No TV, no computers, no lights...what's left? (Food to eat, friends to talk with...old fashioned goodness.)
37. Power Outage (June 2013)
In the
middle of June, Mister had another conference to attend, only this one was in Richmond , and commuting
between there and home was out of the question. And since Kate did not relish
the idea of being home alone for five days, it was an easy option to drop him
off in Richmond and drive the extra hour to Williamsburg to spend the time with her dear friends from Alaska , the Morttes.
They always welcomed her (and Mister) with open arms, as family.
But the
drive down presented some difficulties of its own. Kate had never been one to
check the weather, and as the rain began pouring, and traffic started backing
up, and twigs and branches started falling on the road, she began to wonder if
she was missing some vital information. Mrs. Mortte called Kate’s phone shortly
after they pulled up to the university. “If you can wait a while before leaving
again, you should,” she explained, “there’s a terrible storm due to hit any
minute, and I hear that 64 is a crawl!”
“Thanks for
the tip!” Kate replied. “I’ll wait a while and call you when I’m leaving.”
She and
Mister strolled outside in the rain to explore the University of Richmond
Kate found
that this was indeed the answer. When she got to Williamsburg that evening, all the lights
down the main street were out. The neighborhoods and businesses alike were
dark. Unmarked and unnoticed trees were down, completely blocking roads,
pulling power lines down beneath them, uprooting fences, and sprawling across
yards, decks, roofs, and cars.
Wow, Kate breathed in awe. She could
think of nothing else. Many of the trees and branches were impressively large
and stout, not tall and thin like the birches of the north. When Kate pulled up
to the Mortte’s house, everything there was dark too. But Mrs. Mortte threw
open the door and said, “Welcome home!” as she always did. Kate grinned with
pleasure at the familiarity and gave her a big hug.
“Hello!
This is exciting!” Kate said. “It looks like the power is out all over!”
“Yes. You
know the strangest thing is that the storm only lasted maybe twenty or thirty
minutes. It just came up fast and furious and then left just as quickly!” Mrs.
Mortte pointed to the trees in their backyard. “All of a sudden, all those
trees were just blowing sideways! It was the strangest thing to see!”
“It sounds
incredible. But at least it’s cooled off, if the power has to be out!”
The sky
still held its rosy, after-storm glow, and for the rest of the evening, Kate
and Mr. and Mrs. Mortte sat on the porch, relaxed in deck chairs, just talking.
Again the thought occurred to her—what was there to do but just be together? It
was pleasant, she thought, doing Williamsburg
the “old fashioned way”. Sitting on the porch in the cool of the evening…all
that was missing was a knitting project or a large bowl of green beans to
leisurely snap as they talked.
The power
stayed off from Thursday afternoon until Saturday afternoon—but it felt longer
than two days. Perhaps it was the limited options. Perhaps it was the heightened
time of conversation and communion together. Kate imagined how in olden days
children seemed to mature faster out of necessity. It must have been natural if two days without power can feel like five
days with it! Kate thought. But the power mercifully came back with the hot
weather. The temperature spiked from the low seventies to the upper eighties,
and Kate, in spite of her delight in the “old time way”, was relieved to once
again have an air conditioner at her disposal. After all, she thought,
people can ‘just be together’ in the air conditioner too…
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