Family life, daily routine, endless responsibilities, lack of time, busy….
When I was a teenager there were no computers (or at least they were not widely available), no cell phones, notebooks, the Internet!!! Despite this, each of us was always busy with something “his” own. Everyone in his room. During this period in Polish reality, there were interruptions in the supply of water or electricity to our houses. And however rather inconvenient it was, especially from a parental point of view, from my teenage perspective at the time, power outages were the most beautiful moments of our family daily life.
When the lights went out…
…my mother would light a candle and put it on the table in the big room. And we would all come out from different corners of the house and, like moths, descend to that light. In that magic-evening moment, no one thought about the activities from which they had been distracted. We were focused on each other. Doing homework, studying, working, embracing the house for that fraction of family time ceased to exist. And we were focused on each other weaving the story of our lives, being close and enjoying our closeness. It was then that the stories of our parents’ childhood came to life, then we listened again and again to the tales of their first meeting. It was then that we were penetrated to the marrow of our bones by our own story in its pure essence. We were part of something bigger, something meaningful, and it was during this hushed time that we gradually began to discover it.
Today, no one shuts off our electricity anymore. We have to take care of cutting it ourselves, to get away from our activities and from the virtual spellers.
We have to steal our shared moments ourselves.
To stop, to postpone our virtual reality adventures, to stop panicking when the Internet access goes out, to also take a break from the usual busyness of the everyday… for a moment… to see the world around us, to feel someone’s presence, to breathe….
It is up to us to decide to “turn off the electricity” for a fraction of a lifetime to feel more the closeness and our shared meaning.
