Power Out

Just last sunday, the 14th of September, I was attending the Memorial Service for Dr. Charles Summerson of the Ohio State University. A curmudgeon through and through, he had barley achieved even the slightest proficiency in email usage by the time his fabulous 92 year-old life had ended, a fact that his children apparently enjoyed chuckling about. Ironically, as we left his memorial service a tremendous wind blew through the University area knocking down trees and electric lines for miles around. I exclaimed "Oh, it must be the Doctor's ghost blowing through the place he loved so dearly". Yes, either that or Hurricane Ike's tailwinds hitting the midwest like a giant tornado with a duration of hours, not minutes as we are accustomed. One who eschewed technology was now taking out the electricity for hundreds of thousands of households in central Ohio. Well, I though it was a great coincidence anyhow.

What a wonderful storm that was! The blowing of great winds, the felling of great trees. Many were uprooted, their connectivity way too weak to withstand anything close to the 75 mph gusts that roared through our neighborhoods. The air was full of the sounds the of the cracking and ripping of branches and trunks. It didn't take long for our homes to lose eletricity - in fact, I'm surprised the power lasted as long as it did. We watched the winds for an hour or two, and them we stood in the streets with neighbors lamenting the losses. But the one remarkable thing that I noticed was how I immediately began to have creative thoughts and desires. Creatively speaking, I have been pretty much asleep for the better part of this year since my father died. All of a sudden however, I was thinking up wonderful things to cook on the grill (or a log fire!)for the next three days (in case it should take that long for power to be restored). I wanted to start projects AND see them through to completion. I wanted to clean things and organize things and read things. ALL of which I couldn't accomplish without a steady source of power, but all of which I HAVE done in just the few days since the power came back on. Thank you Ike, Chuck, God! That was just what I needed. A weaning from technology for a few days to discover bits and pieces of me that I had lost.