Motus Mentis

The lights are back on here on our little dirt road in Wellfleet, where the power had been out ever since the thrashing we got from that nor’easter on Tuesday night. We get a lot of these storms out here, but this was a pretty nasty one, and it knocked down an awful lot of trees.

We want to offer our heartfelt thanks to the Eversource linemen (and, no doubt, some women as well, and battalions of others who came from all over the country) who worked around the clock to repair the electrical system and get our lights back on. These are the people — not the parasitic hot-house Laputans who deplore and sneer at them for their want of delicate sensitivities — that keep our civilization, or what’s left of it, alive. Someday very soon, if history is any guide, there is going to be a great shaking-out, in which the foundations of the nation will tremble and we will see just who owes what to whom.

I’ll say this also: three days without power is a grim reminder of how dependent we are on our brittle (and far too “tightly coupled“) global infrastructure. All it would take is a modern-day Carrington Event — which could happen at any moment — and we’d be reduced to barbarism in a matter of weeks. (Just saying.)

The lovely Nina and I (happily bathed, and with a suitcase full of clean laundry!) are heading up to Maine tomorrow to visit some old friends for a couple of days. Back mid-week.