Monday, January 25, 2016

Living Without Luxuries


by Fran McNabb
 
At this moment I’m sitting in the dark. No it’s not after sunset. It’s 4:35 in the afternoon but a transformer blew somewhere in the neighborhood, and we’re now without electricity. It’s not really dark, but with an overcast sky, it’s not exactly light.

No lights. No TV. No music and the worse part, no internet!

 It’s amazing how dependent we’ve become on those things that make our lives easy—things like electricity, hot and cold running water and a dwelling that is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We take those things for granted until there is a day when we don’t have them.

 I remember thinking after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 there were people throughout the world who had to live day-in and day-out without the things that we were having to live without temporarily. After the storm, areas of the coastline from New Orleans to Mobile looked like a third-world country. Thousands of families lost their houses. My husband and I and the cat lived on our boat for seven weeks until the low winter tide prevented me from climbing onto the pier. We then moved into a borrowed RV and then a Fema trailer. We finally purchase an RV that became our home for the next year.

During those first few weeks our entire neighborhood sat in darkness. We carried flashlights and burned candles. Because stores were not open, we couldn’t buy necessities. We depended on out-of-town friends or we simply did without. I’m sure those residents who lived through Hurricane Sandy and other bad hurricanes did the same thing. Miraculously, we surprised ourselves and learned to do without the things we had become so accustomed to having.

Some good things came from those months. We learned that some material things were not
necessary. We got closer to our neighbors who today are like extended families, and we learned to appreciate each thing that was restored to our lives. We worked through the months of rebuilding
homes and furnishing them and we celebrated with each homeowner who put parts of their lives back together.

After several years most things got back to normal, and we went back to living the easy lives that we’re accustomed to. It takes days like today for me to remember those years.

Aaah.  My electricity just came back on. What a relief! I now can see what I’m typing. Moments like these are small reminders we need to appreciate the things we have. There are other people in this world who live without our luxuries every day.

Fran McNabb has lived along the Gulf Coast for almost her entire life and uses this setting in some of her romances. Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home, but she and her husband were not ready to leave their quiet bayou harbor. Today they still enjoy the beautiful displays that nature offers them. Visit her at  www.FranMcNabb.com or at mcnabbf@bellsouth.net. She loves to hear from her readers.

 

 

15 comments:

  1. Thanks for writing this insightful post, Fran. Talk about turning lemons into lemonaide! We live a bit inland (just north of Philadelphia) so were only without power for five days during Sandy. For us, it was Superstorm (not Hurricane) Sandy. That's nothing compared to what you experienced, but enough to make us realize how lucky we are and how important our connections with our neighbors are.

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    1. Five days without power is quite uncomfortable. I'm glad you didn't lose anything else in Sandy.

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  2. We take power and internet connectivity so for granted. In some ways, it's good to have these occasional reminders that we shouldn't forget how to live without them! Great post, Fran.

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    1. Yes, my few minutes without electricity was enough to remind me how uncomfortable it was after Katrina.

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  3. Every year, we say we're going to create back-ups, and this year, we finally did a very small backup plan - a solar backup that will run a very small heater in a pinch. Our lights flickered, but thankfully, we didn't have to test the solar heater. Whew. I think i'll put a couple more backups into place. Thanks for the reminder, Fran.

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    1. Yes, I can't relate to not having electricity during cold months. I hope your backups do the job for you!

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  4. I always say my favorite Christmas growing up was the one where my dad had lost his job. Mom and I made gifts for the family (mostly clothes, of course) and our stockings were stuffed with fruit and nuts instead of toys. Every once in a while, we all need that wakeup call to remember how fortunate we truly are. Thanks for the reminder!

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  5. Oh your Christmas sounds so meaningful. MY first Christmas with my husband was spent in Germany. We were nearly penniless. I made decorations by wrapping cigarette boxes and using them on the tree. I hung onto those simple decorations until Katrina. Simple is wonderful.

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  6. Here on the west coast, we get jittery just thinking about being 'unconnected'. Laptops and smartphones have the advantage of running on battery for a few hours, but when the lights go out so does the Internet connection (not counting LTE etc). We are weather wimps too. When I was a little girl, we had wood-stove heat coming through open vents in the floors and a door on the second floor so we could get out if the snow covered the front door.

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    1. Oh wow. I can't imagine living with snow that high. Where did you live as a little girl?

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  7. My goodness, Fran! You're certainly the queen of "going without." I tend to take my home for granted, but not any longer after reading about what you've been through.

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    1. I and thousands of others became queens and kings of "going without." It's amazing what we don't need!

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  8. Hi Fran--
    You are so right about appreciating the things we use everyday but take for granted. It is humbling to have Mother Nature alter our lives in a moment. It's great that you and your husband are back to your new home in your old neighborhood.
    Victoria--

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    1. Yes, Mother Nature certainly has a way of humbling us. And, yes, it is wonderful to have our new home that is higher and stronger, but still looking out over our little harbor.

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  9. Although I'm a New Yorker I hardly felt Sandy's impact and have only heard about the horrific accounts of Katrina. I continue to wonder how I would have done if I'd lost most of my belonging in the floods that followed or went without power for weeks. So far I've only had to go for an evening without lights and even then, it was summer and I had candles to read by which was almost fun.

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