Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Being Grateful, Again

It's been an unbelievably beautiful day and I have moved slowly through it, getting things put away and tidied up. I've washed many loads of laundry and hung them on the line. Rugs are out there now and will be dry sometime tomorrow. I have no need to hurry with any of this.

The sheets on the bed are clean again and crisp and smell of sun-on-cotton and it is quiet here in the Moon house. Mr. Moon is home and trying to fix a toilet paper holder that Gibson leaned on with a bit too much force a few days ago.

When Lily came back to get their things, Owen and Gibson came in with her and Owen was crying. He put his arms around me and rested his head on me and Gibson said, "I don't want to leave!"
"Oh, my boys," I said. "You'll just have to come back soon."
And they will. They were such good boys while they were here and they ARE such good boys, and their parents should be proud of how they're raising them. I mean, they're regulation boys with all that entails but they are pure sweetness when you get to the part that counts.

Last night everyone was in the Glen Den watching the FSU game except for Lily and Gibson and me and we were eating in the dining room, Gibson practically wild with the festive atmosphere of the occasion and I don't remember how he got on the subject but with his outside voice, his Gibson voice, he told both his mother and me that he loved our faces and he loved our bodies! Exclamation point! Exclamation point!
He also made us hold hands and close our eyes and count to six and then raise our hands up into the air and make a Pssshew! sound before we could eat. I have no idea what any of this was about but we obeyed his commands and we laughed and we laughed. No one is quite as funny as a four-year old.

There are still people in Tallahassee who have no power. My brother and his family being some of them. Trust me- all novelty has worn off and I feel so, so bad for them all. People are really starting to complain about how long it's taking and the politics of the whole deal on Facebook and part of me understands and part of me wants to yell back. Five hundred trees in one neighborhood fell and you can't figure out why the power still isn't back on? You don't understand how the crews can't get this together? None of the people I really love and care about are making these comments but plenty others sure are.
Could there be anything more dangerous and difficult than cutting trees and clearing them and then dealing with power lines? I mean- you just don't do that sort of work in your sleep. Every step must be deliberate and taken with great care. There is no magic involved here. Just pure brutal work and skill and there is only so much equipment, so many workers, so many hours of daylight. We've had several bad rainstorms in the midst of all of this and quite frankly, it seems like a miracle to me that they've gotten as many homes and businesses taken care of as they have. And why, WHY, I keep wanting to ask, would any politician want to risk her or his career by refusing help of any kind? By consciously making anyone wait longer for lights and air and water and refrigeration and wifi than they have to?

Ah well.
And it is hard. My god. If we were used to living in such conditions it would be one thing, but we aren't. This doesn't make us wimps or wusses. It just makes us human. We have become so used to depending on our technology that none of us, NONE OF US, is prepared to suddenly be cut off from all the things we depend on every minute of every day to live our lives as we normally do.

Just read on FB that my brother has power. Hurray! And they are offering, as so many others are, for those who do not to come and wash clothes, sit in the AC, take a hot shower, watch some TV. This is another part of the whole equation- we become more empathetic when we all go through things together. We become more grateful.
And I am not one to say that there's a purpose for everything. I simply don't believe that.
I do believe, however, that we can learn from experience, that we can be reminded of the importance of things we take for granted, that we can be kind, that we can be stronger and more patient and more adaptable than we realize.
Hard lessons won the hard way. But still, in the end, won.

Quiet house. I'll just be making supper for two. I'll be thinking about my boys and knowing that they're really, in their heart of hearts, happy to be home in the nest their parents have worked so hard to provide for them.
And isn't this what we all want? Just to be safe in our own homes?
I think so.

That's enough for one day.

Love...Ms. Moon




6 comments:

  1. When the twins were little, babies, 2 maybe 3 one day I was over there playing with them and was leaving when Jade threw her arms around my leg...noooooo, don't go. I literally dragged her to the front door because she wouldn't let go.

    one hurricane in August three big trees hand gone down on our block alone all three blocking the street. we were 12 days without power.

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  2. During our last big power outage a worker lost his arm working on our utilities. We talked to him minutes before it happened. It is such dangerous work. We continued to be without power for at least a day more, but no complaints were coming from us, I can tell you that!!

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  3. Our great grandmothers may not have had electricity, air conditioning and washing machines. They may have had 15 children in a two room house and only bathed once a week in their husband's dirty water. But they didn't have to like it. And I have no doubt they didn't because we wouldn't have all these wonderful things available to us today. But I get why they had so many children, besides no birth control. What else was there to do? I wonder if a lot of babies are going to be born 9 months from now?

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  4. It's hard to believe that our ancestors lived without so many of our modern conveniences. But of course their lives were patterned to fit that world, with pie safes and hand-wringers and stuff like that. We don't have the old stuff, so when the new is suddenly rendered useless, we're really STUCK! Anyway, it's got to be frustrating and if there's a positive side, I suppose it's that people are pulling together and it gives everyone a moment to be grateful.

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  5. Went through hurricane Andrew. My mother and brother's home totally destroyed. Everything gone except a few pieces of China that somehow survived. Took some areas months to get power. So many generous people who shared homes, power, food. A family that owned a Thai restaurant cooked all the food and fed the neighborhood.
    Of course there were looters and price gouging and crooked contractors too, guess trying times somehow makes good people shine and the shitty ones even shittier.
    Hope everyone has power soon, and that you can shake your cold.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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