I moved back to the Midwest three months ago, and it has been non-stop battering of thunderstorms and tornadoes. This past week has been the worst with a land hurricane AKA a derecho hitting the Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana areas.
Now, I've gone without power before. Usually a day or two in the summer and a few days in the winter. The longest being a week long winter stint when I was a teenager. I could have been oblivious to my parents' struggles, but that winter power outage was a breeze compared to this week's.
In the winter, we hung up blankets in doorways and slept in the living to conserve heat. We were lucky that our modular home had a fireplace, and we had stacked wood the previous two years. Our gas stove also helped melt snow, boil water, and add to the heat.
These four days of August heat were miserable. It rained 50% of the time. The heat, while in the low 80s and high 70s, was unbearable due to the humidity from the storms. Our food spoiled. Not all, thankfully, but enough to mourn the loss of too much money. The days dragged on. Sleep was fitful. And we smelled by the middle of day two. And we were all angry.
It was a reminder of the precariousness of our humanity. How easy it is for the modern world to slide into destitute situations. And how difficult it would be to climb out of it. My brother and I talked this morning about how we couldn't catch our bearings. We were running to get supplies, hunting a generator, moving debris. It was a mess. But even in our down time, we were exhausted. The heat made it difficult to concentrate. Limited power added a layer to decision making. Work chugged along at a slower pace with lesser ability.
How could anyone in a similar place live and pull themselves up? How could they find the focus to fill out forms upon forms in order to qualify for food, medicine, or housing? How many get lost in the cracks because we expect so much of them? How can we remind ourselves of the stresses of life outside our comfort? We think that we are lucky. Blessed even. That we will never slip into that. But it is easier and quicker to happen than we think.
In America, the safety rails are few and far between. The best we can hope for is our family and the kindness of strangers. But even that is not a guarantee. Woe be to us if we are born without such luck. And it is luck. Luck of where we are born. What we are born into. What we are born with. When we are born.
No blessings. No great plan that marks me better than you or you better than me. Just luck. That luck carries us through every day. We flip the coin and sometimes it comes up heads and sometimes it comes up tails. The lucky few who make it through life with nothing but heads just got on a winning streak. The odds were in their favor.
I was already worried about climate change. I knew the disasters that were happening. Living in Colorado for a few years, you see enough wildfires to know. But then coming back to my hometown in the house I grew up in, within a drive of most of my family, and I know now that sword hangs overhead with just a thread securing our continued existence. And my fear of the future and this planet has grown.
I hope that others feel the same. That it pushes more of us to talk and to listen. To consider a future that can be sustainable, safe, and secure for as many people as we can possibly do it for.