Dismay, unease and helplessness

First, I realize I have no internet. No Wi-Fi, no electricity. My spontaneous reaction is to grab my phone to try to find some information and find out if the incident affects my street or the entire city.

My first feeling is one of helplessness and impotence. Then, like a revelation, I grab the only transistor radio in my house. I look out the window to see what the street looks like, and for a moment everything is normal, but suddenly I realize that, on the balcony across the street, a neighbor has had the same idea as me and is holding the transistor radio in his hand.

While memory takes me on a small flash On the distant night of February 23rd—life centered around the transistor radio—Ricard Ustrell lets me know that the blackout is general. Throughout Catalonia, throughout the Iberian Peninsula, it seems—at first word gets around—in some European countries; later we learn it's been in Spain and Portugal.

The desire for information keeps me glued to the transistor radio, but also a certain paralysis: I can't work, I can't watch a series, I can't iron, I can't have a coffee.

I'm overcome by that mixture of sensations that usually appear in exceptional situations: anxiety with sparks of emotion and a base of restlessness.

I begin to worry about the hospitals, the schools, the traffic, the restaurants with full refrigerators. The confusion grows, and the lack of communication is a shock. And my loved ones, are they all okay? Will we be able to go home? The reflection is inevitable: how did we do it when there were no cell phones? For a few hours, we're forced to recover some concepts: calm, patience, resignation in the face of helplessness.

I want to know what happened, and I want to know what will happen next. But somewhere in my brain, an idea begins to take shape: while this can't happen, we have to think of alternatives: read, chat with someone, distract ourselves, think, draw. They're very simple things. The things we did before putting our lives in the hands of electricity and technology.

And while I try to concentrate on my reading, bumblebees start flying around, worrying me: how and when will this nonsense be resolved? When can it happen again? Will anyone make a decision to prevent us from living in this total helplessness?

I only think that, in times of pandemic, we were so naive as to believe that we would emerge better from that terrifying experience and that we would learn some basic things. But that was not the case. In the same way, I fear that having lived through that ordeal, if not terrifying, then uncomfortable and distressing, will be of no use.

Or wait, maybe yes, maybe from now on we'll never be without a few packs of batteries at home.

Please excuse the lack of optimism and faith in humanity. My solidarity with those who have suffered serious consequences and my gratitude to everyone who has worked and is working to return to normal.