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Blessedly Inconvenienced 9/16/2008 12:57:21 PM
Today marks our return to modern living. For those of you who did not know, we faced Hurricane Ike and lived to see another day without any personal or physical harm. We were inconvenienced as we had no electricity from early Saturday morning until eleven last evening. We were blessed that the only casualties in our home were a few dollars in groceries. But the experience we had is something that none of us will ever forget.
And in no way do I mean to take away from Ike itself. He was mean. He was destructive. The sheer force and power of him was frightening and devastating. He destroyed. He killed. He changed life as we knew it. He took away parts of our world that will never be replaced. But that is another story for another time ... Right now, I am focusing on being thankful.
In the aftermath, with downed trees and power lines all around us, the great silence of a world unplugged, we were humbled and taken back to a more simpler time, reminded of the fine art of conversation, creativity, simple pleasures, story telling, humor, cooking from real "scratch," and seeing the possible in what a a few hours earlier would have seemed impossible. We learned more about each other, re-introduced ourselves to each other, and in some ways learned new and wonderful things about ourselves.
We went outside and stayed there, enjoying our interaction with nature and with our neighbors, no longer strange figures that merely shared the same block. We learned that indeed we all had names, that we all shared a lot in common, and that even some of us could sit and talk an afternoon away, sharing a beer and grilling up enough to share or donating to the family with the fire.
With no technological distractions (computers, play stations, televisions, cable, satellite, etc) we faced each day with determination to accomplish something productive and enjoyed simply rejoining the motion of nature - up with the sun and settling down with darkness, eating dinner, a home cooked, hot healthy meal, with each other, playing games, listening to the radio, writing with pen and paper, drawing, painting, carving figures out of wood, hand washing a few essential garments, and settling down to a full night's rest only to rise again in the early morning hours without aid of an alarm. Or sharing intimate moments once thought only achievable via some well-planned, expensive vacation destination.
In this hurricane, we came out quite lucky. We did not suffer a personal tragedy. We did not suffer any personal loss. We did not suffer. We were blessedly inconvenienced. It's not that we didn't have. It's that we didn't have it as easy.
As the lights came on with a boom Monday night, and the neighbors' shouts of joy were heard in unison with the return of modern technology, my Babe and I continued to embrace the pleasant breeze of a surprise cool front, and each other, as it blew in through our still open windows to the rhythm of the hum of the power lines and the central air units and the closing of windows and doors once more.
