Yesterday was a day without electricity.  We are having solar installed, and the workers had to revamp and replace our electric panel.  No power in the house.  I planned ahead and laid out some paperwork to do, including voting.  My cell phone worked, and I could do a bit of internet surfing on a slow connection.  But seriously, it was nice not to.  Any googling on judges running for office could wait until the next day.  Netflix could wait. The day ran at a slower unconnected pace. 

I did some outside work, shoveling manure.  I decluttered a couple rooms.  I ran a couple errands.  But I did not feel tethered to the internet, constantly checking Facebook or watching depressing news headlines.  I felt like I could breathe for a day, with less worry.  

I wrote a card to a friend, the paper kind, with a pen.  I did use my computer for writing, running on battery power.  But writing is less a connection with the outside world and more a connection with my inner thoughts.  I felt like I could think again. 

We still had running water, because there was power at the well house, and we could still flush toilets.  We had heat upstairs, with our propane stove.  We had battery powered radios for music.  But we also had quiet, in between the clunking and pounding of the workers.  I felt like I could hear again. 

I opened all the curtains to let the light in, brightening the dark rooms with natural light.  I felt like I could see again. 

I plowed through a pile of junk mail and read some magazines.  I started a new book before my introspective day was done.  I felt like I could read again. 

I might institute days like this weekly, or monthly.  Turning off TVs and internet, and just being.  I felt like I could be again.

I am a glacial erratic.  Can you see that scratch on my lower backside, where the glacier pushed me across bedrock?  So heavy, it made a groove.  It itches, and I can’t reach it.  Sometimes the wild rose scratches me there; it feels good and green.  I came from the mountain, pushed down hill then carried over land.  I was dropped into this field of pebbles. The only thing I have in common with my neighbor rocks is our igneous beginning.   Sometimes I think I can smell the sulfur from the volcano that formed me, but it turns out to be smoke from yet another wildfire. I can see for a long way, from the past, then across that valley to the river.  I am here for the duration, too heavy to roll, unless they build a road over me, or there’s another ice-age.  Time is short, and long, when you are made of granite.  Just forming took an eon.  That journey was amazing, though.  Thrust up from below the mantle, then solidifying and cracking, a small piece of a big mountain. The glacier ride was a breeze, just 10,000 years or so ago, a blip in my lifetime.  Now I watch.  Seasons change.  Trees grow, trees die. Cougars used to rest on me, now the lichen grows.  Freezing and thawing rounds off my edges a granule at a time, but I figure I’ll be here for a while longer before I erode down to join the soil.