48 Hours Without Power (...and counting)

Mother Nature has a way of identifying priorities in life.  With Irene’s pass through Barrington, my 19-year old daughter and I got to experience a summer-time "cottage fever” scenario with surprising good humor.  With all due apologies to those who experienced loss and inconvenience during Irene’s pass-over, the storm and its aftermath were a learning experience for us. 

The storm itself was magnificent to watch.  The force of the wind, the relentlessness of the rain, couldn’t help but remind me how powerful nature is.  It’s a humbling reminder of our place in the world.

Being a mere human in such a powerful exhibition of Mother Nature required my daughter and I to up our resourcefulness.  I had had the somewhat embarrassing forethought to purchase lunchbox-style milk and other food that didn’t need refrigeration so we could have our usual breakfast.  She had the idea to pre-make coffee to store in the warming refrigerator so we would be appropriately caffeinated.  With that, we made it through the first morning.

Sunday was spent watching the storm, reading, and knitting, and being fascinated by the power of nature.  After the storm passed, our boredom drove us, and lots of other people, out to the street.  We had been spared damage from the storm and still had hot water and, amazingly, my tomatoes, cukes, and beans were still standing. 

However, many others were not so lucky. A neighbor two doors down had a tree fall on his house.  Nayatt and Sowams and Hampden Meadows were completely blocked by severed and uprooted trees and many houses seem to have suffered some minor damage from falling branches.  

We also found people, with the same morbid fascination as us, driving or walking around town.   The town beach was a popular destination, although the wimpy waves were a little bit of a letdown.  However, we made a big discovery.  Seekonk was powered!!

Back home as the sun set, our frustration with no lights or electronic gadgets really drove home how dependent we had come on electricity.  Computers were drained, iphones were kaput, internet a distant memory.  What?! Read a book?  Well, it’s harder than one might imagine to read with tealights.  To bed by 9:30.

By Monday, we decided to be more proactive.  We, and scores of other people, lined up at the Seekonk Panera to steal their WiFi and juice.  We got a little work done, posted a few facebook pictures, and generally found some measure of normality.  As minor adversities tend to foster togetherness, people were in good spirits.  Quite a few people appreciated my daughter’s wisdom in bringing a power strip to spread the good fortune.  After gathering our energy needs for the day, we headed home.

My daughter, who is an aspiring amateur chef, took the lack of electricity as a challenge for cooking dinner.  She cleaned out the seldom-used grill, boiled water on it to make bulgher, mixed in garden vegetables, roasted beets, and we were all set for dinner.  And actually had a few hours of conversation!  I had found a never-used LED booklight that still had battery power so I could read my Keith Richard’s biography, and my daughter had acquired a Harry Potter DVD to watch on her Mac, and we were set for the night.  Pioneers, oh yes!  To bed by 10:30.

Well, now it’s Tuesday, and we still have no power, although I hear rumblings that it’s coming! It’s coming! I’m back at Panera to recharge and do a little work, but now actually appreciating the long deep two nights of sleep I was able to get.  And I have a little child-like pride in our ability to “survive” with good humor. 

Now, I know I have experienced nothing that even comes close to being a disaster or life-threatening, just a mere inconvenience, and I sure don’t mean to belittle the seriousness of this storm on other areas of the country.  But I could almost get  used to this slower way of being.   Except for the lack of cold soda.  Except for the lack of internet.  Except for the ability to stay up past midnight watching reruns of “Criminal Minds.”  Oh, let’s be honest.  I’m not really cut out for this.  Bring on the juice!