This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Imaginary Flashlights and Lights Of Happiness Elita Sohmer Clayman

An ordinary small and inexpensive tool can help recreate light when power outages occur.

I did not coin this phrase. I saw it written today by a local weatherman, when he described the feelings he had from losing a brother. He called it a “mental hurricane.” Sad as its meaning is to him, it is a correct slogan or saying to describe when we have trouble in our lives.

When I as a teenager in 1948 went to visit my uncle and his wife, my step aunt in Miami Beach, Florida, they gave me lessons on what to do if a hurricane hit their building which was very large at that time. They told me what they had been schooled in on protection during such a happening. You were to go the lowest place in the building or in a room without windows and never look out at the windows to see what was happening. They told us the same things recently for a tornado watch here.

I remember about ten years ago, a tornado tore off the roofs of an apartment complex where my husband’s nephew lived with his family. They escaped and we rode out to gawk as many others did several days later. You can see pictures like this on the TV, but until you see the devastation in person, it is not a reality thought to you. It is a picture on the screen about someone else’s problems and sadness.

Find out what's happening in Hunt Valley-Cockeysvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

That is how life is too. When you hear a terrible thing happening to strangers or even to someone you vaguely know, true, you are shocked and unhappy it occurred to someone, but it does not hit home until it is a family member or yourself that it happened to.

Mental hurricane can describe how we feel when something happens we cannot control. It hurts the mind and body, as if a real hurricane happened and we were involved in it.

Find out what's happening in Hunt Valley-Cockeysvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

On the other hand or viewpoint, if something good happens to us like for instance a new baby is born, someone gets engaged to be married, a new home is bought, a job comes your way that you have wanted for a long time, a vacation that you yearned to go on, a delightful weekend of fun, all of these things could be called the opposite of a mental hurricane. They could be called flashlight of brightness in our lives. Flashlights shine light and we use them in darkness. So if we have a flashlight of brightness, we lose the darkness that may invade our thoughts and lives.

We always keep in almost every room of our home, a flashlight to light up the darkness that may occur if the power goes out during peak electrical use in these hot, humid and steamy days, we are experiencing here on the East Coast. The gas and electric companies warns the public, that overuse of electricity in horribly hot weather to cool ourselves; can lead to power outages.

Once about ten years ago, we lost power here in this vicinity for over four days. Others lost it for longer.

We had to take a room for two nights in a hotel because the hotel did not have an outage. It depended on where you lived, if your outage was not fixed yet. After two days and much expense, we came home and the power was turned on about one hour later. We lost lots of food from the freezer and the house was so hot. It took over twelve hours to cool it down. It was expensive in the hotel because they seemed to charge more per room than usual, because they knew people were desperate for coolness.

You do not appreciate your power use until you have none.

Flashlights for darkness, flashlights to find something small in a room, flashlights to walk a dark pathway when it is dark outside, all are useful and cheap tools to have in a home.

When we have an inexpensive flashlight, at least we can go from room to room and do some necessary things needed to be accomplished. If one is in every room and the power goes out and it is nighttime, you can turn on the flashlight and see where you are walking. That is important, so you do not fall and break a hip or leg walking in complete darkness.

Flashlights are our beacon in darkness and keeping extra ones around in each room eliminates trying to find one in the room you are in and stumbling. It is an inexpensive way to continue on in power outages.

Imaginary flashlights in our minds are lights we create for happiness in something extraordinary happening to us and sometimes these things transpire in a surprising way.

Someone who tried to have a child and it was not happening, when they find out, it happened, then that is like a flashlight was shining on us and a great light of happiness came about. Someone who thought they could not afford a home because the down payment required was too high for their income finds out that a parent will help them with the down payment and they have experienced a flash of light of what is going to happen, when they become a home owner, which is everyone’s dream.

Someone who played in a tennis or golf tournament and wins finds the flashlight of happiness beaming on him with great light. When I won my first six dance trophies in a dance competition in 1982 in Miami Beach, Florida, I was so elated, I felt like a rainbow was shining in front of me or a flashlight had been turned on in a dark room and the light was shining on me alone.

Flashlights are necessary for dark rooms, dark outside walkways, for finding something you lost so tiny like an earring on your bedroom floor and you cannot view it without that wonderful four dollar small flashlight. I have a habit of dropping the earring backs of my pierced earrings as I take them off. I shine a small flashlight all over the floor and it is as if by magic, it is gone. I continue on and there finally it is, right in front of my eyes and how did I miss it and now found it with the trusty life of my four dollar cheap flashlight.

Some people read by flashlights at night when in bed and do not want to disturb the spouse because he or she is already asleep. There are tiny flashlights that a dermatologist may use to look at a small spot on your body that is hiding from her eyes and with the small instrument, she is able to identify that it is an OK normal mark on you.

So flashlights come in all sizes and light up the world in different ways. I would never imagine that I could write a whole article on a simple thing like a flashlight.

However, when I heard the words mental hurricane, it made me think of a hurricane causing destruction, no electrical power and then came the thought of the uses of flashlights.

They are small, inexpensive, handy and wonderful tools to help in an emergency and perhaps, you can think of them as flashlights of happiness. We certainly become happy if we have been using a flashlight to keep us going when losing power, we are happy if it helps us find a lost piece of jewelry, we are happy we have one walking up an unlighted walkway, if we can read by it in an outage and if something really fine and makes us happy is the event, then it is like a flashlight of happiness beams light and we are lit up with joy, a good experience and a happy day or days.

Look at this small tool and realize what plain and ordinary things it does and on the imaginary side, remember that a flash of light for happiness is a like a lasting light and we have our lives brighter and happier. On the December holiday of Chanukah, the oil in the lamp of the menorah (candelabra) burned for eight nights, when it was thought it would last only for two or three nights. The nights of Chanukah are over after the last night, when all the candles are lit and it is the eighth evening of candle lighting.

The flashlight could be called the menorah of everyday use. It will burn for a long time and only a set of batteries is needed for fixing it when the lights do not go on anymore. Keep the lights on when darkness arrives from outages and your life will be easier because you had a plain, old, low priced instrument that can and will supply light into your life. This has been a story on fixing the darkness and brightening up our everyday existence.

The flashlight is gleaming when most needed. It is a flashlight bringing light and happiness back to us.

 

 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Hunt Valley-Cockeysville