From Thursday 6pm to Friday around 7pm, the entire country was mostly in the dark. Fortuitously, the power was on for coffee in the morning and the play at night… otherwise, we sat around staring at each other.

After sitting around in candlelight for 2 hours, we ALL fell asleep Thursday at 8pm. Like we’d been laying asphalt all day. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. It’s amazing to discover how sleepy you are when there’s nothing propping up your consciousness: no TV, no computer, no lights, no nothing. Even the boys fell right to sleep. With electricity, we would have been up to at least 10pm. If you can fall asleep so easily at 8pm simply because you don’t have lights, wouldn’t that be a sign you might need more sleep than you are getting?

In Costa Rica, sun sets around 5:30pm, rises around 5:30am. Everyday, 365. When we first got here, we fell asleep at dark, woke at dawn, like people did before electricity. It felt great, a natural rhythm. We arrived incredibly stressed, of course, changing our entire lives on a dime like that. After a couple of weeks of all that sleep, we felt great. No wonder we fell in love with Costa Rica!!!

It was wild not having any electricity in the entire country. Admittedly, it’s a small country, the size of Vermont, but still. Imagine the entire state of Vermont with no electricity. That’s a lot of lights out. Looking out across the entire valley, it was black. Not a single light anywhere. Then to find out it was out everywhere: Caribbean coast, San Ramon, Jaco, Dominical, Guanacaste… we were all in the dark. Kinda eerie, but very cool.

Nobody knows what really happened. I.C.E. (EEE-say, Costa Rica’s power and light monopoly) has offered up a couple of different scenarios. Whatever happened, it’s fixed. For now. My friendly blue light is on, mesmerizing me, beckoning me, propping me up. Definitely eerie, the power this light has over me… I’m taking a break just to prove I can.

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