At last! A beautiful Arizona monsoon started to form over my house. I sighed in relief as I watched it from my patio, and enjoyed the cooler evening air. At first it was a dry rain (no drops at all) complete with lightening and thunder.
But now, maybe an hour later, it was pouring, with lightening flashing followed by thunder that was almost immediate. I couldn’t even count the seconds between the lightening flash and the thunder. I should be happy. After all, it was the Arizona monsoon…my favorite weather of all time. Nevertheless, here I was teetering precariously on a step stool in my living room in the dark, trying to turn off the fire alarm that was chirping in relentless intervals to tell me that the electricity had cut off due to the last lightening strike. The battery backup had apparently taken over, and I was hellbent on getting it out. The step stool wasn’t tall enough, so I fumbled in the dark garage until I found my ladder and dragged it into the space which I hoped was directly underneath the fire alarm. After all, it was a dark and stormy night, and there was no light in the house.
Yes, yes…I heard the voices of my grown children taunting me in my head, “Mommy! You have a cell phone with a flashlight built in!” Feeling old, but proud of myself that I’d climbed a ladder in the dark, I fumbled my way back to my bedroom, found my cell phone on my nightstand, promptly knocked it off onto the floor, got on my knees (not praying, but searching for that damn earthly device), and a couple of laughs and expletives later was again standing precariously on the ladder fumbling to find the fire alarm battery and yank it out.
As sweat dribbled down my forehead and stung my eyes, my thoughts drifted back to a better hour of the day (pre-monsoon) when I was chatting on the phone with my 91 year old friend, Bev. We talk nearly every day, and during our conversation I suddenly had a random thought that I felt I urgently needed to share.
“I don’t remember who told me this, but many years ago someone told me about the one thing that destroyed our sense of community in the world,” I said.
I could hear Bev raise her eyebrows. That’s how we roll. We’re very connected. “What did they say?” she asked, sincerely interested.
“Air conditioning,” I said flatly.
I heard her gasp in a way that I knew she totally understood.
I continued, “They told me that with the advent of air conditioning, we lost our connection. People used to go outside at night to enjoy the cooler air. They would walk, or sit on their patio and have cool drinks that they might even share with friends or family who walked by.”
And then Bev enthusiastically chimed in, “And put their mattresses on the sidewalk so that they could sleep in the cooler air!”
“Really? Did you do that?” I asked.
“Yes, we did that when I was a kid!” she said, and you could hear the joy in her voice at the remembrance of the sweet, simpler, safer times.
As my mind drifted back to the task at hand, with great satisfaction I wrenched the old battery from the fire alarm and descended the ladder. I realized that lately I’ve been feeling a bit rebellious in my own way against the devices and things that keep steering me away from the life forces that matter: family, friends, community, love. I tossed the battery on my dining room table, turned off my cell phone flashlight, and enjoyed folding up the ladder and returning it to its rightful place in my garage in the dark.
As I strolled back to bed in the dark (to which my eyes had now adjusted), I heard the rain and thunder, and felt the humid cool air on my skin since my doors and windows were now open. I could see my TV out of the corner of my eye. I smiled as I remembered that I’d stopped my TV service just a few days before. I wondered if I would miss the background noise, since I rarely watched TV, but had it on to keep me company. Surprisingly, I found myself reveling in the silence ever since.
I had turned my TV off, and something turned on within me. A desire for those things that are timeless. A giggle on the phone with a friend. A hug from a family member or friend. Spotting a colorful bird. The sound of rain and thunder no longer drowned out by the sound of the TV.
When the electricity turned off, the inspiration to write this newsletter article turned on within me, when I’d been struggling with writer’s block all day.
Thank you, Bev, for being my inspiration. I love you.
