Anxiety creeps in when lights go out

“Hello?” Didi asked plaintively. It was before dawn on Sunday, Oct. 27, and the house was cold and dark. After the power went out the night before, the boys had insisted on falling asleep on our bed, and my husband and I retreated to the guest bedroom.

“We’re here!” we called out. Didi and Gege climbed under the covers to warm up, even though we didn’t quite fit on the double bed.

For days, we’d been bracing ourselves for this eventuality, our nerves getting jangled with every alert warning of an outage coming at 1 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. before the power finally winked out.

I was not happy with PG&E, so now I think it stands for Prank, Gag and Electricity.

I’ve wondered about how my sons are dealing with the blackouts, and I urged Didi to write in his journal, which he gave me permission to share: “Well, 2 days ago, I was warned of an outage of power and yesterday we were watching the football game when the power went out at 8:10.”

He drew a diagram of the lights, the couch and the television in a box marked “before” and thickly scribbled out the “after” to mimic darkness.

That night we listened to the radio, but it ran out of batteries. One minute later, the yellow flashlight ran out and Dad was not happy.

The day after that, I woke up in the dark, and it was scary. That morning, the wind roared outside, loud as ocean surf; the branches of the poplar tree in front of our house thrashed; leaves and twigs drifted ankle deep into the gutters; and the air smelled like smoke.

We headed to San Francisco, an oasis of electricity. Driving to the freeway onramp, we stared up at the power lines threading through tree branches. What we passed by every day without paying attention now felt ominous, the foreshadowing in a horror movie.

On the car radio, we heard the latest about the massive Kincade Fire and other blazes breaking out in Vallejo, Crockett and Martinez; Lafayette would ignite later that day. I stared in disbelief at the images of the Carquinez Bridge wreathed in thick smoke.

Everything felt out of control. Worse than that, it felt like control had been an illusion we’d harbored all along. Lines of communication, lines of electricity much more fragile than we’d realized.

The Exploratorium was a haven, though one exhibit posed the question, “What emoji would you add to help us talk about climate change?”

“The world surrounded in flames,” Didi said quietly.

I hated that he and his brother have to contemplate this future.

“I don’t want to evacuate,” he said. “I don’t want to run away.”

That evening, my brother, our family’s MacGyver, figured out how to disconnect us from the grid and wire an inverter to the house, powering us with an electric car battery — enough to run the refrigerator and a few lights, and to charge our devices.

For every blackout, we become more prepared. Those who can afford it buy generators or stay in a hotel for safety and comfort. But many people don’t have those options.

I’m also haunted by the thought that this sort of resiliency could lead to complacency. Resignation? We keep our head above water day by day, we donate, we volunteer, but are we still drowning? Whether climate change or gun violence, we get used to the new normal.

Compared to what others have suffered, our family is fortunate. We didn’t have to evacuate, and we’re grateful to the first responders protecting us. Even still, for more than a week, I’ve been breaking out in hives and my eczema has flared savagely — possibly from the dry air, but also from the stress and anxiety that I know others share. Texts — full of fury aimed at PG&E — have been flying between friends and neighbors.

“When will this season be over?” Gege asked in the car on the way to school, which stayed open thanks to teachers who soldiered on in dim, chilly classrooms. “I want winter to begin.”

The stoplights were out at the intersection and I stopped before cautiously pulling through, keeping an eye out for absentminded drivers. “In winter, we can go to Tahoe, where they didn’t lose power,” Didi said. “It will be Christmas.” “Jingle bells, jingle bells,” Gege sang. In total, 64 hours would elapse before our power would return on Tuesday, Oct. 29, hours before winds picked up once more and hundreds of thousands of PG&E customer accounts went dark again.

We could all use a holiday now.

Everything felt out of control. Worse than that, it felt like control had been an illusion.