Power down

As I write this on Sunday evening, we’ve been without power for fourteen hours. This is very rare for us; I can’t remember a time since my childhood that we went for more than about six or eight hours without power, and even those events have happened only two or three times in the past decade, as far as I can recall. But this time, with a heavy wet snowfall on Saturday night pulling down power lines all over the state, we are facing the kind of situation we usually hear about but avoid: already a full day and evening, and potentially several more to come, without electricity.

And I have to admit, I’m finding it hard to think of anything to say about it that isn’t a cliché. Everything positive about power outages has already been said by the many who experience them more often than we do, and yet now that it’s our turn, I’m finding them all to be true: the way it’s made us focus on the simpler things in life – reading by candlelight, savoring a grilled cheese sandwich made over a gas burner – the fact that it has imposed upon us a mandatory hiatus from our Internet connections, with the constant chatter of email and Facebook; the strange reality that all four of us are sitting together on the couch in front of the fireplace reading or writing, rather than dispersed into four different parts of the house, engaged in four different activities. Even the dog seems to want nothing more than to sit in front of the fire, gazing into the flames.

Because this kind of crisis happens to us so rarely, I’m admittedly a little lax when it comes to the fundamentals of emergency preparedness. But this storm has taught me that what I’ve done in that realm is apparently good enough, at least for the first fourteen hours of a power outage. The half-dozen bottles of water stored in a cupboard have been enough so far for drinking and washing up. We had batteries for all the flashlights, and all the flashlights were easy to find in their usual places. We have candles and matches. Because it’s still autumn and because it’s our first year of living in a home with a fireplace, we hadn’t stored firewood yet, but the logs we sawed this morning from tree limbs that fell into our driveway during the storm ignited fairly easily and have kept us warm. It’s reassuring to know that even without scurrying around preparing for a storm, we’re pretty well equipped to manage one, although I should also admit that not until this evening have I understood why people fill bathtubs and washing machines, and I’ll remember to do that in the future.

Waking this morning to the not unexpected realization that we were without power, my first thoughts were of the many duties I would not have to do today; a rush of welcome laziness swept over me, and I slept an hour later than I usually allow myself. I also keep thinking how relieved I am that this situation is the result of a weather system and not, say, a terrorist attack or an earthquake, something with far more profound implications than a simple snowstorm. Sunday was one of the most peaceful days I’ve had in months, maybe even in years. Rick and I cleared limbs and sawed logs together all morning; the kids, absent their usual temptations of TV and video games, shoveled snow together and then put my iPod on speaker and danced.

Later, we went to my parents’ house and played card games. In the late afternoon, my mother and Tim and I took a walk up to the soccer fields and around the cemetery. Back home, the four of us warmed ourselves around the fire.

It will get more challenging as the days pass, if the power isn’t soon restored. I won’t feel so peaceful or tranquil if I’m unable to meet my work responsibilities due to our Internet connection being down. (Even as I write this blog entry, it’s with the awareness I’ll have to find a hot spot to post it if we’re still lacking electricity in the morning.) But for now, all is dark and quiet. Tim remarked on the visibility of stars in the sky with no house lights around to detract from their glow. Like a 19th-century family, we all went to bed early, when the cold and dark simply made it unappealing to be up any later.

It’s all been said before. But this time, I had the chance to find out for myself what it was like. And for now, it’s a very serene moment in time for us.

Halloween stash, ten days later

It was mid-afternoon yesterday and the thoughts typical of that hour started running through my mind. “Do we have anything in the house that’s chocolate? Or something not chocolate but sweet anyway? Homemade cookies? Hershey’s kisses? Marshmallows?”

That’s just what 2 p.m. is like for me most days.

Then I remembered something sweet that was in the house, something sweet and big. Holly’s trick-or-treat stash.

I checked the bottom shelf of the utility room fridge, the extra fridge that everyone but me forgets about. Inside of Holly’s black cloth Halloween-themed bag, it looked like the demolition site for the witch’s house in Hansel and Gretel: a haphazard array of half-eaten candy bars, untouched pieces of chocolate, and empty wrappers, all resting on a sugary coating of semi-squashed gummy worms, Sweet Tarts and Sour Patch Kids.

Amidst the wreckage I found two untouched miniature Milky Ways. Even better, they were chilled. Perfect!

Halloween was ten days ago; I think it’s been five or six days since I saw Holly pay the slightest attention to her candy stash. Sure, the whole idea of trick-or-treating was exciting on Halloween night…but that was partly the cachet of walking from door to door in the dark, and the thrill of limitless possibilities when it came to gathering candy. Now that her caloric loot is assembled, she just doesn’t care that much. She and Tim – with whom she kindly shared, since he considers himself too old for trick-or-treating, and fortunately they have different tastes when it comes to candy – sorted through her bag when she first came home and each picked out a few favorites, but now it’s largely forgotten.

And this, really, is why Rick and I don’t go to great lengths to limit the kids’ sugar intake. They do it themselves. Oh, sure, they want candy…when it comes to picking out a singular snack at the general store after school on the way to afternoon activities. But their interest wanes quickly when I don’t work hard to make that happen. It’s the same with soda. On the one hand, I honestly find the thought of kids drinking soda rather repulsive, and I often repeat to Tim and Holly the statistic that soda is the number one contributor to childhood obesity. On the other hand, my kids consider a glass of soda a great treat at a party or special event, and the funny thing is that because they’re not used to it, they can’t even drink a whole glass of soda. They ask for it; I get credit for saying “Oh, it’s a special occasion, so I guess so….” And two ounces later they’re done. Easy.

