Dearest Loves,
I had spent the day giving all my extra dollars to organizations getting people off the street. I don't normally engage in stress activism (when you get involved with to work out your own discomfort about whatever). That's for sure what I was doing. Things did not feel ok.
It was touching on my lack of readiness for the big changes that our planet and society are going through. I know that I am privileged to live in a place that has been insulated from the impact of environmental change. I'm not on an island that is disappearing or in a forest ravaged by fires. I feel it when we have a drought but I am not thirsty. The day of the storm, I can feel we are not insulated.
When the storm rolled in I was home alone. Bobby was at his girlfriends house, the boys staying at a hotel with their grandparents. I didn't sleep a wink, and while I consider myself to be a courageous and independent sort of person I was scared. Cold scares me more than pretty much anything else. This was the closest to a panic attack I have been in many years.
When the power went out at 2am I felt it. I checked my phone and I see it is nearly the entire city. I went out crying and shaking rather pathetically to fortify the chicken coup and ensure the ducks feet didn't freeze. I cried myself to sleep wrapped in heavy warm blankets. Why and how am I alone right now?!
I cried and shook and eventually slept. When I rallied myself in the late morning all was sunny. I am good with a fire, have plenty of wool to wrap in and needed to make some bone broth anyways. Only one pipe froze and none had burst. Once I knew the extent of the problem I was good and enjoyed my first 36 hours totally solo since my boys were born 10 years ago.
Its amazing how scary a problem you don't know is and how manageable any problem you know the extent of can be. A panic turned into a quiet inventory of missing items... a generator, a house that is actually insulated and intelligently designed fireplace, a radio (I had no cell service, and a cellar would be amazing.
My sister Sierra decided I wasn't going to spend another day alone and drove Bobby so we could celebrate the boys 10th birthday. We went to the hotel and celebrated over melted ice cream and cookie dough heated in a sauce pan. It was actually pretty good. The boys can be total brats daily but man are they cool in a crisis. It was a short celebration as the roads were icing over again.
That night I went home to my cold house. A dear friend drove into town with fire wood and we had a luxurious evening glamping in my living room. I settled into this new life, without power with ease. This is how it is now. At 2 am, almost exactly 48 hours after it went out, the power came on.
Also, the chickens ended up staying in the downstairs bathroom. We were happy to discover an egg in the morning without even having to go outside.
