A Romantic Notion

Thursday night, I did something I view as "romantic." I wrote by candlelight.

We had a power outage. A big storm came blowing through (a motif this Summer) and after a few hiccups with the power, it eventually decided to crap out on us, leaving us without lights, television and the blessed Internet. It was just about dusk, so there was still some light out but it was just dark enough to not be completely comfortable. Both of my kids were a little freaked out about it, especially my son Cooper.

Cooper can be skittish when presented with things that aren't routine or normal. A power outage at dusk is something that clearly falls into those parameters. He curled up on to my lap only the way a tiny skittish boy of four can, begging me to turn the lights back on. I often say that if I could I would move Heaven and Earth for my children but the laws of physics dictate that I can't. (Reason 437 why my wife things I'm annoying.) I soothed him as best I could, assuring him that everything was alright and I was right there with him (albeit playing a rousing game of Candy Crush on my phone) as I held him.

Cooper is a cuddler and has a thing for ears (that's going to be a fun middle school phone call, isn't it?), so as we sat curled into a ball of Zeleznik crammed into an oversized leather chair, he rubbed my ear like a well worn worry stone. Luckily, Cooper has been attending a summer camp at his daycare and was particularly tired. I also took him swimming at my in-laws, so with no electronics to overstimulate him, sleep came quickly in the dark. It was a relief.

Across the room, my wife Kim complained that she was going to have to sit in her car to charge her phone because she was under 10 %. My phone wasn't much better at just south of 30%. (Admittedly, Candy Crush wasn't helping.) We are staying in a rental place while repairs are taking place at the house, so we do not have a land line. Our cell phones are necessities, so keeping them charged is a must. Kim suggested taking a ride to see how many people didn't have power. I was all for it except for the bundle of nervous four year old curled beside me. I suggested that she, Natalie and my mother take a ride and leave me at home. I was afraid that if Cooper woke up and I wasn't there, he'd be even more skittish than usual. So they left, taking my phone (now under 20%) with them to charge and leaving me with my mother's phone, just in case.

As the sun waned, I noticed some candles on the hutch in the dining room. I also had my trusty writer's notebook. I could write. I might as well right since I had nothing going on, so I set Coop down on the chair and set about hunting for a lighter or match or something. It took about fifteen minutes to find a match and it took two matches to light the candle. (I am not a smoker and my pyromania ended in my mid-twenties.) It created a lot more light than I expected and I set about working. I wrote most of this in that time period and also worked on a section of THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE, which I started to feel like I was stalling and decided to charge through it and fix what I'm seeing as glaring issues in the rewrite. It was the right decision.

As I was writing, I began to wonder if this is what writing was like for the writers of yore. There was a notion of romanticism in it, like I was somehow writing something of great importance. Something that had some weight to it. (It's neither of those things.) I liked the way it felt. I mean, sure, I was using a Pilot G2 pen, not a fountain pen or a quill. I was writing in an old school composition notebook, not on parchment or in some fancy notebook. (I still hold out hope that one day I will upgrade myself to a fancy notebook though I'm still a fan of the durability and versatility of the composition notebook.) I don't know how long I wrote for, but the session ended when I got a text message from Kim that she wanted me to open the garage door. And like a dope, I tried to do it, forgetting there was no power. As the girls entered the house, Kim and I laughing about how we were both idiots about the garage door. the power popped on. Just in time for Natalie and I to catch our Thursday night tradition of watching the Gong Show together.

Maybe I'll write by candlelight some more in the future. Maybe not.