Sometimes The Lights Need To Go Out For Us To See Light

We had this absolutely crazy storm (a "bomb cyclone") come through last Tuesday night. I remember the weather heads saying it would arrive at 2pm so I checked to make sure our HALO was charged and we had candles, etc (we have a little emergency basket since our power goes out often). 

Everything was in place. I was ready for the power to go out for 8 hours, as usual. 

3pm: A leaf fell off a tree.

4pm: A slight breeze pushed my hair to the side.

5pm: "Where is this storm?"  "I don't know, guess maybe it won't be too bad." "Huh."

6pm: It's pitch dark out.

7pm: Laying in bed and watching How To Get Away With Murder (have you seen it? It just pulls you in!) I heard this THUNK. Was that a body? Or...? THUMP ....THUMP  thump. 

I go outside and all I see are the 60 ft tall trees swaying as dark silhouettes against a very light (but still very dark?) purple-pinkish sky. The THUNK was a big tree branch and the thumps were pine cones driving into the side of the house. 

RrrRRrrrrrnnnn. (do you like my onomatopoeias?) The power went dead. I could feel the wind coming through the house. Did Rebecca kill Lila?! Blargh. 

This went on all night. I plugged in my LED lamp into the HALO on my nightstand so I can finish reading Typhoid Mary by Anthony Bourdain (highly recommend!) 

The next morning: still no power. Checking the news, I see it may be days before it's back on. Hmm... 

Wednesday: Still no power. Our text thread for the neighborhood - someone asks if anyone needs anything charge, they know a guy... I send her with our HALO up the street. (prayer hands emoji) It gets charged to 50%.

Thursday: After a steady diet of carbs and fruit (all the stuff is gone in the fridge at this point), it was dark by 4:21pm, we had a dead HALO and were very cold - I started to wonder what would the people in the 1800's do? Probably eat small children at this point, but I mostly try to stick to a vegetarian diet so that won't work. 

I opened Instagram with about 20% charge on my phone to get some semblance of what is happening out in the world and I see that my local library will open at 12pm with partial power for those that need to work, charge devices and stay warm. I throw on a beanie and brush my teeth and we drive further north to get coffee and see if our grocery store has power - they do. The line for coffee is...busy. Again.

Taking the HALO, I get to the library five minutes before it opens and there is a very strong line of people waiting to get in. They've brought kids, Subway sandwiches and blankets and laptops and iPads and phones - all the devices. I go to the big room where I volunteer knowing that there are multiple plugs on each wall and that there is a desk in the corner where the HALO can be plugged in. 

The HALO - wrapped in a paper bag and plugged in at the library with the attached sign.

I was putting my faith out there; surely, no one would take the HALO. It needed to be plugged in for a about four hours for a full charge. It was 12:05pm. 

I went home and ate some tortilla chips, half a jalapeno bagel and half an apple. The only sound I could hear - the generators that people were running a street over. They're loud little fuckers.

At approximately 1:30pm we got our power back. I yelped! The first thing I did was turn on all the heaters. It was 58 degrees in the house. 

I went back to the library to find that it was pretty full. People had taken over the (usually) private, big room where we have our class each week, they'd spaced themselves out by about six feet and were quietly working away on their laptops. I went to get the HALO from it's little space. It hadn't been touched and was charged to almost 50%. The librarians there were helping people find places to plug-in and check out books since the self-check-out stations were not operating. 

It was just a further reminder of how important libraries are, and will be, going forward; even more so over the next few years. 

Going to the library and seeing how orderly, patient, and comfortable people felt going there helped restore a small light in me that I felt was diminished on November 5th. 

Love your community.

Help within your community.

Love and help.