What's on my mind today is the situation in New England, of power outages and people I know shivering in their houses all night. I was the only one among my co-workers who hadn't lost electricity, until yesterday - now some are beginning to get it back. It started snowing on Saturday - wet snow, because it isn't cold enough for anything drier - and it stuck in bushes and trees most of which still had all their leaves attached. It got windy overnight, and limbs and branches bent and swayed in the wind and under the weight of the heavy accumulations. You'd hear cracks. You'd suddenly notice how tall and how close to your house the trees really are. A big branch fell over the roof of my brother's nice shed. In the middle of the night a big limb went over into our neighbors yard, and it was hard to tell how far it went, or if it touched their home. Our dear little ornamental cherry bowed down under the weight.
The lights flickered many times, and I knew they'd go out at some point. But they didn't! It seems (or so everyone says) we're on the same grid as the local hospital - we almost never lose power. We went to church next day in the cold - I wore my hand warmers and kept my coat on. The library was without electricity till Wednesday, and without internet and other computer services till today. I listen to my fellow librarians talk about their 47 degree homes, M. is sleeping with a nightcap on; D. heated up water with candles so she could wash up without freezing; L. said she's been taking cold showers - I told her she should try jumping in the ocean in winter! G. was saying she was getting teary-eyed while driving to work - it's cold, and it's wearing on her. C. has been enjoying listening to the radio! - nice jazz at night with the family.
I had several come here to shower; cooked up some hot food yesterday if anyone wanted to come to a warm house and have some - a couple were able to. Some roads in a neighboring town are still impassable unless you know the area and can take another route. For the first few days, the lines at gas stations had dozens of cars in them; I knew at least four people who got theirs in the middle of the night to avoid waiting.
And then, our power went off today, and was still off when I came home from work. I was determined to make the best of it - why should I be exempt from what all the others have been suffering? I put batteries in the lanterns, found a couple of candles and planned to dig out my thermals. But then it came back on, and I knew they'd just taken us down ifor a while in order to work on the system.
In Iraq, people set off fire bombs and car bombs. In Turkey, the earthquake. It's not that bad here. But I found myself wishing we had some sort of way to cook food if need be. I realized I should keep a very few candles around, just in case, and forget about the fact that I don't like fire in the house.
I was reading Rhonda's blog a little. She got to a place in her life where she realized there had to be a better way to live. There are people in this world who are trying to live more simply, and learn how to do more things for themselves. We've so gotten away from all this knowledge! I want to learn some of it, and find the balance between what I'm able to do and what's unrealistic.
Thanks, Rhonda. Oh, the shed is fine, and so is the cherry tree.
