This morning I woke up to no running water. Since I wake up a good two hours before the other four people in my house, I wondered what this would mean for our morning routine: showers, brushing teeth, breakfast, preparing lunches. Pooping. I had a momentary sense of panic. What if this went on all day? What if it was my whole neighborhood, the school, businesses all around me? Two things then occurred to me, both of which seem incomprehensible because they're happening simultaneously in our world today.
One, for a nanosecond I experienced the water anxiety faced by the 884 million people worldwide who do not have access to safe water. While I was contemplating how to brush my teeth, make my tea, get rid of bodily waste hygienically and prepare food for my family, I was confronted with details and decisions I never have to consider but people, mostly women, worldwide are confronted with daily. All day. Every day.
Two, I and most people I know are completely dependent on systems we know nothing about. I turn a handle to get water. I flip a switch and get light. I flip another and am climatically comfortable. Otherwise, I have no idea how to procure those things for myself.
I don’t know why this passes for progress.
*title from an e e cummings' poem
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