A Long Revolution.

I lit some incense for protection during the blackout.

Somebody cut the electricity line while harvesting coconuts and we didn’t have power (which means water also) here on the mountain for 24 hours. I have been asked on numerous occasions “Why don’t you get a motorbike” and “what, really, you have no cell phone?”  Not having electricity would not have been resolved by either a phone or a motorbike. We just had to wait it out. Not having electricity did not make me rush out and buy a cell phone, on the contrary. It nudged me out of my customary routine and caused me to question even clinging to the last remaining of my material attachments–my computer and my coffee.

Living outside one’s normal routine has a way of condensing time and elongating it at same time. While novelty heightens  awareness forcing a kind of intensity of experience, attempting to preserve a routine (for whatever reasons we feel attached to our routines)  takes focus and innovation in a crisis and in this case, round the clock vigilance that made the day lose track of itself in the continuum of time. I lived long and hard  into those 24 hours and this gave me more time to contemplate what exactly seems “right” about choosing to live with as few conveniences as possible. I wouldn’t have been so attached to having electricity, if I weren’t so attached to coffee or my computer. Also not having a fan, made sleep more difficult, but seems minor by contrast.

Samui is beginning to feel the effects of the floods in Bangkok in terms of goods available. There are not as many things on the shelves in stores. There are few things I purchase regularly from the store: apples, toilet paper, biscuits and cream, real cream for my single cup of coffee in the morning. That is the extent of my regular list. The coffee, as far as I am concerned, is the luxury I am willing to work the hardest for. I’ll get up early and walk long distances for coffee beans, paper filters and cream. The other things on the list I will make allowances for– paper receipts  and napkins make due in a pinch and every bathroom is fitted with what teacher Sharon affectionately refers to as “the bum gun.”  I’m ok if I have no paper in the bathroom or biscuits to snack on….but coffee, I am not willing to compromise much in its regard. It has to be right, or really, frankly, not at all.  This preference was tested in those 24 hours without electricity. My attachment to this carefully refined and groomed “practice”  became the theme of last nights power outage.

The cream on this island, which was already a splurge at 135-150 Baht a pint, disappeared from the shelves last week and the only cream available was a different brand at double its price. I wouldn’t buy it. On 3 separate occasions I hunted for cream in all the locations I knew about.  The occasion in the center of the three acted as a buffer to the occasions on the periphery where I purchased a very small (and terribly expensive) ration to get me through until “my cream” came back. I also tried coffee with canned milk that tasted like dust; I tried it black and then I finally broke down yesterday and bought the 289 Baht pint of heavy cream. I even bought a bag of ice and positioned behind the cream in my backpack for the long, hot and bouncy walk home. It was when I returned home that I discovered I had no power and that meant no refrigeration and also no means to heat water.

I had already had my morning cup so my thoughts dove into devising ways to keep the cream from spoiling through the power outage. I put it in the freezer with the bag of ice and walked to school to see if there was power there and to call the landlord. I brought my computer  too to charge the battery because I still had internet access. Coffee and the internet are my morning routine. Finding the school replete with electrical power, I decided my cream would be safe while I did the HHH (hash house harriers) hike and hoped the power would be restored by the time I returned home. Later that evening, I found my house dark, but the ice thick on the inside of the freezer and my melting bag were keeping the cream cold and I knew it would last until morning.  At 5 AM I loaded my stainless bottle in my backpack and walked to the 24 hour Family Mart. There I bought 4 bags of ice and filled my bottle with hot water. My coffee wasn’t as hot as usual, but tasty enough. Power was restored by early afternoon but I had already begun to question my attachment and to be fair, this questioning started when I couldn’t find cream and ended as soon as I laid down the money for the expensive pint. So, really, this was just a continuation of something begun earlier in the week.

I think that is perfectly normal to have attachments to things, but I am bothered by having them. So I ask myself (and humanity too, because I think its necessarily a question of this in the end), how would it serve me  better to be unattached  and why am I bothered by having  attachments? Its not the inconvenience of having them. It goes deeper because actually having an attachment gives my life structure and routine and I have often felt when I have no desire a sort of emptiness or non-existence, almost as if I cease to be. A state of nihilism is certainly not the aim. I am not sure what it’s about exactly, but I am fairly certain that if the power outage had continued for much longer, I would have been far more concerned with learning to live without electricity (and coffee with cream) than ways to restore it and I am pretty sure that this kind of thinking is not the norm.