When I woke 6 30 a.m. a few days ago Saturday I flicked a kitchen light on. Nothing and darkness. Living this far rural Hawaii Island countryside, I keep a solo-burner propane stove ready. Striking a match, a flame lit after a few sputterings. Humidity in these tropics reaches everything and matches, even kept in a box, are not exempt.

I always keep a match box around just in case spontaneous no electricity might mean no coffee and in any morning of mine, remains not an option. I began this day on caffeine anyway. One very delicious strong cup later, I looked around. A familiar 700 square feet 2/1 minimalist’s apartment, me surveying the place that has no electrical power.

Randomly I had a phone and a laptop continuing to operate for a brief while. During daylight Saturday I focused on writing my novel called Sweet Spot—until a laptop battery ended late afternoon. Phone already died a few hours before. All during the day, I sauteed one-pan nutrition on my propane one-burner fire: chicken nuggets, quesadillas, eggs, and crispy browned bagels.

But around noon on Saturday a radical power shift went torrential. Hovering above was a cranky lawn mower booming loud on low-quality gasoline, some goddess kept walking back and forth across the dark skyward clouding. Or a thousand horses running in a long oval. Or a boom mechanical effort sounding from inside a factory making who knows what. The sound was very loud, felt close, and entirely new to my listening experience. I made a cup of green tea and took a seat for an hour on the lanai to listen.

At 7 30 p.m. I retired to my bedroom to read by flashlight for a while until peaceful slumber begins—this plan done been hatched earlier in a no-power day. The evening before on Friday nearly 10 p.m. I heard a thunder hammer pound and crackling whiplash lightning. Predicting a tropical storm the meteorology sayers had said so and the extreme was so. Lately, overcast gray skies and drizzly rain constantly have been the new norm around here for several months.

Around 11 p.m. Saturday I had seen and heard enough weather info on a direct channel—my first-hand observing. A tree might slander the rooftop or crash into a window—likely in these winds I witnessed demolishing across the street a fence earlier in the day and a stop sign at the end of the road was now flat parallel to the gravel road. But not on the house’s side where I slept.

Why wouldn’t I feel powerless squashed under this new outdoors tropical-storm ceiling? What was going on in earth’s often before blue-skies and sunshine blanket? Clicking my flashlight to dark I rested into my sheets well and in a minute began restoring my energy deeply overnight. I don’t carry much or anything with me once I close my eyes to sleepily rest.

On Sunday morning waking into pitch black, I didn’t know the time. No source was available to tell me. Intuition winked a guess must be earlier than 6 a.m. since entirely dark out. But a steel-gray poltergeist cloud hanging around means detecting clock time via how alight the sky is does not work. I wandered to the lanai again trailing my flashlight with me and took a look. Believing I might see and hear the whooshing outdoors dark ceiling, I scanned skyward. She had moved on. How scrumptiously glad I was for us and gently padded my feet towards-kitchen to revere a one-burner stove so capable of boiling water. Delicious coffee is on the way.

Across this Sunday’s hours we had familiar rain showering lightly; recently ago, briefly sunshine even appeared. Muggy, warm, humid and relentless gray overcast are local weather conditions I recognize. But being in a 7 p.m. hour on day two going without basic utility power is not. Sitting again in pitch dark, except after dusk rather than before dawn like this morning, I choose to work by hand writing next to a flashlight. I have absolutely nothing in my control. Except I’m feeling powerful in a powerless situation and how am I?

My best inner-utility energy is how I have been taught to forgive. Living a writer’s work life, I rely on what life gives me like this recent storm. Houses were not demolished. Lives were not taken. Right away I acknowledge basic privileges gratefully seeing how neighbors went into service with chainsaws to remove countless fallen trees that impeded routine functions. But so many had crashed our local utility company was thrown, rather hurled cyclone like, into removing dozens and dozens of trees having crashed into electrical lines.

Yet I’m going to rely on the storm for being relatable other than extreme weather heroics. Compared to dire weather worldwide my life anecdote has mild. Now. You thought another direction the prose might escalate? This essay escalator is mildly rotating a one-pulley to give momentum for steps directionally going up. I’m staying curious about the storm for taking a look at forgiving. Here we go.

The storm is addiction. Unpredictable, indescribable, and impossible—only one progressive gravity-pull downwards in a life. Any life since addiction does not discriminate. Can catch any one of us. Many live this stormy way for years, on the inside gray energy, random behavior extremes, and temperament predictions often way off. Nobody knows how the addict will storm next.

Unlike the local utility company who decides to shut down power lines dangerous given all the strewn trees, an individual in extreme addiction is on a tear while perilous to self and others until a crystal glass drops on cement—the startling noise, the glass shards, the wake-up distress gathering in a nanosecond. In an entirely powerless moment power arrives. Today I’m a member of a worldwide health movement that powerfully heals my alcohol use disorder. Guesses are that 2,000,000 members participate in 180 countries globally.

