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Our power went out last night. Not sure why. A Nixle Alert told us there was a downed power pole somewhere across the freeway. The power company estimated a 9:00 pm restore time that turned out to be overly optimistic. When that didn’t pan out, we turned in early, hoping the morrow would bring a fresh supply of electrons to power our peripherals.

It struck me as odd to realize the similarities between the power outage and being without power in our Airstream during our recent trip up north, and yet it felt quite different, qualitatively. During our travels, we were unable to connect with outside power because of an undiagnosed electrical problem. We still had lights, thanks to our solar array, but we had no heat, no tv, none of the other conveniences we were accustomed to back home.

Yet we were happy nonetheless, swept up in the unconventionality of being in new and unfamiliar places and the novelty of our first big-miles adventure in our cylindrical silver road-ship. Being a little inconvenienced was just part of the package—something we willingly and cheerfully accepted.

But being home, where such comforts are routinely taken for granted, was a different story. The furnace wouldn’t work without electricity to power the pilot thermocouple and the temperatures had dropped over twenty degrees from the previous day‘s high. The cold seemed somehow colder than it had on our trip. Ironically, we were reluctant to open the refrigerator because we didn’t want to squander what frigidity remained inside, not knowing how long the power would be off.

And the tv . . .Television is a thing we’ve never associated with camping. The fact the RV camp neighbors we camped beside on our trip were almost universally plugged in elicited only faint traces of envy when we spotted a screen sporting slivers of light and movement. Yet at home, where the television, for good or ill, has become an object of daily dependence, I found myself at a loss. Reading by candlelight lacked the appeal it once had, and I’d left the lantern in the Airstream after our trip.

What, I wondered, was the missing ingredient that turned one situation into an adventure while transforming another into an ordeal? Granted, the two situations weren’t exactly analogous to each other, but they weren’t that dissimilar either, especially when comparing their respective pluses and minuses.

The thing that made the difference, that magic something that made mud into mud-pies, must have been the make-do attitude we’d adopted on the trip—the willingness to make the most of whatever came along, come what may. It was that little shift in perspective that made the inconveniences we experienced on our trip not so inconvenient, the cold less frigid-seeming, the rain a blessing and not a curse and the sunshine all the more glorious.   

Easy to do when the view outside your window changes each morning. Maybe less so when it’s the same, day after day. But, as they say, it’s not about what happens to you, but how you deal with it that counts.

Tim Konrad

October 18, 2021