In Dim Light (still)

8PM: we are heading into night five of no power.  The house is hot.  The air is unmoving.  Our eyes are tired.  Somehow it doesn’t matter that we found things to occupy ourselves with all day (even fun things – laundry at a friend’s house, free cupcakes, bowling, several hardware stores...), coming home to a still, dark, hot house and soggy coolers of milk, yogurt, and melting ice deflates one a bit.  I was so hopeful driving home that somehow the lights had flickered on and the air conditioning would be roaring.  But nothing. 

Tucking in Silas tonight, I explained how, though he is six and has no reason to know this, growing a baby, having no electricity, being responsible for a new house and all that needs to be done there, taking care of two children is hard, and sometimes makes me feel impatient and like I don’t want anyone to touch or grab or hang on me (all day long).  Woah, that sounds hard, he said. (He has always been eager to forgive -- the nature of a child?).  But a smooth lozenge of apology in my mouth and his little grace, still doesn’t take away the soreness of having heard my mouth bite and jab all day.  Sigh.  And of course, my mind instantly jumps to imagining September and October (and November and December and January….) when I will be mightily weary once again with just as much to hold (if not more) for months on end.  Are we all doomed? 

Maybe I’ll ask that again when the lights are on.  For now, in the dark of the basement, still remarkably coolish, a tea light burning, and the day’s last light seeping in through the shutters, I am taking as big a breath as my belly will allow in this early July air, in these days that keep pulling me deeper into summer, into settling, into the foothills of fall.