A Light In The Dark

Day 126: During the brighter era of a few months past, a friend and I were discussing his electronics project: constructing a panel of small, randomly blinking lights. I'd built something similar from a kit when I was in my early 20s, but it utilized bulky resistors and capacitors, quite unlike anything we see today. I knew nothing about circuitry. I simply soldered A to point B on a pre-made board and hitched up the wires. My "do-nothing light" was powered by a 4" x 4" x 2" 9-volt battery which seemed like overkill at the time, considering that its function was to fire grain-of-wheat lights only one or two at a time. In building it, I left 12" leads from the tiny lights, wrapped them with green florists' tape, and surrounded each light with hand-cut velour petals to resemble daisies. It blinked merrily for a year or so, and then was lost in a move to another state. I searched in vain for a replacement kit, and finally gave up all hope of ever having anything like it in my home.

Enter Seamus and his project. When I found out what he was working on, I begged him to make one for me. We exchanged several emails to work out the details: how many lights, what colour, and a price. Then I settled down to wait. You can't rush these things.

I won't say I'd forgotten about it, but I'd almost given up hope and felt that nagging would have been rude and unfriendly. I often chatted with Seamus, but the subject of the do-nothing light was never brought up. Then the dark times settled upon us, and kindred spirits again aligned to prop each other up (and believe me, I was in a very dark place). Then one day, Seamus said, "I'm going to be sending you something. Watch your mail." When I replied, he confirmed that it was the blinky-box...as a gift.

It arrived day before yesterday, still with a small charge in the solar cell despite having been in the box for a week. I sat it in a window and it charged fully in just a few hours, and kept blinking all night long, random blurts of red, green, purple, orange, yellow and blue. It wasn't until the following morning that I discovered the card which had fallen out of the wrappings and onto a chair (a wonder the cats didn't eat it!). It said, "It is in times of darkness that the points of light shine the brightest." Thank you, Seamus, for being a point of light when I needed it most.