Streetlights have been used on our roads since 1879, yet this past week anyone driving amid the aftermath of Sandy would have found themselves playing right of way chicken with other road warriors. It is Friday afternoon, November 2, 2012, and I am wrapped up in several layers of converters in my home. I begin to write, pen on paper and not keyboard to Ipad. There is no word as to when the power will come back on Delancy Street, whilst the Ironbound from my roof at night looks like an alternating street light up show.
There were no deadlines that needed to be met, no traffic on the way to work, no third cup of coffee before eleven. There was no texting, no television, no Facebook, no tweeting, and no Instragrammed photos manipulated for that studio quality feel of girls sticking their bottoms out in front of a mirror in the bathroom.
There was time to read Arthur Phillips’ Prague. It had been on my shelf for three years. There was that moment where I was able to talk to my mother for the first time in five years, the time I was able to spend with my granddaughter, the Sterno makeshift stove my father and me put together to have warm meals, the candlelight dinners, and the bartering over mortgages and properties during a game of Monopoly. The dulling prospects and vicissitudes of darkening days became the backdrop to living life together, and we all gained perspective.
Someone was sitting in their cars for five hours waiting for gas when their work was canceled. There was no place to go, but that person just loves waiting in line. There is such a sense of urgency to do nothing amongst the majority of us that we lull ourselves into hopeless states of idiotic behaviorism. Nothing bars this person from doing everything in their power to feel uninspired, and waste their time.
Walking over several patrons charging their cell phones at the lobby of CVS, I turned myself right around. I didn’t need anything but what was already at home, my family.