Nat

Yesterday a nor’ easter storm, made up of the remnants of tropical storm Noel, whipped into town and knocked out our power at 4:00 in the afternoon. Fortunately, other parts of town were unaffected, so we were able to have dinner at a restaurant right up the street. It was the best of both worlds. Other than having dinner in a warm, heated restaurant, we spent the late afternoon and evening enjoying our family’s company by candlelight.

In those circumstances, simple pleasures reassert themselves. Balancing the checkbook, a chore I detest, assumes a quaint, Dickensian feel, and reading a book feels like a special treat. After dinner, I hauled in the small pile of dry wood from the porch, and my wife built our first fire of the season.

We hunted down all of our candles, arrayed them on trays in front of the fire, and played Uno, the card game, for an hour. In that light, it was hard to distinguish green from blue cards, which added to the game’s suspense and surprise. Finally, we decided to beat the cold that had settled into the house by heaping extra blankets on the beds and turning in early.

Adding in the extra hour we gained setting back the clocks for Standard Time, I slept for 11 hours. In short, it was a simple celebration of winter pleasures like families would have experienced a hundred fifty years ago.

It is a great reminder to me that happiness can sometimes come from subtraction. What I mean is that we often think, “If only I had…” I would be more happy. But in this case, it was the absence of creature comforts and electronic entertainment that gave us one another’s laughter and companionship.

What a treat.