What is the deal with my feeling powerful when all the electrical power continues being absent? Who taught me how to source sensing goodness when outside conditions were evidentiarily not looking so good? One historical thread woven into today’s health movement fabric is how in 1935 a New York stockbroker and an Ohio surgeon, who had been “hopeless drunks,” began an effort to publish a book Alcoholics Anonymous, the Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism.

In 1939 this book arrives to the world and admits a few key truths: “Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power? Well, that’s exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem” (45). You might say that losing utility power in a house during a commonly often tropical storm does not compare to an individual sourcing power to heal from addiction (alcohol or any other). You might be grumpy that I didn’t continue describing a tale of extreme weather heroics. All I can meet you with is that many studies show how neurochemistry changes our mind wave-lengths, creating a sense of calm power when we say the serenity prayer.

When I woke up on Saturday and reached for a propane camping stove to make coffee, what I brought too was gratitude. Goddess, grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change. Looks like the power is not working. And I know how much I enjoy coffee so I think I’ll make a cup and sit for a while—check out what is the deal in this here storm scenario. On the lanai with an excellent cup of coffee, I kept saying my powerful serenity prayer.

Grant me the courage to change what I can. My attitude was balancing inside a day where I had no idea what was next circumstantial evidence wise. I cannot change local utility company killed the power. Phone company not working. Internet a no go. All these are powerless now. But courage to shift my attitude is a go. Guess I’ll read a book, with a flashlight when necessary, and write on paper with a pen. That’s when the prayer’s last line worked powerfully well.

And the wisdom to know the difference. I intuitively knew how to forgive this right here, right now real-life scenario during a tropical storm. For a paraphrase, I’ll write that we admitted we were powerless over another tropical storm and that our lives had become unmanageable. Relying on the word we because in all our diversity we are on a spiritual oneness plane. And now that we humans have brought extreme environmental effect on earth, I am powerless over what happens next weather wise. Forgive the chaos I did, accept what looked unmanageable and asked, like the serenity prayer teaches me, for wisdom to discern where could I source power? I decided to forgive all and just be in serenity for several days.

Forgiving is self-forgetting. When I perceive a stressful life scenario where I stay useful and in harmony, often a serenity decision is simply to be. I’m being an open channel to carrying good vibes. Over reacting to a fearful event makes a moment about myself, which is not self-forgetting. Yet my chosen behaviors (my power) base on being a worker among workers—in this case, a neighbor in a neighborhood minding my own business and having business to mind.

Key though is how I forgive myself for times when I equated self-forgetting as door-matting. Who me have needs? And those days are gone for good. During the storm my family was first and I acted on behalf of keeping us in harmony. Perhaps a purchase or two or three of junk food at Wal-Mart, but otherwise all in “healthy” flow, thank you serenity prayer. Learning how to cultivate my serenity mindset gifts me access to a felt-sense Power greater than myself.

Living this way feels like a brand-new design because I can remember many times when I brought the storm. One weekday night August 20, 2009 sitting in my car late-evening on Townsend Street in San Francisco, after working in a graduate seminar, I consciously thought a few beers might be a solution to being off-balance emotionally. That decision led to playing pool at an SF bar on San Bruno Avenue. Leaving very inebriated, I was going towards El Farolito Taqueria for a 3 a.m. burrito. I never got there.

A few blocks from the restaurant I crashed my car into a fire hydrant. I had been driving on Mission Street, reaching the corner of Persia Avenue, when I also collided with another driver’s car. Nearly fatal for myself and the other driver, we walked away okay. Eyelids fluttering open the next morning on August 21, 2009, I made a clear decision: I wanted to live. This Friday morning August 21, 2026 sharing my blog essay acknowledges 17 years I’ve been seeking a power to live healthily.

Learning the steps for staying serenity-forgive-power centered in my individual life is done independently and through group work. We call this a we program is what we have discovered together in our worldwide health movement. Step one for sourcing serenity power to keep for the rest of my lively days is this: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.” Achieving this prayer during any day keeps me gratefully grounded. Helps me continue plugging in well to serenity’s electrical current.

The good news is that our essay’s escalator has pullied nearly to the top where you can disembark soon, dear reader. Until next Friday, clearly. Wait, what? You have been reading, right? Alas, a writer writes and a reader reads any ‘ol damn time she wishes.

What gives me an exquisite joyful bounce in my step is when a fear has reduced power over me. Like say I’m walking at dusk on a back alley in San Francisco, likely I’m over caffeinated because a triple cappuccino mostly can-purchase on any corner. I’m happily lost being a go-to travel strategy intentionally wherever I be and especially in the City. From a mystery distance I smell sauteing garlic. And along walks Brene Brown.

