What to do in a power outage
How life calls to us through adversity.
When I was a kid, and the power went out during a storm, my parents sat us all around our timber dining table, nestled snugly in our dining room, and we would have sing-alongs. We’d sing everything from There’s a Hole in the Bucket, to The Mickey Mouse Theme Song, to what I assume was a family friendly version of What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor. Sometimes my Mum’s old guitar was brought out, though none of us really knew how to play it. If the power was still out come night-time, we would have soup for tea warmed in a pot atop our fireplace.
My parents took a time that could be construed as a setback, and interpreted it as an opportunity. They took a challenge and decided to see it as an invitation. They used these hiccups to create warm memories. Subsequently, those hours by candle or torchlight were some of the most connected I felt. They were times with the greatest sense of life in them. The happiest I ever felt eating boring old soup.
A few years ago, as we struggled through the early days of self-employment, our daughter Halo had a birthday coming up and she hoped to have a party. I had enough energy to want to do something special, but not enough money to have invites printed let alone anything else. After wrestling with the frustration of not having it as easy as people around me, I took stock of what I did have. The list consisted of:
Empty toilet rolls (follow for more hoarding tips)
Paint
Paper bags
Random craft supplies
I collaborated with Halo and we decided to make a treasure hunt party. We collected six large rocks and painted them different colours and coated them in sparkles. Then we painted an egg carton in gold for the treasure chest. We made all the kids a telescope from the toilet rolls and drew them different maps of our local park with directions to their particular rock treasure. We put it all in a paper bag with the invitation painted on the front.