A Moment of Peace During Our Tragedy

A huge and horrifying set of storms moved through Tuesday night, taking out power to hundreds of thousands of people in Pennsylvania, as well as up and down the eastern U.S. We were among them. Our power went out around 6:45 on Tuesday night. We spent the evening partying with the neighbor cat on the front porch. The power did not come back on but we figured it would do so overnight. No dice.

Wednesday morning, we woke up without power, and we knew we had a dentist appointment in Philipsburg in the afternoon. When the power went out, it took our phone and Internet with it. So we had no connection to the outside world. I pulled out a really old telephone and it still works, even without power, through the land line phone number. We were able to call the dentist and verify that THEY had power. They asked - did we want to reschedule? We said No. What better did we have to do?

My husband called one of our local township guys who works in maintenance, and he informed my husband that we were basically well and truly screwed. Power might be out for days. He told us which roads were closed. Marengo, the road next to ours, had numerous power poles dangling; they were rerouting traffic onto OUR road, which explained the tremendous increase in traffic we'd been experiencing.

We still had some hot water left, fortunately, and we showered by LED lantern light and dried our hair outdoors in the sun. By early afternoon, we had a plan, based on the new information we'd received: we'd go to the dentist and then walk over to the Weis Market from there. On our list: ice, bread, lunch meat for sandwiches to tide us over.

We went to the dentist, and my hygienist had some updates on things. I fairly begged her: I have been isolated from the outside world; tell me ANY NEWS AT ALL. I had no Internet, to know how bad the storm was, or to see the upcoming weather, or to even get an estimate of when we might be back in business with the power.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but going to the dentist was such a relieving bit of normalcy amid the tragedy we were experiencing. The hygienist told me I should have brought my devices along to recharge them while she worked on my teeth and gums. That was a kind thing to say. 

When she finished and walked out, it left me with 10 - 15 minutes on my own while I waited for the dentist. I walked around the office and snapped a few photos, including this one above, of a detail of art work on the wall. I don't know why. It just seemed soothing and peaceful. The dentist came in and I said, I bet my husband had already told him about our power outage. The dentist said, "Everyone I've seen today has said the same thing. EVERYBODY's power is out."

We walked from there to Weis, and bought some ice, and bread, and meat, and good crunchy kettle potato chips, and a few other things. As we checked out, my husband told our checkout lady we were without power. She said she was too. As we took our leave, we exchanged the greetings one does in such disaster times. "I hope your power comes back on soon," I told her with a smile. She smiled back: "I hope yours does too!"

We went home, and my husband began putting all of the stuff from our fridge and freezer into big coolers in the kitchen, with the new ice. I was glad we had not done a major grocery shopping trip recently; we had less to lose. By this time, we were well sick of the relentless sound of generators and chainsaws coming from outside.

Our entertainment for the evening was two Perry Mason episodes, which we watched on an older computer of mine that still had 85% battery charge on it. My usual everyday computer was down below 50% charge, and I knew it wouldn't last for two episodes. But the old computer did great. We fell asleep in front of our shows, as per usual, and packed it up and went to bed. No power yet. 

"We live in a land outside of time, and beyond hope," I wrote in my journal. When was the last time YOU spent more than 48 hours without electricity, Internet, and hot food? The face of every clock in the house except the few with batteries was black. I began wearing my watch all day long, just to know what time it was. Being tossed into the midst of a disaster changes how you look at things, I can tell you this!

So here is a tiny moment of peace and normalcy during our little weather tragedy. My soundtrack song is Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens, with Peace Train.

P.S. I'm playing catch-up on Blip since our power was out for several days. Please also enjoy the Arboretum tulip photos I posted for Tuesday!