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aldersprigTo Three-Word-Wednesday (Today's words are Impulsive, Morose, & Sparse)
You did what you could with what you had.
There was no running water, so you carried it in buckets, or ran a hose from the creek. There was no indoor lighting anymore, so you used candles, if you had them, flashlights, if the batteries still worked, or lamps, if you were lucky.
And that was the comforts. The necessities were harder. But you did what you could with what you had.
You burned what you could for heat, and tried not to think about cancer or the ozone layer too much. You huddled all of you in one room; in the coldest nights, all under one blanket. Privacy was a luxury for warm days, and you were none of you too clean, anyway.
You ran through every can in your pantry, every bag of grain, trendy or plain, and told yourself the bugs were protein. And when it was nearly gone, you started looking to see which of your neighbors had left, or died, or just not kept a gun, and raided their pantries too.
You did what you had to for what you needed, and tried not to think about how scarce resources were going to turn into complete rarities before long.
You learned to make every day, every hour, every minute of daylight count - shoring up your shelter, bringing in burnable material, repairing weapons. You learned to take five minutes of quiet time as your vacation, and learned, usually a harder lesson, that there was no room for being impulsive.
You did what you could with what you had; you did what you had to for what you needed. You tried not to get down about it all. There was no point at all in being morose and mopey about the hardships of life - you were alive, after all, when so many weren't.
You tucked in for the night by candlelight, close to your family, and remembered, as you huddled near the fire for warmth, that any count of your blessings started with we made it and ended with and we can do what we need to, to keep making it.
Amen.
You did what you could with what you had.
There was no running water, so you carried it in buckets, or ran a hose from the creek. There was no indoor lighting anymore, so you used candles, if you had them, flashlights, if the batteries still worked, or lamps, if you were lucky.
And that was the comforts. The necessities were harder. But you did what you could with what you had.
You burned what you could for heat, and tried not to think about cancer or the ozone layer too much. You huddled all of you in one room; in the coldest nights, all under one blanket. Privacy was a luxury for warm days, and you were none of you too clean, anyway.
You ran through every can in your pantry, every bag of grain, trendy or plain, and told yourself the bugs were protein. And when it was nearly gone, you started looking to see which of your neighbors had left, or died, or just not kept a gun, and raided their pantries too.
You did what you had to for what you needed, and tried not to think about how scarce resources were going to turn into complete rarities before long.
You learned to make every day, every hour, every minute of daylight count - shoring up your shelter, bringing in burnable material, repairing weapons. You learned to take five minutes of quiet time as your vacation, and learned, usually a harder lesson, that there was no room for being impulsive.
You did what you could with what you had; you did what you had to for what you needed. You tried not to get down about it all. There was no point at all in being morose and mopey about the hardships of life - you were alive, after all, when so many weren't.
You tucked in for the night by candlelight, close to your family, and remembered, as you huddled near the fire for warmth, that any count of your blessings started with we made it and ended with and we can do what we need to, to keep making it.
Amen.
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Date: 2014-08-22 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-22 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2014-08-25 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-23 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-23 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-25 11:42 pm (UTC)I would expect some supermarket looting of canned, frozen and dried goods, as well.