During the Storm

There was a warning for damaging winds in my area on Sunday, but I had symphony tickets, and everything looked okay outside, so I decided to head to the performance. About 20 minutes into the show, the lights went brighter on the stage, then they went off, then the house lights went on, and then we were all plunged into complete darkness.

The musicians kept playing.

At intermission, the director explained that the light changes were due to the generator. The power was out to the building, and they were operating at 50% lighting capacity. He said they were going to try to finish the performance, and they would help people out of the building if the lights failed completely.

Many people left immediately. I decided to stay.

The conductor promised that he would finish with an Enescu piece that would be electrifying to make up for the ever-changing light situation. He delivered — it was the most impassioned, gorgeous, energetic performance of “Romanian Rhapsody” ever played.

I drove home carefully; traffic lights were out along the way, but everything was fine at home. We had clearly lost power while I was out, but it was back on. I ate dinner, spoke to the kids, and went about preparing to watch the SNL special.

And then the power went out. It came back on a few times only to turn off again a moment later and finally stayed off for good. I had one flashlight, so I went downstairs to Beorn because he gets scared in storms. He was standing at attention with all of his hair raised and his eyes wide, so I sat with him, spoke quietly, and shined a flashlight at the ceiling, telling him that I thought the lights would come back on soon.

And that’s when we heard a series of deafening cracks, one after the other, and thumping crashes that shook the house. I put my arms over my head, and Beorn let out a shriek. When the noise stopped, I looked around, determined the room looked fine, and gave Beorn his hiding house when I went upstairs to investigate.

Enormous tree limbs had fallen into our yard, exploding upon impact, so branches filled the space. I shone the flashlight outside, taking in the damage, and saw a single bird still standing on the branch. It had fallen with the tree and stood there for about 10 minutes, looking around, before it flew away.

I sat in the dark with Beorn, who whimpered inside his hiding house for hours. He wouldn’t even come out for a cookie, and there is nothing in life that Beorn loves more than alfalfa cookies. When Josh came home, we assessed the power situation and crawled into bed because it was getting cold. There was nothing we could do until morning, though the power came on a little before 1 am, which woke us up, and we returned the food we had moved into the freezer back into the refrigerator.

It felt a bit like the universe delivered a metaphor for everything going on in our country right now. A big storm causes enormous damage without any indication of when it will end or if the power will come back on. Standing by the window, assessing the damage, and making calls to try to get someone to help us. And then, hoping that everything will work out and that help will arrive, we’ll look back on this moment two years from now, knowing whether the damage was fixed.