The Turn of a Switch

by

My electricity, cable and even internet have been restored.  The water restrictions have been lifted.  Things are officially back to normal for me.  And I find that I am disappointed.  In myself.  Let me back up.

In preparing for the storm, riding the storm out in Baton Rouge, and especially in the four days of no electricity post storm, I have been feeling more alert, more introspective, more inspired.  I’ve also been eating better and doing physical labor.  I raked and bagged all the debris in the front yard (and part of my neighbors’ yards).  The effort took two days and resulted in a curb full of broken branches and bags of leaves.

I’ve also been talking with my neighbors (even those that are still not home yet) and even met a few more.  With no a/c for most folks (I think I was the only wimp in the immediate vicinity that buckled and bought a window unit—I can blame it on Sun, though), they’ve been on their front porches and the porches of their neighbors.  Visiting.  I’ve been keeping my 70+ neighbor in cool Jell-o, ice and fruit.  In return, she gave Sun a can of apple juice.

And then as I was working on bagging those leaves and having just been talking to two neighbors, a third neighbor came running to let us know our electricity was back on.  I dropped the rake and ran inside.  It was true!  I turned on the a/c, plugged in the refrigerator, shut off the window unit and generator, called the evacuated neighbors, then turned on the tv.  The tv was on the weather channel—the last channel we’d been watching before we evacuated.  It was showing T.S. Ike.  It scared me and I was not yet ready to start tracking another possible disaster.

So I switched it to Bravo, hoping to catch the Project Runway I had missed.  Instead, it was Please Date My Ex, with Jo from the Real Housewives of Orange County.  I didn’t watch RHOC.  But next thing I knew, I was watching a marathon of her ex trying to get her matched up with a new guy.

And just like that, poof, I was back to living inside the bubble of my home that provides for all my creature comforts.  Just that quick, I no longer was concerned with spending time in the yard or talking to my wonderful neighbors or exercising.  About an hour passed and then the cable went out.  And I was relieved.  I didn’t want to watch crap tv but couldn’t make myself stop.  I think it was just a guilty pleasure because I could watch tv, but it was completely unenjoyable.

Then the cable came back on, CS came home, and we spent most of our evening watching more crap tv.  Then we turned it off and talked.  And we agree that neither of us missed the television in the least.  So we will do our best to watch less tv and instead spend more time cultivating the relationships we have with our neighbors (did I mention how awesome they all are?).

I just hope that my neighbors don’t return to their respective bubbles, and that we continue to  remember each others’ names and actually stop to say hi and inquire about each other.  Because it sure would be a shame that this great feeling of creativity and generosity of spirit only comes around during Hurricane Season.

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