The woman knows a dynamic or two about living vulnerably and how to forgive. Since I know she knows, I can bring squirrelly emotions and did I mention caffeine in the energetic mix, too? Yo, you Brene fans hooting and hollering, please have a seat. I’m not about to diss her. Just saying that a few energetic fear molecules I might be swirling in my perception modus operandi because this is Brene Brown before me. WTF?

Usually what helps are specifics. Like her writing work on forgiving. On a cellular level I rewired my soft wiring (all my fuhleeeeings) while reading her book Daring Greatly, How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead (2012). Startled to see her, I still manage to mumble a genuine thanks for her book.

She asks me where the Italian restaurant is cooking that garlic. Brevity her thang, clearly. Yet we could walk together and see what discovery there is. I ask her. “Is this one of those arena moments you define as ‘any moment when or place where we have risked showing up and being seen” (Intro Rising Strong)? Hence my squirellies because I know she sees me entirely.

“Agreeing! Drift of garlic is this way,” she points and walks towards a street corner. Looking over her shoulder, she annunciates clearly. “Remember that ‘people who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses’.” (Rising Strong)

When I catch up, I raise my hand to ask for a pause. “We need more people who are willing to demonstrate what it looks like to risk and endure failure, disappointment, and regret—people willing to feel their own hurt…” Still asking for pause with my hand raised, I take a steady breath.

“You memorized those sentences from my Rising Strong intro?” she asks, bringing herself to a full pause on the sidewalk, watching me.

I give her an affirmative nod yes and briskly off we go turning another corner, prancing ourselves onto Columbus Avenue in North Beach. Before is the visible restaurant sign The Garlic Stinking Rose. Her walking speed increases and she waves a gentle bye while holding a book (Sue Grafton mystery?) aloft, which I familiarly know means a solo dinner to enjoy fully.

Before the restaurant door closes, I declare: “I’m relying on your forgiveness insights in Rising Strong." A smile, a slight fist pump, and a, “You got this!” are her departing support gestures. Kind woman and I have no idea why I was fearful.

In her book Rising Strong Brown admits vulnerably that forgiveness has been “glaringly absent from my work and all of my books” (150). A key insight had been missing. The challenging new news she learned is that “forgiveness is so difficult because it involves death and grief” (150). Death in this context means an ending. To forgive is to rebuild or choose to not rebuild your conscious connection with a person, place, or entity. Whichever direction you decide, what must first happen energy-wise is to let go (forgive) of what was, and saying goodbye to what was is grief work even if going next healthily in a positive-life direction.

If your dream is fishing for anchovy off the Sardinia coast of Italy while your family determines your place is rightfully at H&R Block as a tax accountant, we have a forgiveness project. Standing on a boat in Italian waters, serenity prayers to forgive your family help start a new connection to them. Doing so requires grief work to end how you used to interact. You are reborn. “So, forgiveness is not forgetting or walking away from accountability or condoning a hurtful act; it’s the process of taking back and healing our lives so we can truly live” (152). When I woke up in pitch dark on a Saturday morning a few days ago I saw this so clearly.

Feeling my emotions on earning 17 years in AA closely futures on August 21, 2026 (this day!) what I see is forgiving in a diverse, multiple of countless ways. My own past behaviors, from these I learn so much every day. Forgive. And having softened this way, I forgive others. Crying when I need tears to acknowledge an ending. Forgive. A leadership quiet to forgive in the interest of group harmony, okay then. Forgive again.

Because forgiving is altruism, true—and a gentle meteor to the stars and back on self-interest. Brown recalls that Archbishop Tutu’s The Book of Forgiving “supported everything I’ve learned about vulnerability, shame, courage, and the power of story” (151). Our strongest emotions are required. Tutu reminds that forgiving includes hatred and anger. Yet throughout is the hope that on the other side of forgiving work, I am a stronger, sober, lesbian-woman in our world.

What I heard in the darkness these last few days is how willing I am to forgive. Not forget, simply bring a forgiving that is self-forgetting as I make the process focused on letting go—not about only myself—to achieve better for my life and thus others. The real emotional sobriety work is to go there. Allowing and having acceptance that grief happens along the work-way since to forgive is to end and to move on. What a power to feel light while nuancing emotional sobriety work. Across no electricity four days going and still no Internet a week later.

Continually in prayer asking for help through the serenity prayer, and in meditation to sit still listening to my breath, and being willing to forgive myself, my past, thus others and accept closure in a few arenas and new arenas correlating to my future opening up and my life changing. What power is this forgiving.