The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart Read Free Book Online Page B

till tomorrow afternoon, thus allowing her to dry and straighten hair after swimming in the morning.
    Am not without sympathy, but implied strongly that the decision was out of my hands. Have given impression that the mains power is “being shut off” (i.e., by the electricity company) rather than admitting that I am turning it off myself. I am a coward. But I am an experienced coward. I know the kind of pester-power this could generate. Like, enough to light up the whole frigging neighborhood.
    Made peace by reminding her she was free to straighten at friends’ and neighbors’.
    “But, Mum, wouldn’t that be against your own rules?”
    Not at all. At least, I don’t think so. Hang on. Don’t these people realize I’m just making it up as I go along? You know, like parenting itself.
    Had planned to discuss everybody’s expectations-slash-forebodings of the Big Boring Journey ahead, but chickened out. Am afraid asking them to think ahead in too much detail could be disastrous. They have been remarkably, uncharacteristically acquiescent so far. We want to keep that thought.
    For myself, I anticipate missing the most:
    • My straightener (LOL)
    • My iPhone
    • Microsoft Word (Because frankly, my writing hand has already had it)
    • Google!!
    • The New York Times online
    • Pretending I don’t really live in Perth
    I went to the discount hardware store for supplies on the morning of January 4, trying to remember Thoreau’s words: “Simplify, simplify!” Okay, it wasn’t that much to remember. But it was harder than it sounds because I actually love hardware, and the more complicated the better. I can spend hours cruising for DIY stuff: shelving, knobs and fittings, power tools. Picture-hanging tackle is a particular weakness, and so, for some reason, is the fixative aisle—you know, glues, pastes, clamps, fillers. (Please don’t tell me that’s a metaphor.) As I wended my way toward LIGHTING, past ramparts of storage bins and leaf blowers, and down a seemingly endless aisle of hose fittings, I recalled Thoreau’s advice: “Let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand. Instead of a million, count half a dozen; and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.”
    Clearly, the man had never gone shopping for flashlights at Bunnings. Lantern-style, high-beam, fluorescent tubed, pocket-sized, solar-powered, waterproof, touch-sensitive, even head-lamp style (just the thing for reading Walden in a mineshaft). I spent a good forty-five minutes fretting over my choices, but in the end I think Thoreau would have been proud. Or at least not entirely disgusted. I saved my receipt—because Thoreau saved his receipts, and printed them, which is how we know exactly how much he spent to build his humble one-room house, down to the last nail and board ($28.12½). For what I spent on six lanterns, a box of candles, some large matches, a lot of batteries, and an ice chest ($240.81), Thoreau could have built a convention center.
    On the way home I stopped at the deli for the largest bag of ice I could find ($3.75), which I used to fill the ice chest. I stocked it with the essentials: milk, cheese, eggs, a bar of Lindt 70 percent cocoa solids dark, a cucumber, and a pretty decent Margaret River Semillon Sauvignon Blanc. (“I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man,” Thoreau had written. Yes, well. I am a woman.)
    It was midmorning by now. I sat at the kitchen table and, watching the curtains stir in a weak sea breeze, reflected happily on all the chores I could not possibly get done. On a normal morning, if I wasn’t at work toggling between my e-mails, my sound editor, the voice mail on two phones, and my customary six open tabs on Internet Explorer, I was at home toggling between the vacuum, the iPhone, the hair straightener, and three Word documents in varying degrees of undress. I’ve always considered mornings to be my most productive time. Thoreau did too, but in a somewhat different