Unplug and Enjoy the Peace

The other morning we lost power in our house due to high winds that preceded an approaching snow storm.

At first, I was so flummoxed, I didn't know what to do with myself.  I usually spend mornings going through email and then getting down to writing.

Since I couldn't do either, I went back to bed.

At first, I just lay there and enjoyed the sound of the wind gusts blasting the house. Then I focused on the silence...we rarely have moments of silence in the house, there's always a TV or music wafting through the airwaves.

The silence led me into ten or fifteen minutes of meditation. Then prayer.

Then I opened my eyes and looked at the books I had on my nightstand. I am very well intentioned. Every night I think I'm going to read before falling asleep, instead, I usually end staring at my ipad.

Well, on this power black out morning, my ipad wasn't working because the wifi in the house was down. So I actually picked up a book. Yes, one of those with real paper.

And I read.

Then I realized this pleasure I'd been missing. How incredibly enjoyable it was to get lost in the pages of a book without the half-mind distraction of background noise. To really be present in the story and the experience of just reading.

It was also very restful.

The experience made me realize that I need to add more of this into my life. More unplugged time, more time for reading and silence.

What about you? Do you have dedicated time where you unplug from the Internet and TV and noise?