Friday, February 15, 2008

thawed out

Yesterday was our third day without power. Ice dragged down trees and power lines while we slept on Monday night so that, on Tuesday, we woke up without lights or, more importantly, heat. We all complained about it. Oh, the inconvenience, the cold, the unwashed hair.

Several people joked with me that it would be good practice for Honduras, which has frequent power outages.

During the day, we took refuge in the houses of family members with power (ie, hot water, American Idol) or at the Poole Restaurant, whose owners seemd not to mind that we used their electrical outlets to charge our cell phones. But at night, we would come home, light the kerosene heater upstairs to keep the pipes from freezing, and crawl under the covers in the basement, where the temperature remained, due to some fact of geothermal science, a steady 55 degrees.

At about 5:45 yesterday morning, Mom's shuffling around to get ready for work for the first time in a few days woke me up, and I had to pee. I went upstairs, where I had to bypass the kerosene heater on the way to the bathroom. On my way back, I couldn't convince myself to go back downstairs when I could stay by the heater. While I hovered around the heat, I noticed the sky getting pink around the edges of the fields. The sun was going to be up soon.

Instead of going back to bed like I would have done if the whole house had been warm and cozy, I stayed up and watched the sunrise. Everyone knows the sunrise is beautiful, magical, something almost miraculous that, when you actually see it, you can't believe it happens every day. So my description would be superfluous.

At 1:17 yesterday afternoon, the power came back on. I was sitting upstairs beside the heater with two layers of clothes on and reading the newspaper. I was quite comfortable, so the lights popping on, which I hardly noticed because the natural light was sufficient, was sort of anticlimactic. Needless to say, we were grateful, though. I wasted no time to get in the shower once the hot water heater recovered.

However, I have to admit that I was also a teensy bit grateful for the power being out. It was humbling because it reminded me of how incredibly spoiled I am. Though unpleasant, a gently wake-up call is much appreciated. And it got me just uncomfortable enough to get up to see the sun rise over the snow-covered fields and the ice-coated trees. How could I be upset about that?

1 comment:

holly said...

if i said, "sassy, don't leave me, 'kay?" like i used to say, "sassy, let's take a nap, 'kay?", would you stay in this country?