Yesterday, I Went Back 40 Years in Time

The blackout in Portugal untethered me and made me (all by myself) think without interruptions.

Courtesy of Old Phone Shop

Yesterday, I was freed from online worries. At 11:24 a.m., as I sat at my computer and finally started to work on my various projects, the lights went out. I thought immediately, “Had I missed an electric bill?” No, all was paid up. Then my wife announced that the lights were out all over Portugal — and Spain, we later found out. Folks, the transformation of the brain, I noticed, is real, and I, as much as all of the people I complain about in this world, am as much a hopefully, virtually addicted person as anyone else.

60 percent of what I do in a day is accomplished by having a connection to the internet. Traveling in planes is a welcome respite from the constant chirping and chiming of messages, “news” updates, and the utterly pointless reality of Trump’s world. Yesterday, however, as the minutes turned into hours and no one had any information about how and why the blackout happened and when it would end, I began to notice that the decoupling — or perhaps un-tethering — from the internet was giving rise to a strange bout of fatigue. An unpleasant crankiness overtook me when I fought my way through the desire to lie on the couch and avoid speech.

It dawned on me that I was lost because I was utterly incapable of accomplishing anything without electricity. I couldn’t prepare lunch or dinner. Having immediately walked to our son’s school to pick him up when the lights went out, we arrived home to find the apartment getting hot. We hadn’t had time to lower the metal blinds, which are so common — and necessary — over here, so even doing nothing was becoming unpleasant. I decided to go hunting for some food and instead found empty supermarkets. It turns out that many people also lost water, and so they stormed the stores to load up on all they could that wasn’t perishable.

I did, however, buy canned pineapple, so my wife will finally get her Hawaiian pizza on Friday (Friday is pizza night in our world with electricity).

Instead of sitting in their homes digesting dinner and watching TV, people took to the streets. Locals hung out and chatted on every corner and in front of many houses. I could see that the elderly were especially happy because, since the arrival of the internet in our lives 40 years ago, that moment of hanging out and talking to anyone about anything had become less frequent.

Thankfully, the Portuguese still have a strong café culture, so hours each day revolve around the cafés. People pop in for coffee and a roll in the morning, then come for lunch, and in the evening, stop by for a beer or coffee and bread for dinner. But the lingering on the streets to watch the world go by, pat kids on heads, and comment on the weather or goings-on is now mostly reserved for the small villages. As we strolled slowly — a pace I can seldom manage— down the street to nowhere, the sidewalks were full of activity.

I told my son it was like the “old days” because people had nothing to do at home and needed to chat and gather information from each other. He loved that concept. He repeated “It’s like the old days” at least five times before bed.

Around 10 p.m., the lights flickered on and off, and slowly our world was revitalized. I blew out the candles — I was trying to read a book by candlelight — and then checked the news to figure out what happened. CNN knew as much as I had been able to decipher from our sun-powered transistor radio. My ability to understand what the Portuguese are saying is still at a pretty low level — they swallow everything.

A part of me wanted to “catch up” on what I had missed during the day. The sense that I had “fallen behind” and now needed to spend a few hours reorienting myself in Trump’s chaos was strong. The sense even aggravated me. The day I shared with my family, and ten million Portuguese, and 40 million Spaniards, was real. It was an inconvenience, and I hope we don’t have many more of these days, but sadly, I think we will. The world is getting hotter, and grids will not be able to handle the demands for more energy.

Like many here, our entire lives are electric. We had no use of our mobile phones, and almost no one has old-style rotary phones anymore. In an instant, we were not just without power but also without information of any kind. And with all the knowledge I have in my head and the access to so much more thanks to the internet, I was as helpless as a baby in many respects.

We are making a plan now for the next time. We realized that not having a grill to barbecue something is bad. We need to replenish a supply of canned goods that can last at least a few days. The day, though, made me think. I was going through thought processes completely unaided by Google or anything else. At first, my brain resisted, but then I got into it, and just like riding a bike, my brain got going, and it felt good. I enjoyed the process.

When I woke this morning, I fell back into my usual morning habits of receiving information via the internet. After 15 minutes, I was bored and decided to open a notebook and write out a plan for another project by hand. Yesterday scared me because I realized that when the grid collapses for more than 12 hours, most of us will have no clue how to survive. I can’t let that happen to me or my family. I am not saying we will move off to the countryside and start raising our food and power sources, but I will make a contingency plan.

Yesterday, for as odd, and thankfully short, as it was, refreshed me in a way I didn’t think possible.

You can pick up my book here.