BLACKOUT<\/p>\n
Waiting for the lights to come back
on. Waiting to hear the whirring of my printer warming up. The phones ringing.\u00a0The buzz of the refrigerator.\u00a0 The sound of ice dropping into the tray. The pilot light firing up the burners on my stove. The annoying voices of talking heads reporting what the politicians are saying and doing. Waiting and trying to pretend I\u2019m not. Trying to be one of those people who take life as it comes. I thought that was me but maybe not.<\/p>\n
It upsets me to hear the sound\u00a0of spoiled food hitting the bottom of the trashcan. I miss hot showers. Reading\u00a0on my kindle. (No wi fi). No watching Netlix on a big screen. All the privileges\u00a0that make up my life. Hard to fathom not having these things on a daily basis.
Not being able to turn the heat or the air conditioner on. Not having friends\u00a0to cook me dinner and remind me that this is not the end of the world.<\/p>\n
It started on Thursday at 5 pm\u00a0when I was watching \u201cCall My Agent\u201d on Netflix. The TV went blank and so did\u00a0all my clocks and landline phones. I held my breath. This happens occasionally\u00a0and it goes right back on. It did \u2013 for less than two seconds and it all went\u00a0blank again. I checked with my neighbors. They had lost power also and we found\u00a0out that a truck had smashed into a electrical pole on Mulholland Drive and\u00a0Laurel Pass. It caught on fire, I could see the flames and the fire trucks out\u00a0of my front window, rushing along Mulholland Drive. A helicopter flew overhead\u00a0while they put out the fire in record time. But I still had no power. I called\u00a0DWP to find out when it would be restored. 8:05 PM turned into 5:05 AM and
finally it was \u201cno ETA.\u201d Some things don\u2019t adhere to time limits. Some things\u00a0are completely out of our control. I keep reminding myself that I don\u2019t have\u00a0Covid. I don\u2019t have family members dying. My life is not in danger. I don\u2019t\u00a0live under the 101 freeway with a shopping cart and a grungy dog, holding up a\u00a0cardboard sign.<\/p>\n
For three days, it was all about\u00a0candles and flashlights and trying not to trip over anything. I became a champ\u00a0at making coffee by lighting the pilot with a match, using a paper towel for a filter and drinking it black. I ate out (thank God we can do such things now) and\u00a0I went to bed early. All of that was tolerable. But being all alone with myself
with no distractions was a gargantuan challenge. It was me and my heartbeat. My\u00a0breath. My reeling thoughts. In all good conscience, I can\u2019t compare three days\u00a0without electricity to a pandemic that was taking people\u2019s lives in huge\u00a0numbers, but in a small way it felt similarly isolating since I was left\u00a0holding my own hand. Learning to do that seems to be a lifelong practice and\u00a0now that the power is back on and my refrigerator is full, I want to remember\u00a0how to comfort myself when the going gets rough.<\/p>\n
Today, I\u2019m taking a long hot\u00a0shower, watching Netflix on my flat screen TB, making hot coffee and eating\u00a0gelato. One last thought. What happened to the driver of that truck? I was so\u00a0busy trying to keep myself occupied and being frustrated with so much\u00a0inconvenience, I forgot to ask.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BLACKOUT Waiting for the lights to come backon. Waiting to hear the whirring of my printer warming up. The phones ringing.\u00a0The buzz of the refrigerator.\u00a0 The sound of ice dropping into the tray. The pilot light firing up the burners on my stove. The annoying voices of talking heads reporting what the politicians are saying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}