Why am I Here?
Have you ever asked yourself that question?
There you have it, two questions to start off. I like the words "start off" better than begin, for it insinuates the beginning of a race. Which is what life is.
This is NOT to ask why I am here on this planet. I know that reason. I got it from Lorna Byrne this week. "Your purpose is to live your life."
Too simple?
No, I think she's got it. We're here to live our lives and then to find what we want to do with it.
I ran into this headline the other day:
"Life is Hard."
It gave me some weird comfort, for I said, "Hey, we're doing pretty good considering."
Sometimes, we (I) run into a wall, and I wonder not what I am doing here on the planet, but here putting squiggles on pages while some scribe masters have raised those squiggles to an art form. I'm like the kid standing on the high diving board, should I jump or embarrass myself by climbing back down the ladder?
On the Home Front, it was a cold night in Junction City.
The entire city was without electricity.
Lights—off. Electrical heating—off. Propane range off, but I found I could light it with a match. Duh. Water was in our well, but no electrical pump to get it out, /we have bottled drinkng water, and some water in the hot water heater. One flush.
Think of all the people who have lost electricity for weeks, not good.
It’s good to have a backup system.
The pets didn't know what to do except snuggle in bed with us. No internet. Everyone rushed to their phones, and my daughter and her son intended to watch a movie on her tablet and ended up talking until 5 a.m.
What a great use of the time.
I wondered how others on our street were fairing in the dark cold as some are elderly. Not that they don't have resources, but they are more vulnerable. I should have walked down the street and knocked on doors. I might have gotten some good stories, but I just now thought of it.
Phones were our solace. Candles were our light.
My nerves always twanged a bit in Hawaii when we lost our solar electricity, which we overused sometimes, or a storm shielded the sun for a day or so. However, it usually came back on at about 11 a.m. the following day if the sun came out, and it usually did. We had a water storage tank in the backyard, with a spigot, so we had water. We also had a two burner propane stove that required a match to light. That way, we could have warm water and cooking facilities. We wouldn't freeze because the temperature never got that low. And, if we needed food, we had coconuts that fell like bombs during a storm.
People who live off the grid find ways of living. I know, solar needs batteries, but I don’t know about the carbon footprint of batteries. I trust someone will figure that out.
I remember my husband said his grandparents had a battery system of some sort in their house.
I called him and asked what that was. He didn't know for sure, but it was from Uncle Harry, he said, who sold those units house to house in the 20's. They had few advertisement opportunities in those days, thus the traveling salesmen.
Hubby remembers seeing glass cylinders about a gallon in size with wires attached in the storage room of his grandparents' home. The energy that supplied them was from a windmill outside. But he doesn't know what acid they used, if it ran the lights, or what. And no one is alive to ask.
On the other side of my husband's family, the paternal grandparents had a stream on their property, and they built a little house over it where they cooled the milk after the daily milking. Probably before putting it in the separator. Not high-tech, but clever.