We drove home in a monsoon. The water hit the windshield in sheets and puddles slid around the interstate like pucks on an air hockey table. It was tense and tiring and all I could think of was our little green house and getting back to normal.
I exhaled at our exit. We were almost home. But as we rounded bends and neared our neighborhood we noticed a growing darkness.
Of course.
The power was out.
We sat heavily in the driveway as eerie tree limbs swooped around. I think we have the power company on speed dial so we called them and they said...maybe an hour. We unpacked a bit and lit candles with hope. We waited as the rooms smelled increasingly of "fresh mountain rain" and "pomegranate sunrise."
At 7 am the following morning I heard Scott whisper "Still no power." But surely it would be soon?
Last night after dinner we drove home expecting darkness. Yet as we approached our block we saw light after light brightly shining through damp window panes. My tired heart fluttered like a baby bird, but the minute we turned onto our street it hit the asphalt. Our circle was still in blackness. An hour has now turned into forty two with the possibility of forty two more.
The unglamorous truth is that I have a bad attitude.
The whole situation touches a nerve. I sit on our sofa in utter silence, a powerless house inside a powerless house. I don't work and neither does anything around me. I absentmindedly flick the switch in the bedroom expecting a light to flicker on before I remember that nothing is connected.
I have passed through a torrent and find myself like a green little house perched on a dark hill, surrounded by other's porch lights.
But in the near distance I know trucks are coming. Tree limbs are being trimmed, poles erected, wires strung and connected. I don't see it from my door but trust that things are happening outside my home to repair the damage and restore the loss. I just have to be patient and do what I can.
The lights will come back on eventually.
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