle-aged man submerge his entire personhood into the surgically chilled water and let out a non-masculine scream that reverberated across the lake for miles.
We fell asleep with the sunset. We slept with windows open, atop the sheets. The choirs of crickets serenaded us. The lone sound of an owl, on the hunt, sang through my dreams.
When I awoke, it was with the first hint of sunlight. My wife was still sleeping when I made coffee in an old stovetop CorningWare percolator. Porcelain. Cornflower blue.
The birds sang with the coming dawn. Millions of birds. The virility of nature was deafening.
“Do you get it now?” said that little wise voice that talks to me. “Do you finally get it?”
I looked at the dead phone on the counter.
“I think I finally do,” I said.
Over.
Questions: SeanDietrich@gmail.co
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Originally published on Sean’s website. Republished here with permission.
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