So yesterday, I ate Holly’s two mini Milky Way bars without compunction. She’s unlikely to notice their absence, and her bag still contains plenty of Hershey bars and Almond Joys. But I can fairly reliably assume that she’s forgotten about Halloween candy altogether for this year. By the time she goes looking for it, I will have started our annual ritual of Christmas candy-making, and she can have a peanut butter ball or a square of fudge instead.

And if I’m wrong, and she asks in the next few days where her Milky Ways went? Well, in that case, I’ll simply resort t the most reliable system of all. I’ll blame it on Rick.

Halloween retrospective

Halloween is a happy event in Carlisle. Last night was chillier than many years, but just as much fun. Although it’s always appealing to maintain regular traditions, Halloween varies a little bit each year, and that’s fine too – at this point, it’s to be expected.

This year Tim opted to stay home and watch the Patriots rather than trick-or-treat. He’s been ambivalent about putting on a costume for the past two years now, and it didn’t really surprise me that he greeted the idea of trick-or-treating less than warmly this year, but I had hoped he would walk along with us even if he didn’t go up to the doors. (He knew that Holly would share her take with him merely for being present.) He didn’t, though; he chose to stay home. But not too long after we left him, I received a text message from him saying he’d gone over to my parents’ house rather than stay home alone, so that made me feel better about how he was spending his evening. (Since we live so far off the road, we never expect nor get trick-or-treaters, so it’s fine to have no one home.)

Also different this year: though my friends Lisa and David hosted their annual pre-trick-or-treating party in their big yard just outside the town center, no one in my family but me wanted to leave the Patriots game broadcast for it. I wanted to be there enough that I went anyway, though, just for half an hour. It was enough time to chat with the other families who were there and eat a plateful of appetizers, as well as a bowl of the southwestern pumpkin soup that I had made and delivered to Lisa’s stovetop earlier in the day.

After Lisa and David’s party, I went home to pick up Rick and Holly, and we headed back to the Town Center, which hosts hundreds of trick-or-treaters every year, a tradition that evolved in response to the fact that so many Carlisle neighborhoods are just too sparsely populated to be ideal for trick-or-treating. For the kids, going to the Center an easy way to reach lots of houses without too much walking, but there’s still enough walking that it feels like the kids are getting a workout along with their chocolate and candy corns. For the adults, with such a crowd in a relatively small area, it feels like a giant floating cocktail party; everywhere you look, you see familiar faces (and while cocktails aren’t officially part of the festivities, no one looks too closely at all those thermal coffee cups being toted along).

Some years we’ve gone with groups of friends, but having it be just the three of us was special. We could go at our own pace and didn’t have a lot of different people to keep track of. At most houses, Rick and I stood at the curb while Holly made her way up to the door; sometimes I went with her if it was the home of someone I particularly wanted to say hello to. Through the windows of the well-lit parsonage, we glimpsed our minister dressed in a black cape and watching the football game in between trick-or-treaters.

Some traditionalists in Carlisle – one of whom accosted me at coffee hour at church yesterday morning – dislike the newer format of trick-or-treating in the Town Center. They liked it better when kids went out in their own neighborhoods, and in some parts of town where the neighborhoods are laid out more traditionally, kids still do trick-or-treat. But I really like the Town Center idea. Over the past few years, when it’s not Halloween, the conversation arises periodically as to whether Carlisle is a lonely place, whether the emphasis on solitude and natural splendor results in too little socialization. Last night it didn’t feel like that at all. The whole town was out – though many were unrecognizable behind masks or make-up – and I was happy to be celebrating another Halloween with all of them.

October air

Yesterday, Holly arranged our modest (and motley) collection of Halloween decorations around the house: paper-bag pumpkins on the front table, ceramic witch’s hat by the front door, plastic ghost reflector hanging from the upstairs banister. I made pumpkin cupcakes for our company dessert last night, and this afternoon we’re planning to buy pumpkins at McGrath’s farmstand; we’ll carve them in another few days and roast the seeds. Earlier today a friend invited us to her yearly pre-trick-or-treating party . Halloween is unmistakably close by.

There is something so distinctive to me about the cold, clear autumn air at this time of year. Nothing smells to me quite like home, or childhood memories, like the cold nights of mid-autumn in Carlisle. I can smell leaves, and hay, and frost. Even moonlight, though I know moonlight doesn’t really have a smell. But there’s no other time of year whose aroma says “home” to me the way October does. And even though I know it’s not specific to Carlisle city limits, I so strongly associate the cold nighttime smell with this town; when we lived in Framingham, I would sometimes find myself saying at this time of year, “It smells like Carlisle on Halloween, doesn’t it?”

Hometowns do have specific scents. There’s the cold autumn night smell here, and the dank, humid, late-August afternoon smell that reminds me of getting home from summer vacation and thinking about the onset of a new school year. And there’s an early spring smell, when the snow starts melting. And a first-snowfall scent.

I’ve never lived far from here, but even living somewhere else close by, I’ve had the experience of a smell in the air that reminded me of home. And now, living right where I grew up, I can still detect it: a flavor in the air that tells me exactly where I am, and reminds me that this is where I’ve been for a very long time.