Yesterday around 1pm, I finished writing my Daily Email Habit puzzle and was about to upload it to Kit. But my Internet had stopped working. The odd thing was I checked my phone, and not just the wifi was down, but it looked like the cellular network, too.
I shrugged and went to take a nap because… I live in Spain.
I woke up twenty minutes later. The Internet was still down. I looked inside the fridge to see if there was anything interesting happening there. It was dark. Aha. The power was out.
I opened the the circuit breaker box — all the circuit breakers were fine. I opened the front door of my apartment. The hallway outside was dark except for the emergency light.
Ok. So the power is out in the entire building. There was a notice a few days ago about some utilities work being done, maybe this was it.
I decided to go to the gym, because there was nothing else to do. The elevator wasn’t working so I took the stairs. On my way down, I passed a couple with a baby who were climbing up. The woman was carrying the baby, while the guy, panting, was carrying the stroller. Lucky for them, they live on just the second floor (the building has 12).
As I stepped out into the sunshine, I saw a bunch of people standing around on the street and talking. All stores, restaurants, and banks were dark and empty. I guess the was power out everywhere in my neighborhood?
I passed by a local brunch place. The waitress was explaining to the guests, “It’s everywhere! My boyfriend in Madrid says it, there’s no connection anywhere.”
I got to the gym, which was dark, silent, and full of people. I did my workout among suppressed grunts and increasingly stifling air (the AC wasn’t working).
I heard one of the trainers explain to somebody that this power outage is happening “en toda España.” Somebody else said Portugal too. Others were saying it’s in France and Italy as well (turned out to be exaggerations).
I walked back home. Drivers were carefully stopping at every zebra and intersection because the stoplights weren’t working either.
The streets were packed with people. Neither the metros nor trams were running. The whole city seemed to be either standing on the streets or walking home because no work could be done. An alarming number of women were sitting on park benches and reading books.
Convenience stores were the only thing that was somewhat open. Each one had a queue of people waiting at the front door. The store owners were letting in people one by one to do basic shopping if they could pay in cash.
As tends to happen, the sun started to set. I went for a walk and saw firefighters in front of a pharmacy beating down the rolling security shutter. It must run on electricity. I guess the firefighters were trying to close it by force for the pharmacists, to prevent a breakin at night.
I stood on my balcony as night fell. I was looking forward to seeing the city in total darkness for once. But it wasn’t to happen.
It turned out some buildings still had electricity — the fire station next door, various hotels, an entire neighborhood off on the hillside.
Still, Avinguda Diagonal, the main artery next to my house, was almost entirely dark. So was my little street. My own apartment was even darker.
I made a salad for dinner — the only food I had left in the house that didn’t require a stove to prepare. I had to move the cutting board to the window because the counter where I normally work was so dark I was afraid I would chop off a finger tip while slicing the cherry tomatoes.
By around 9:30pm, my apartment was like a cave. There was no Internet and I had switched off my phone earlier to conserve the battery. I lay on the couch and turned on the backlight on my Kindle to read in darkness.
Around 10pm, I heard cheering and clapping outside. A neighboring block had gotten its power back. But my block and most other blocks around me were still in the dark.
I went to bed around 10:30pm, feeling exhausted. I guess following the natural light cycle does that to you.
And then, some time during the night, I’m guessing around 2am, I woke up to loud beeping. My fridge was back and it was helpfully signalling that the temperature of the freezer was dangerously high.
All that’s to say, as of this morning, everything’s normal once again, and without even an interruption in my daily email cadence.
I have to admit I was actually looking forward to the possibility of a continuing power outage, and to having a proper, unavoidable excuse to not writing my daily email today. What would that be like? I’ve been writing a daily email for years now, every day, without fail. I was excited by the prospect of change. That’s something for me to think about.
Meanwhile, I can tell you that the curious day yesterday reminded me of a curious book I’d read two years ago. In fact, this book was the first book of my year-long Insights & More Book Club, which brought together a few of my readers specifically to read books that offered a mind-bending new perspective.
The first book of the book club fit the bill.
Even though the book is 100 years old, it was written in a particularly interesting and influential style, which I think can be relevant for anyone writing online today.
It also did lead me to moment of real insight, a perspective shift, which sticks with me to this day. I mean, even to yesterday, when I was really thinking about it.
If you’re curious, you can find the book, or maybe even read it yourself, at the following convenient link: