I just had the experience of spending almost two days completely without electricity and internet access, plus three hours under a very unstable power supply, the kind that its great for your household appliances, if your intention is to burn them.

As you can imagine, this is an unpleasant situation. At any temperature. Now, let your imagination soar and dream yourself experiencing it in the middle of a heat wave. How hot? We are talking about temperatures around thirty-five degrees Celsius, twenty-four hours a day. Yes, even in the early hours of the morning.

And if you sweat just thinking about this degree of heat, know that you are on the right path to have a vague idea of what I went through. No fan, no air conditioning, no garden. However, just like any extreme situation, trying not to lose your head (and, if possible also your mind) is at the same time, the biggest challenge and your only way out.

Establishing a minimum comfort zone is essential to gather strength. And how to do this? For me, first of all, it involves determining whether the basics for immediate survival (can I breathe, despite the heat? do I have enough cold, fresh water to drink? Opening the refrigerator door and not letting the hot outside air in should always be the last option.

Once this minimum zone of confort is assured, you have to look for something positive (or the least worst), something that allows you to say “but” (everything seems to be going wrong, but…). In my case, this small comfort is the silence in which the street seems to immerse, when there is no electricity.

The soundless world that can erupt from even the noisiest neighborhoods when people are deprived of electricity is simply fascinating. One could say that it is comparable to the calm of rainy days, during which the sound of drops seems to drown out everything so that we can better appreciate the orchestra of nature, but nights without electricity in the city offer an even deeper immersion in silence.

After some time in the dark, the voices and noises become more sparse, weaker, until they stop completely. It is as if, deprived of the light, we went back in time and shared the same fears that the first of us felt. Perhaps silence reminds us that we are, each and every one of us, very weak little creatures and we feel afraid, when we do not have fire, lights and all the other shiny objects we surround ourselves with to entertain us from the anguish at the nothingness that we are. It can be pretty hard to face that you are just a human being.

As for myself, I tried to overcome the problem by reconnecting with my natural biological cycle: I slept as soon as it got dark and got up when the sun rose, in order to make the most of the daylight. And when the computer battery ran out, I cooked, organized the wardrobe, separated clothes for donation and read for hours. It was detoxifying and quite calming.

Embracing silence may be a way to cope when you yourself have to face soundless, fearful days.

Be seeing you!

G.F.