Dark Nights

The lights are on. That seems like a minor thing until they are not.

Lines down around the corner from home

Tropical Storm Isaias blew into NJ last Tuesday stirring up a couple tornadoes for good measure. Power went out in my house midday at 12:22 (an old fashioned electric wall clock marked the moment) and remained out for 5 days. This is not a first – even for this year. I live in a high risk area since electric power is provided from overhead lines on winding tree-lined streets and the population density is low; so there is a high probability of falling tree branches cutting power lines while there is a low probability crews will deal with the area first. Whenever there are widespread outages, the more densely populated areas get priority. It is not uncommon to be out for 3, 4, or 5 days when the bulk of the county is restored in 1. After Hurricane Sandy I was out for two weeks. I’m on a well, which means water goes out with the power, but there is a pool out back so I can recharge the toilet tanks with buckets. At least it is summer and I could dive in the pool to prevent becoming too…well…aromatic. JCP&L has called in substantial outside help to get their lines back up – I passed Alabama Power trucks on the road this morning – but they are not entirely done yet.

I can tell which houses on my street contain kids since they are also the ones with generators – often the expensive kind that service not just a few circuits but the whole house. Imagine a modern 12-year-old without internet service or video games and one well can understand why. My usual solution to an outage is to go out in the evening to a movie, a diner, or a club or some other place with power. This year, however, the restrictions still in place in NJ on account of Covid-19 eliminate those diversions. While I’m OK with contemplating the ceiling in a Zen state in a dark room at night (flickering candles cast interesting shadows – even without psychedelics) most of my approach to the oncoming darkness this time has been tackling those “someday I’ll get to it” jobs that can tucker out a person – at least one who is not 18 anymore. Yesterday, for example, the job was resetting walkway slates that had subsided below the 6x6 (15cm x 15cm) borders thereby creating a tripping hazard. (The slates seem a trifle heavier than they did 42 years ago when they were set the first time.) Sleep comes earlier that way.

The outage brought to mind, as it always does, just how dark the evenings of our ancestors were. Yet, urban (or at least urbane) types didn’t rise with the sun and sleep when it went down. They stayed up to all hours. Ben Franklin, one such night owl, is sometimes falsely accused of having invented Daylight Savings Time, but he meant it as a joke. In a 1784 letter to The Journal of Paris Ben wrote that one night, as usual, he “went home, and to bed, three or four hours after midnight.” He says he forgot to close the shutters on the window and was awakened at six o’clock by sunlight. He thought it “extraordinary that the sun should rise so early... Yet it so happens, that when I speak of this discovery to others, I can easily perceive by their countenances, though they forbear expressing it in words, that they do not quite believe me.” He goes on to explain how all that unused sunlight can be exploited, but of course he is just playfully gibing himself and his fellow lovers of the nightlife for never getting up early. Before the last century people apparently just dealt with the dark, for candles and oil lamps simply do not compare to electric lights even of feeble wattage.

In truth, there is something peaceful about the dark – and the absence of electronic noise. The past few evenings on the porch while the tree frogs sang their love songs were relaxing. Still, I’m glad to have light, and water, and coffee, and (with reservations) even the internet.

 Dorothy – Dark Nights