My life without light

My life without electricity was, like that of all of us fortunately caught at home by the blackout, a bearable experience. Although it's well known that when you know the answers, the questions change, and that many of the lessons learned won't be useful for the next disaster, despite the inconveniences, it must be acknowledged that, during the fifteen hours the blackout lasted in my town, some pleasant things also happened.

From the start, with the neighborhood outside asking each other questions, I became a kind of beacon, not because I was the only one still carrying a battery-powered transistor radio, but because the unfortunate people believed that, as a journalist, I had privileged information. Normally, they only stop me to ask if it's true that the King and Queen are getting divorced or if Princess Leonor has a boyfriend. The other night, I felt fulfilled when a neighbor, citing my affiliation with La Vanguardia (a seal of quality, if there ever was one), silenced the neighborhood moron who insisted that the apocalypse had arrived, while I persisted in denying her.

Without light or internet, the hours in silence were a balm for the senses.

A friendly French couple, staying in a tourist accommodation, joined the street party without complaining about the blackout ruining their vacation (adventure is adventure), but grateful for the kindness of strangers, who, to top it all off, kept enough flashlights in their car to light up the Olympic Stadium. Another elderly neighbor handed out the candles she had kept at home, enough to accompany the Macarena procession in the early hours of Seville, but which she actually uses to keep one lit next to the photo of her late husband. The woman also refused, at the time, to let her children install a ceramic stove and still has a very useful gas stove where she boiled the water needed for a communal tea party.

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Without electricity, internet, network, or mobile data, and, above all and unfortunately, without parents to call, the hours of silence were a balm for the senses, a kind of spiritual retreat. I was close to letting my phone battery run out while waiting for the power to come back on, but just in case, I went to the garage to charge the device using the car's charging port. To go faster, I drove around in circles without leaving the parking lot until I realized I was like a hamster in its nest. Perhaps that was the best lesson: don't overthink the inevitable.