Certain tales emerge from the depths of memory, often prompted by a whimsical thought or a shared jest. Recently, I made a light-hearted comment on my personal Facebook page about being highly electromagnetic. While it was a joke, it was also rooted in truth, leading me down a path of reminiscence, recalling past encounters where my strange relationship with electricity became undeniably evident.
Childhood Whispers
This story begins in the whispers of my early childhood. Winter nights held a peculiar magic, as I discovered my strange ability to make streetlights flicker with just my presence. It was an oddity I found amusing, a secret game with the universe, yet I didn’t ponder too deeply on it then. It was simply an early hint of the mystical dance I would continue with the energies around me.
The Storm's Symphony
Years passed, and I found myself overseas, in a land where the storms were fierce and the skies alive with energy. Tropical storms are awe-inspiring, far more intense than anything I’d seen in the UK. One evening, a storm rolled in with an urgency, charging the air with electricity that made my skin prickle with anticipation.
As the first lightning struck, it split the sky with a deafening roar, its brilliance illuminating the night. The thunder that accompanied the strike was like a giant’s roar, shaking the very ground beneath me. The rain poured down in torrents, drumming a relentless rhythm on the zinc roof.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit the satellite dish perched on the roof. The house became a vessel for the storm’s fury, with electricity coursing through its veins. The lightning followed the metal rods within the bricks, searching for an escape. It found one through a plug socket opposite me, arcing with a dazzling flash of light and leaping across the room to another socket right next to me. The arc brushed my arm, singeing a few hairs but leaving me unscathed. Although shaken, to this day, the raw power of a good thunderstorm still captivates me.
A Mother's Fury
Another decade slipped by, and I became a new mother, my life in disarray as I tried to be the anchor for many. One particularly challenging day, sleep-deprived and seething with anger, I found myself in a familiar dance with frustration. As I tried to soothe my daughter, my mind raged with an internal argument. I reached out to turn off the bathroom light—a pull cord light—and felt a tingling in my arm. As I pulled the cord, the lightbulb exploded, shattering glass all over the floor. Fortunately, we weren’t close to the light and at that time I didn’t really give it much thought, dismissing it as a ‘dodgy bulb’.
The Explosive Finale
Years passed, and these occurrences of exploding lightbulbs became more frequent. It seemed there was one specific trigger—my intense anger. Though I am not generally an angry person, the frustration of being trapped in an abusive relationship while trying to manage life with three young kids had me stressed to the max. There was a time when I was blowing three or four lightbulbs a week. We did the obvious and had the electrics checked, but no fault was found. Fortunately, most just blew, but at moments of extreme stress, they would explode—a physical manifestation of my inner turmoil, maybe.
The grand finale of this phenomenon occurred over ten years ago. I remember the day vividly. It was the third or fourth day of yet another silent treatment phase. I returned home from a tough day at the office to find the house in chaos, the mess three young children can create when left unsupervised evident everywhere. My partner sat in the dark, using the dining room as his print shop. I entered the kitchen to find dishes and pans piled up from the day’s cooking. Food spilled on counters, yet no food was prepared for dinner. As I assessed the damage and started to clean and prepare dinner, his laughter echoed so loudly—a sound almost mocking in its provocation, a sound that irritated my soul at the deepest level. The kids were crying and screaming, fighting over toys, whilst he was engaged in an overly loud call with a friend. My anger surged, and as I went to turn on the dining room light, the chandelier's five bulbs exploded. Shards of glass and glass dust showered down, covering him and all his equipment.
He wasn’t injured but clearly shaken, as was I at the time. It was quite an explosion. It broke the silent treatment at least, as he stood up and started shouting that I had destroyed his expensive equipment with my witchcraft. Although he was very angry, he fled the house for some hours that night, clearly shaken by a force greater than us both.
Since that day, the lightbulbs haven’t exploded, perhaps because I no longer harbour such anger, or maybe because lightbulbs have changed from the old-fashioned filament to more modern eco bulbs. Yet, every so often, I still give quite a static shock to some—a small reminder of the energy I carry within.
A New Chapter
Today, I am a completely different woman from who I was back then. The manifestations of energy in and around me continue to fascinate me, with little sparks or flickers appearing where there should be none and other ways I’ll save for later chapters.
The latest physical manifestation of my lifelong ‘secret’ game with energy, bringing this journey full circle, is the effect I have on microphones, especially on phones. It doesn't matter the device or the location; I cannot record anything anymore without picking up a static interference. Today’s occurrence was the loudest yet—what was supposed to be a shared capture of a moment of zen, a fresh wind through the window making the wind chime sing its sweet melody among my potted window garden, resulted in extremely loud static that even surprised me.
This strange occurrence only happens when I hold my phone, remaining silent if someone else is recording. I can only assume this is due to my electromagnetic field, which on this particular morning was full of love and gratitude for my journey so far. So, my jestful proclamations of being highly electromagnetic are indeed quite true, and whilst exploding light bulbs is a cool party trick, a bit of static is much better than cleaning shards of broken glass.
In between these moments of electric revelation, life gifted me subtle reminders of the profundities at play. While digging in the garden one day, I unearthed an unexpected treasure—a weathered and rare Victorian brick, its surface adorned with the unmistakable words: "Danger Electricity" It was as if the universe itself had a sense of humour, delivering my very own special award.
