In the Dark

Last night my roommate and I participated in the Earth Hour, from 8 to 9 pm. I heard about the event at the last minute, on the 5 o’clock news on ABC, after an exhausting day at work and between bites of eggroll and sips of cranberry juice. For a brief moment, I thought it might be fun to go down to the Embarcadero and watch the lights go out, but I was SO tired…

And it was wonderful to light candles and shut off the computers and television and just talk for an hour and 13 minutes. (We went over the time due to a misunderstanding with the microwave clock.) All around us our neighbors were ambivalent or ignorant, but we observed and felt more whole for it.

When I signed on to SFGate.com later, after the lights were restored in the room and the candles extinguished and the computers booted up and a Netflix dropped in the player, so many people responded to the article about the Earth Hour that I was stunned by how closely SFGate is read and nearly jumped the second articles appear. Not only did the readers and responders jump right on it, but they were extremely negative about the symbolism of the event.

I didn’t care either way.

It just felt very peaceful to have the world go out for an hour, and sit in the dark with fragrant smoke.