Saturday, May 19, 2007

Time Found by Margot Justes

A remarkable thing happened to me last week at work. The power went out and our building was pitched in darkness. I used a maglite to reach the darkest crevices, which included the bathroom, since there are no windows in that facility. The only light available was emergency ceiling lights, (few and far between) and management offices which provided natural light.

All of us stood in the hall and chatted, after all, this has happenned before, we expected to get back to work momentarily. It was not to be, we had a serious power outage, some cables had metled under ground and we would be left in the dark for the remainder of the day. We were told to go home.

Freedom. Total absolute freedom. No obligations, time on our hands, no responsibility. Time found to do with as we pleased. No big deal you may say, but in fact it was. Try to imagine a chunk of time that had not been planned, had not been allocated to some chore or other. It was an amazing feeling.

First and foremost I stopped for a cup of coffee...delightful...I ran errands, didn't even turn my cell phone on, not that it made a difference, I let the battery run down and had no power. I had no place that I had to be, it was glorious.

I know we enjoy our weekends, our holidays, vacations, and time away from work, but that day bordered on euphoria simply because it was so unexpected.

As it turned out I was not the only one who felt that way, my Web Guy (you remember my Web Guy) said why don't you do your blog on this day off, well, I am way ahead of you Web Guy.

Nice to know I was not alone.

Till next Saturday,

Margot Justes
A Hotel in Paris
Echelon Press, June 2008

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