The Privilege of Roof

Half-asleep thoughts on this flooding event that's happening outside of this solid wood door and heavy curtains where I am sitting here naked in comfortably controlled climate with so much privilege. Drinking clean water I thought to get from the spring before the flooding rains, I wonder about the fox I saw trotting through the neighborhood earlier. Is their den soggy, soaked, sodden? What must it be like to be out there in this weather in suburbia where leaf blowers rampage weekly and brush is cleared and no home lasts very long when We The People huff and puff like that. What must it be like to continually have to rebuild your home without cell phones to phone a friend when things get desperate and you just need space because the sky water is running and bursts of light in the middle of the night leave you feeling uneasy like the sky is falling in.

What must it be like to be a human out there, with no cell phone and no way of knowing it's all of a sudden going to flood, where laws say you have to rebuild your shelter every day and you aren't allowed to use any modern comfort tools to build shelter that will remind those who pay taxes just how privileged they are because the tax collectors like to collect without complaint. The rain sounds give way to choruses of creatures. Tree frogs? Cicadas? All freshly washed, celebrating their aliveness, making certain the echolocating predators have breakfast once their wings are dry. What's it like to be outside on a night like this that low on the food chain, to be thought of that little by society that there's no space given for your thriving out of sheer ignorance and willful subjugation.

Knowing how close I was to being one of those unsheltered humans in this actual reality, and knowing I am all one with all the subjugated and the willful subjugators...I drift off into a privileged sleep.

@philosopherbonnie 9/13/2022 4:19am