Silence (sort of)

Last night the power went out at our house, and our block and all the houses behind us for about two miles, but not our neighbors across the street. At first it was an exciting atmosphere, we lit candles, the reverse osmosis was running in the kitchen giving a nice trickle of water. And it felt like we were getting back to nature. Stripped of modern day electricity there wasn't anything running in the house, the way it was back in the old days.... But the reality was it was still 100 outside (even though it was 9 at night) and you could feel the heat pressing on building trying to enter in and destroy our solitude. While power going out maybe a peaceful, here you feel like you are on a spaceship that has lost power and it is just a matter of time before you run out of oxygen and die. Which is actually true here, for some people no electricity would be an actual matter of life and death. WE LIVE ON THE MOON. or might as well be.

But when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I decided to go swimming in our backyard. It was so peaceful, no pool pump, none of my neighbors air conditioners, the water had an intensity that normally isn't there. You could hear the traffic from McClintock though and the high school too. It was further away, but a game and people cheering and pep bands playing doesn't count anyways. Those sounds are all powered by humans alone and have a different energy to them, since they can't just run in perpetuity forever, and since they are telling a story rather than a hum, it is beautiful. It's interesting to think how much noise and light pollution comes from electricity and fossil fuels. A lot.

Then I began to think more about my time here in Arizona and how we are already here past halfway! Really past halfway if I go to Buenos Aires next fall. How it's been such an interesting different experience it has made life glow in so many ways and brought new understandings. And that it is actually all been completely worth it. Many of my perceptions, understandings , and ideas about life have grown in leaps and bounds. School has sucked me in and spit me back out so many times I have a world of material to think about and a world of material to go explore. And all under the context of this place. It's so fascinating but sometimes you only really begin to understand it's complexity when you begin to view it with other outsiders that already retain the same impression as you...Adventures with people in our house. I'd say we could arguably have had people here living with us over a third of the time that we are here. All these experiences because our house is a pilgrimage out to the desert for all of us. A certain isolation and mystery, even if this city is large, if you can tune it out (which sometimes is very hard) and tap into the desert, or better yet tap into this question mark of a city, it really is an enigma to be explored. And with the constant tumbling of grad school this city is an enigma that I felt I have barely explored. I'm hoping in the future this will be much easier to accomplish with Ryan on his own adventures.

Then a truck starts creeping down the alley slowly and finally comes to stop right behind our house. I get out and run inside and peak out from the door. Some sort of truck to deal with the power outage. Two square miles of no power, and somehow the solution is right behind our backyard. Of course. This place. A little later the entire sky lights up green and then the power really goes out including my neighbors across the street and the high school. But only for a moment for them and it pops back on. Then a few minutes later our power goes on, and every single air conditioner, our pool pump, and of course our neighbors air compressor comes on. The magic is gone.