O-dark-thirty...

I was awakened this morning by the sound of silence.  

Forgive me, Mr. Simon.  I'm not plagiarizing.  I really did think of it myself this morning.  Before I remembered that you penned the phrase.

For years we have slept with the white noise of a fan in the bedroom.  I have a terrible time sleeping without it. I don't remember when we started the practice, but at this point it helps to mask the tinnitus I've had for more than a decade now. 

At 4:00 a.m. I suddenly woke up.  To silence.  Except for the low level screechy locust-y sound that is my constant companion when there's nothing loud enough to cover it.

In the silence, I instantly knew that the power had gone out.  I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but after a while I gave up.  Middle son spent the night here (as he does sometimes when he commutes from his northern home down to Indy for his once-a-week in-person work day).  And I knew he would be surprised to wake up a few hours later to darkness he couldn't banish with the flick of a switch.  Not that he couldn't figure that out well enough, but when he found out we didn't have running water, I wanted him to know where to find stored water I've collected for just this occasion.  Having a well is great when we consider we don't receive a monthly water bill, but today, for the first time since moving here, we experienced the downside.  Without a battery back-up to the well pump, we have no source of running water 'till the electricity is restored.

So in addition to finding it hard to sleep to the sound of silence, I didn't want to leave my son stranded in the morning not knowing we had a back-up plan to having no running water, nevermind that the plan is only slightly better than the plumbing possibly his great, likely his great great, and most surely his great great great grandparents had in their childhoods, and possibly into adulthood.   At least he didn't have to go outside and pump his wash water into a bucket.  Or use an outhouse.

To pass the time I thought I'd check email on my phone.  At which point I was reminded my older phone has a tired battery that doesn't keep its charge for long.  Then I decided to try to sleep in a recliner, so I set my phone's alarm to hopefully wake me up a little earlier than I thought my son would.  

But I still couldn't sleep.  

Looking out the windows I could see stars like I'd not seen them in ages, and I realized it's the first time I've seen it this dark out here - just a few miles away from town because all the neighbors' security lights were snuffed out.  If it wasn't windy, a bit chilly, and a tad spooky, I might have gone out back and soaked in the last of the star display from the patio, but I decided to be content to take it in from the relative warmth of the inside. 

Finally, sometime between 5:30 and 6:00 (I think) it started being early morning, instead of middle of the night.  Our house faces pretty directly west, and the den windows at the back of the house face east.  I stood at the den windows for a while looking out at the still eerily dark back yard and I noticed an occasional light off in the distance flick right and then left.  After focusing on it a bit I realized I was seeing the headlights of vehicles traveling northerly and southerly on the state highway.  Looking at a map, I can see the distance I was viewing from (as the crow flies) is about 2 - 2 1/2 miles.  And I could only see these streaks of light in the breaks between the trees, and only because there were no leaves on any trees.   I'm not sure what time I started noticing them, but I know by around 6:30 while there were surely even more cars traveling on the highway, the sky had started to lighten just a bit on the horizon to the point I couldn't see the streaks of the car headlights anymore. 

It wasn't anywhere close to sunrise when the eastern sky started changing from a solid dark color (was it blue? was it black? I don't remember) to a light gray on the horizon.  A good half hour before I could see the first glow of the sun, I could see the day dawning.  At 6:45 I heard the sound of the school bus that makes a stop at the corner by our house.  Having nothing better to do (and feeling a bit Mrs. Kravitz-ish), I went to the front door to watch.  I could only see one car from this angle, and one little boy - 1st, 2nd grade, maybe 3rd  grade age left the warmth of his parent's car and with his backpack about a third as big as himself wave at the bus driver as he waited for the bus to stop.  Then he ran across to the other side to get on the bus.  While I don't catch this sight often, it isn't the first time.  And it isn't the first time I've had the thought that o-dark-thirty seems awfully early for little ones to have to skip onto a bus and start their journey to school.    

Ah well...  as each minute passed, the sky brightening more, before I knew it the gray dawn had given way to an amber-colored sun rise.  And once again I was witness to a glorious new morning from what still feels a bit like our "new" home.  Birds were chirping like it's spring (because, as far as they're concerned it probably is) and somehow after seeing the sunrise, I forgot how few hours I actually slept last night.

Son woke up, took not having running water in stride, and got himself cleaned up and ready to leave for work.  I wish I could go with the flow so easily.  

And by 11:00 a.m. the power suddenly came back on.  Only seven hours later.  A power outage in February is one more reason we've been thankful for this unseasonably warm winter we're having.  It was 66 degrees today!

And March happens next week already!   

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