My husband Hova thought it would be cool to participate in Earth Hour [1], the worldwide energy conservation event that took place Saturday March, 30, from 8-9:00 PM. Across the globe, people were urged to turn off their lights for one hour. I admit I was a little hesitant, it sounded too much like Hands Across America [2], and I doubted that many people would participate. But it was such a simple way to make a little impact within our own family, and experiment with what it’s like to be aware of electricity for an hour. We decided to cheat a bit, and turn the lights off from 7-8:00 PM instead, since we wanted to have Georgia in bed by 8. And that way it wouldn’t be scary dark, but dark enough to use candles and flashlights. When we proposed the idea to Georgia, she was into it right away.

It probably had something to do with the candles. Georgia is fascinated by and terrified of fire: she peers over the stove to see if I’ve left any burners on, and when we light a match she makes sure we don’t burn ourselves, yells for us to blow it out, then demands that we douse the match in water. She loves to play “Pretend I’m sixteen going on seventeen and I’m old enough to light matches…”

We gathered the candles. We couldn’t find the candle holders, so we stuck a taper in an old Chianti bottle, and made do with several tea lights and an odd decorative pear shaped candle. We turned off the computer and the stereo, and set the timer for one hour. We got the kitchen matches and lit the candles one by one, to Georgia’s exhortations, “Mommy! It’s getting too close to your finger! Blow it out! Mommy! Douse it, douse it, douse it!” After carrying out our fire safety duties, we turned off all the lights.

There was still a glow coming in from the windows, but it was dark enough to start wondering how people live without lights. “You know, there are a lot of people who don’t have electricity, and at one time no one anywhere had electricity.” I said. Hova joined in, “People had to use candles if they did anything after the sun went down.” Georgia gazed at the candles for a few minutes, noticing the different colors in the flames. Then it was time for her first candlelight bath! Hova channeled Lincoln, hunkered over The Trumpet of the Swan [3], and read aloud, easily at first, and then with more difficulty as the daylight waned. Georgia splashed around happily, unfazed by the growing dark.

Since we had turned the computer off, I didn’t run upstairs to see what I could accomplish during bath time. I had the strange sensation of phantom email, and kept feeling like I should check it; something about the computer being off made me feel more urgent about being connected. But it was nice to just quietly tidy up the house, and do only what I could do in the dim light. I noticed that we had left the curtains open longer that we would normally have, until the last bit of light was left in the sky. I also noticed that it’s hard not to just switch on a light when I walk into a room, even if I don’t necessarily need it. I habitually turn lights off when I leave a room, but I probably don’t always need to turn lights on when I go into a room.

When Georgia’s bath was over, there was still dark time, so Hova continued to read via candlelight during snack and story time, even though it was getting much more difficult. When the timer went off at 8 o’clock Georgia didn’t want to turn on the lights, but she did want to blow out the candles and use the flashlights. She liked the dark experiment, but could not relax because of all the fire. So we did bedtime via flashlight, and when she was sound asleep turned the glaring lights back on in the house.

I didn’t know what kind of impression Earth Hour made on her until last night, when she said, “I have an idea! Let’s do that turning off the lights thing with the candles and flashlights again!” So we did, and then today when we picked up her pal Baxter for a play date she told him all about it, and not just about the candles, but described the premise behind it as a good way to save electricity. Baxter thought it sounded “interesting” and they proceed to talk, in their sophisticated four and a half year old way, about how important it is to save electricity.

Tonight she asked to do Earth Hour again. I guess we’ll be saving the earth, one hour at a time!