We lost power for a few hours so I lit some candles, only to realize that all of ours are decorative or scented and not meant for practical use: we don’t have any with reflectors, or in lamps that aren’t so opaque and ornamental they block their own light.

I discovered that I don’t understand the technology of candles. I didn’t know how to place them in relation to where I sat to cast the most light on the book I was trying to read, and maybe my modern eyes just require more light for their reading than my ancestors’ did. In old pictures candles are always held overhead for creeping downstairs, but that didn’t help because all of our candles are on fancy glass platters that don’t carry well — it’s easier to navigate by the glowing screen of my phone. So I gave up on reading by candlelight and relied on my battery-powered booklamp instead, in hopes it wouldn’t burn out before power returned (and it didn’t).

In the dark I thought of Marshall McCluhan’s example of electric light altering the way we make sense of the world, and the difficulty of stepping backward to a technology around which my habits have not been designed. If we do exhaust the earth’s fossil fuels before growing familiar with other sources, the learning curve will surely be steep, so I’m going to start by picking up a few decent candles and a hurricane lamp. And maybe a long, tasselled nightcap, too, because folks always seem to wear those when they’re holding candles.