Well, not quite the entire Earth, but it almost seems that way. I saw The Day the Earth Stood Still this weekend and I couldn't imagine a more fitting movie for what we're dealing with around here. We've been without electricity for three days now and living at the very end of a dead-end dirt road means we're probably last on the electric company's fix-it list. There are power lines strewn across the road and wires hanging from the telephone poles, big broken branches being held up by nothing more than a few thin wires, and entire trees toppled over alongside the road.
At night, the darkness is incredible. The full moon, the closest to the Earth it has been since 1994, is the only source of light around. Normally silent enough to hear a distant neighbor shut their front door, the night is filled with the sounds of dozens upon dozens of humming machines, each providing a little bit of that life-giving force to its owner. So often taken for granted, this electricity is not used for running televisions or computers or even for lighting the entire house, but instead for only our most basic necessities: heat to keep ourselves (and the water pipes) from freezing and for the small electric water pump that allows us to shower.
My hands smell of gas, my shoulder hurts from pulling the starter, my body is tired, and for the first time in a long while, I feel like I actually had a real weekend. The vast world of technology and the Internet seemed so distant -- like a dream of the way things once were. Everything felt more real, and life, more difficult. Life should be difficult. Not only mentally, but physically too. If the entire Earth was run on generators I think people would have more appreciation for not only life itself, but one another.