Last night I found myself looking at the shadows on the walls and ceilings of my house, cast from the light of four candles glowing in the kitchen, dining room, computer nook and living room. As my wife and dog huddled beside me on the couch, I was imagining what the shadows looked like. One looked like a boot, another looked like a flower and a third one looked like a lighthouse, casting a dark shadow instead of a beacon of light. The fourth candle didn’t throw off much light.

Such is life during this week’s blackout caused by the wind and rain storm which blew into Maine from the south Sunday into Monday. An inconvenience? Yes, but at least we have some areas with power – including my cozy office in downtown Boothbay Harbor – where we can take showers, buy food and get warm. Churches and fire stations are welcoming folks to stay, cook, charge your cell phones and more within their walls. Take them up on their offer if you are thinking that power might not come on until the weekend (hopefully sooner).

My wife and I actually talked last night, rather than having our Kindle and iPad, or television, in our faces! We reminisced about power outages as kids (hardly remembering many at all — as she said, as kids, you don’t have the responsibility as an adult so you might not remember the power outages as much).

So, as CMP and tree companies make their way around the state cleaning up this horrific mess and working to restore power, hang tight, be safe, check on family and friends and … look at those shadows on the walls and ceiling to pass the time away before going to bed early to keep warm!