this woman’s work

Hurricane Ike knocked out Columbus. Like many of my neighbors, we’re without power and have been since Sunday when gale-force winds (gusting up to 65 mph) came through and threw down trees and powerlines. We sat on the front porch and watched the trees in the field behind the houses across the street whip up then slow as the trees closer in whipped up and slowed until finally our own trees were whipped into the wild frenzy. We watched it over and over and Madison, caught up in the energy of the storm, danced and sang and spun.

I’m at my mom’s trying to catch up on work on her computer. She doesn’t have wifi so my laptop (with all my needed passwords) is useless. I’m trying not to panic about all I have to do and can’t do. I’m trying (and not succeeding) in being zen. I mean, there’s not much I can do about it right?

Even though I’m frustrated, I’m grateful, too. Grateful that the weather is cool and sunny. That our water is clean. That reports say we’ll have power back by midnight Sunday at the latest. That my mom has power, a full ‘fridge and an open door policy for her kids. We’re luckier than most people in Ike’s (or Gustav’s) path and don’t I know it!! (Pennie hasn’t heard from her mom yet — she got her own power back last night.)

The kids think it’s a madcap adventure with M&Ms (Grandma has a full bubblegum machine and a tin of pennies at the ready) and unlimited wii. They’ll remember it fondly just like they remember the blizzard that took our electricity and sent us to spend Madison’s first Christmas at Brett’s parents and the way Noah remembers the ice storm a couple years back because we toasted marshmallows in the fireplace.

And the work, lord knows, will still be there when the power comes back. A week late maybe but folks understand especially the folks here in central Ohio with me.

Life happens. What can you do?

No surprise there — we knew she wasn’t ready to be whatever comes next (tadpole?) but Noah, who was jealous of the end-of-class Gushers given by the teacher, was trying to make her think she flunked. This from the formerly unschooled kid. See, I told you that virtual school was ruining him!

Speaking of ruining him — or rather his LIFE — we decided to give up cable FINALLY. I’ve felt guilty the whole time we had it but I’d be lying to say I’m not going to miss it. But so much of what we watch is available on the computer and we just figured out how to hook Brett’s laptop up to the television. Besides which we’re all watching too much anyway. When we broke it to Noah he began to gnash his teeth and tear his hair, poor dear. Life is hard in the big city.

Today I’m going to work on theming our new biz site after I get my regular work done. Hoping to debut it soon but we’re taking it slow and this time I’m walking Brett through some of the things so he won’t feel so left out and frustrated. We’re talking about what other aspects of the biz he’d like to take on besides the paperwork. Working with him is a challenge, frankly, because our communication styles are pretty different. Like he’s detail oriented and I’m “get-the-big-idea-and-move-on” oriented. And he’s a worrier and I don’t like to focus on worries because they sometimes catch me with their evil little purple claws and keep me stagnant. (Caution is one thing — chronic worry is another.) Plus I’m generally more optimistic, which would surprise everyone who knew me when I was a gloomy teen but there you go. Sometimes people change.

Oh and changing the subject entirely — since upgrading to Firefox 3, I’ve lost all my scroll bars. Very frustrating. I can still scroll but I can’t see the scroll bar. Firefox 3, to me, is like Wordpress 2.5 — perhaps released too soon seeing as how bug-filled it is. (I hear the beta of Wordpress 2.6 is out. I’m salivating for it because I haven’t learned my lesson about wordpress upgrades yet.)

When I was about thirteen the little girl who lived across the street told my mother that her parents were abusing her. She was about eleven and had grown up in foster care so it is true that at some point in her life she’d experienced horrific abuse and neglect. What was not true was that she was experiencing it when she asked my mom for help. My mother knew that her story – that she was only allowed to eat the food scraped into the garbage disposal – was probably not true but my mother called child protective services anyway. First she invited the neighbor girl to spend the night and then she called CPS. When the report turned out to be unwarranted, she apologized to the family but said she hoped they understood why she called. She wasn’t taking any chances, my mom explained, because no one called when she was a child and so the abuse continued.

Our chances of being saved from dire straits through the intervention of another person go down as more people become involved. That’s the lesson of Kitty Genovese. Instead of making a call to CPS, most of us would ask a friend first. “What should I do?”

My mom was brave to take in the neighbor girl and make the call. She also didn’t have any friends in the neighborhood to consult with first — no one to give advice or make her doubt herself. It’s ironic that if my mother had had more support that she might not have acted. The act (reaching out to protect a child) is morally separate from the results (an embarrassed and loving family forced to defend themselves to the state). But if she’d had more friends to talk to, they might have focused on the imagined results and talked my mom out of acting. I don’t know. I can’t ever know.

It’s less clear if there is no one saying, “Help me.” It’s hard to know what to do when you can see that there is something not quite right but there is a lot of noise in the way distorting the situation. I keep talking to people who know about as much as I do and who are just as conflicted and we all keep talking ourselves in and out of action. We keep looking for an opening because we don’t want to press. We keep, reluctantly, hoping for a crisis so that we know, yes, the situation demands our intervention.

Mostly we talk because talking almost feels like action. Analyzing every little thing seems a little bit like figuring out what to do next. Only it’s not and instead it feels like we are more mired than ever in doing nothing.

I’m frustrated. And sad. And angry at myself.

Maybe I’m too hung up on results. I want the outcome to be a certain way (where help is accepted, where the truth comes out, where change is made) and I know from past experience with this situation that I’m likely going to be as frustrated after as I am now. I also know that the situation is murky and that it could be argued that our concerned take on things is more about our values than about any moral truth. We all know we intervene if a child is eating out of the garbage disposal. What if there is no child and no garbage disposal?

Argh.