Interesting thread altogether.
Coincidentally, we had a huge wind storm in Dinwiddie last night and all our power went out. The wind was too strong for my father to go get the generator, so we just lit candles throughout the house and listened to the winds gallop down the chimneys. I talked to a friend on the cell phone, so that was a technological advancement well appreciated. However, even cell phones are dependent upon batteries.
But after the call, after going downstairs to check on my daughter and father, carrying a little red votive in my hand, I accepted the silence in the house and marveled at the winds dying down...
It was a darkness that would not be broken for hours--we could do nothing against that darkness. It held us captive other than the little flickerings of candles here and there. And I had such a sense of peace and relief in the darkness and the quiet--all I could hear were the sounds of diminishing wind and my daughter's and father's muted voices in the kitchen.
When crawling into bed, I happened to look out the window onto the oak grove and hay fields beyond, and what I saw made me smile and nearly laugh in delight:
There were literally hundreds of fireflies blinking like mad! There are fifty acres in the fields beyond the grove to the front of the farm, and every spot of that front fifty was being illuminated with flying fireflies. I was held enthralled by the beauty--and seeing it all in a nearly silent house wrapped in unchanging, comforting darkness.
What I want to make clear is, for some mystical reason, seeing the fireflies in such profusion in the fields was better because the house was silent and dark. It was better without the sound of the television in the family room, and better without the porch lights on. Nature had taken out the force of technology and had replaced our blarings and brightness with such sweet undisturbed darkness other than the flickerings of hundreds of tiny, softly blinking fireflies. The fields looked filled with softly glowing jewels. It was as though Nature tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Now, I've calmed down this domain. Take a deep breath and look, really look, at what I can do--and do every night if anyone would bother to slow down enough to really notice me."
I understand the house murderer in Milo's passage...the ears would benefit most of all from a return to times without technology, and, consequently, the heart. But this was a spring night, and, to be perfectly honest, nothing was more wretched than living in darkness imposed upon us for five wintry days due to an ice storm.
Bottom line? If I really had to hone it down, it would be one acoustic instrument, a dictionary, lots of writing paper...and a cell phone with a good supply of batteries!
Best regards,
WordWaffler
