It was probably no coincidence that hours before the power failed I was fact-checking an article and stumbled upon an update on the earthquake victims in Pakistan. At first I thought the photo was a ski resort promo, then their reality, stranded, homeless, hungry and freezing hit me.
Meanwhile in my suburban reality we lost the power. One of my kids ran to me and said, "The lights are out..." (They were) A while later another asked " Man, does that mean the Internet's down too??" (It was). It gradually became colder and colder (no heat). Floor to ceiling windows (perfect for this former-summer home) meant that the heat plummeted from 67 degrees to 47 in a matter of hours. We couldn't cook (we have a gas burner, but we don't smoke, so no matches). We couldn't shower, well; we had no water at all (the pump needs electricity) so that meant one toilet flush only (quickly wasted) and no phone (we have the kind that require power). I went to the basement to check on something (the bunny rabbit actually) where, despite the darkness, I saw we now had a large wading pool 5 inches deep where were had once had a laundry and rec. room.
Cold, hungry and dying for a pee, we decided to leave, but, due to an uncharacteristic burst of efficiency a few days earlier, we could not open our brand new mechanized garage door. Luckily, our fantasy of a deer proof fence and electric gates (to protect our foliage) had not materialized. Cold, dirty and discouraged the six of us plus our dogs traipsed out on foot, leaving the bunny, the fish and the cat to guard our home.
One of the kids moaned "I feel like a refugee". I thought well not really dear and then, well yes, sort of, after all, our town had just opened a shelter for the first time ever.
I couldn't help thinking about the Katrina victims, the refugees I know in Africa and those Pakistanis in sub-zero temperatures and snow. I also couldn't help pondering the absurdity of modernization and how it fosters utter helplessness with nature, the more progress we have the more helpless we become. In truth one can be more stranded in the suburbs than in a cabin in the woods. This gave me pause for thought.
Today has again been unusually blustery, the snow has melted and the temperature has risen 30 degrees overnight. I saw a tree fall on the highway and hit two cars as I drove the kids to school. At school a tree had crushed several of the teacher's cars. I also saw fire-engines dealing with downed electric cables, trees too big to hug felled in a single gust, fallen boughs on nearly every street and on the radio I heard a commuter train had hit a tree. I began to feel scared. As I covered my head with my hands (inside the car) in an utterly futile and instinctive attempt at self-protection, I felt more scared than I had felt since we discussed evacuation from a conflict zone in Africa last year! Scared here in the suburbs, home of the American Dream, where evidently danger really does lurk! And I wasn't even thinking about the Alito hearings, Abramoff and Tom DeLay or the administration "spying" on the American people! I would have needed a paper, TV and the Internet for that!