By Amaya Gail Gregory
After a morning without power, I’m snugged up in my cushy chair watching the snow fall … and accumulate. It is putting it down right now. Wow.
I awoke this morning to the sound of a transformer blowing—BANG. No that’s too high, this one boomed, snapped and grumbled. Not a sound you expect to hear while you’re soundly sleeping. That was a quick get out of bed sleepyhead. I got to the window just in time to watch another one blow. It was quite the light show. It looked like the Northern Lights on steroids, so colorful, shimmering, other worldly.
The horses in the pastures just north of my back porch were more than a bit startled, bucking and distancing themselves from wherever they were and whatever that was. I wanted to give them a big hug but since I haven’t met them yet, I hugged them from afar and zeroed in on Miss Sophia. She was climbing up my legs trying to find someplace safe.
That was one harsh wake-up call. Can’t imagine living in Gaza or any of the other war-torn places and waking up to rocket fire and gunshots. The transformer was more than enough to unsettle my nerves for a moment or two, that and the wind down sound of all the power shutting off.
My new gas fireplace has the ability to start with a couple of C batteries, so I popped two in and flipped the switch. Voila! Flame. Heat. Light. What a surprise. It actually was that easy and would do in this chilly pinch. In the 20s outside and low 60s in the house, it wasn’t scary cold, just cold and getting colder. A little over two hours later, the magical greatly appreciated power was restored.
I am privileged. Most of the time I take it for granted. It’s just how life is. It’s not privileged for the homeless sleeping in tents along the freeway. I wake up each morning, flip switches and light and heat appear. Water is freely available. Internet is at hand, background noiselessness for the computer, not worth a second thought, that is, until I open my notebook and remember, ah yes, I need internet to do that.
I got dressed and combed my hair as best I could (I was a bit of a wild woman this morning) and put my coat on thinking I’d go down to the local coffee shop and download a book and grab a cup o’ chai. Oops. The garage door opener runs on electricity too. Now I could have unhooked it (I think it’s that little red handle near the ceiling of the garage) and opened it manually, but I haven’t explored this machine yet. It might be a good idea to do that now, before I need it next time.
There is so much to be grateful for, even if I was still sitting here without power. The snow will stop (has stopped). Everything changes. Nothing hangs around forever, not even being alive and a bit crazy. Heck, how do I know. Crazy may stick. I’m good regardless of what happens, even if I don’t like it at all I can find pleasure in being alive, in being aliveness.
I haven’t gone dead yet. I’m not a zombie, walking around dead, going through the motions. I have compassion for my fellow humans. I care about their lives. Yeah, it hurts sometimes, more often these days than before, but it’s better for me at least, than numbing out, ignoring the pain, or denying it’s there, than being one of the walking dead.
I am privileged to talk with the guys on the street corners. I see them and they really see me. We don’t look away. When you’ve lost everything something happens inside, you continue the slide all the way down, or you’re simply here, as you are, as life is. I found that with the men during my work in the prison. The breaking point broke some and freed others.
Simply being, openly feeling, the need to be something other than what I am drowned in the sea of preciously stark reality is freeing. It is a privilege denied many, avoided by many, disavowed by many, but it is filled with effortless unreasonable aliveness and available to everyone, for it is what we are.
There are so many things we don’t appreciate, electricity and cups of chai, privilege and birthright, life’s promise and our resistance to it, that is until we do. Nothing like a small weather snafu to show us the pitfalls of auto-pilot life, what we don’t know we don’t know, what we hesitate to explore, or what threatens our privilege.
What a fine school this is!