Powerless

November, as we know, is the eleventh month of the year.

It doesn’t take a Fulbright Scholar to know that. Its name (derived from Latin “Novem” meaning “nine”) carried over from the Calendar of Romulus (c 750 BC) when it was indeed the ninth of the ten months in that calendar. (As a side note, January and February were added to the calendar about 300 years later, giving us our present twelve-month calendar.)

A few factoids about the now-eleventh month of the year:

• World Kindness Day is celebrated annually on the 13^th. On this day, participants attempt to make the world a better place by celebrating and promoting good deeds and pledging acts of kindness, either as individuals or as organizations.
• November also is the home to several “awareness campaigns” including Lung Cancer Awareness Month, Transgender Awareness Month, Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, Military Family Month, National Adoption Month, COP Awareness Month – and many more.
• If you’re tired of seriousness, Blasé Day (really) is celebrated annually on the 25th of the month. On this day we have permission to be blasé’ toward just about anything. To celebrate, it is suggested we yawn, feel “meh” and tune out; posting our actions on social media – but only if we feel like it.

Of course, most of us associate this month with Thanksgiving and gratitude — which I’ll admit has been difficult to feel when, for the last few weeks, our power has been cycling on and off like a strobe light at a rave.

If you don’t live in California, and are therefore not aware of this phenomenon, PG&E, the energy supplier for large swaths of the state, has been “de-energizing” vast portions of their electricity delivery-system as an attempt to minimize fire danger caused by the hot, dry weather and strong winds besieging the (not-so) golden state via what are known as “public safety power shutoffs” or “PSPSs”. The logic is if there isn’t electricity flowing through the power lines, should one be toppled by the gale force winds in a tinder-box parched region, it cannot start a fire. However, if one has listened to the news of late, one knows that California is ablaze from one end to the other. That’s not necessarily the fault of PG&E, but obviously, something more needs to be done.

Whose fault is whose is of little consolation to my inner child when he’s sitting in a light-less household sans heat, worried about food going bad in a lifeless refrigerator and anxious about how to make a living when he doesn’t have electricity.

“Someone needs to do something!” I yell with righteous indignation at no one in particular. “This is horribly unfair! How are we supposed to live like this?”

Granted the anger and frustration are legitimate. After all, this is 2019, not 1819.

We live in arguably the most technologically advanced state in the Union and it’s reduced to a third-world country. PG&E (although not the only perpetrator) carries a great deal of the blame for this fiasco, opting to give out dividends to shareholders instead of spending those resources modernizing its systems. There’s plenty of anger to go around and good people can agree to disagree as to what is the genesis as well as where to go in the future.

Yet, that does nothing to negate the fact that we sit in a murky, dim, cold, “de-energized” household for days in a row, repeatedly.

Of course, without the usual distractions, I am forced to think, no longer sidetracked by the bright shiny objects with which I surround myself. I am cognizant of the fact that I will get through this, albeit inconvenienced. There are others who fare less well: the make-it-to-the-next paycheck hourly worker who has been furloughed because the business for whom she works cannot open without electricity. Speaking of such, countless small businesses who are barely covering expenses are hurting. People who require electricity to operate their medical devices or keep chilled their medicines literally fear for their lives.

And we cannot forget those hundreds of thousands frantically tossing what they can into cars, grabbing children and pets, fleeing fires with a moment’s notice, hoping to come home at all to a still-standing structure. For many, it’s already too late, having lost everything they’ve acquired over the years. Some, sadly, will never ever come home again.

I’m not going to sugar coat it. It sucks. I cannot believe this is our new normal. Yet, I’m able to write about it and you’re able to read this.

For that at least, we need to be grateful.

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About the author: Scott “Q” Marcus is the CRP (Chief Recovering Perfectionist) of www.ThisTimeIMeanIt.com. He is available for coaching, speaking, and reminders of what really matters at 707.834.4090 or scottq@scottqmarcus.com.