A Dark Chill

Today I am grateful for warm layers, running water, and batteries to power flashlights.

Based on my gratitude list, you may have surmised that the dark chill I am referencing in today’s post title is regarding a power outage. It is, but it is more.

With strong winds yesterday and overnight, it’s likely a branch went down and took our neighborhood’s power with it. I heard a chain saw when Oliver and I took our walk just now on eerily dark streets with randomly dark houses. Across our street, neighbors have lights and electricity. Down our block, there is darkness. I can see the power grid, literally. 

Thank you to the crews already working hard to restore our electricity and the convenience and comforts we often take for granted. 

Daylight will soon come, earlier today than yesterday, on the clock anyway, because Daylight Savings Time just ended overnight too. That will help take away the darkness. And we have plenty of layers and blankets to take away the chill. A few hours of this is manageable, and if it stretches longer, we’ll make it through even if we are further inconvenienced and have a day different from the one we may have planned.

But the dark chill is bigger than a neighborhood power outage. The COVID-19 pandemic keeps creeping along, it’s pace picking up in very concerning ways recently. Our nation’s Election Day is just two days away now, and the dark chill of division and unrest are more evident than I have ever witnessed in my 55 years. (The 1960’s certainly had their share of turmoil, but I am too young to remember those times.) 

The dark chill of grief shows itself on this day, now five years to the day since my brother-in-law Roger died of early onset Lewy body dementia. My sister Danita knows this grief deeply, losing a spouse in ways years before his physical death. 

The wind also has kept the wind chimes in our front yard chiming regularly. I got the butterfly chime in memory of my sister Mary Jo. The dark chill of cancer hovered over her life for years and then took her last year. The chimes warm me with memories of her. She lives on. Roger lives on. 

What can I do? Maintain hope. Welcome the coming daylight. And in memory of Roger and Mary Jo, I can “do a Roger” as my sister Aileen calls it. Go for a walk. Ride your bike. Hike up a mountainside. Write a poem. Bake some bread. Play a banjo. Run a few miles. Do what you love. For you, and for those you love. 

There may be a dark chill surrounding me now, but the daylight arrives soon, and the hope never left.