On Thursday, June 29th, I was sitting on my porch when a great wind blew up, bowing trees and stripping branches. Rain came in sideways, and I went inside the house. Through my screen door, I watched leaves being blown across the grass and street. When I turned away from the door, the lights went out; it was 3:52 p.m.
In April 2020 I was sitting in a chair in front of my living room window when the storm I had been casually watching brought down a tree that took out a power transformer with a spectacular blaze of light and blackened all the lights in the neighborhood. (“The Trees of Irvington,” The Weekly View, April 16th, 2020.) Twenty-nine hours later, my daughter and two-year-old granddaughter — who had spent the night on a mattress on the floor of my candlelit basement bedroom — celebrated with me and the rest of the neighborhood when restored power brought back the lights. Today, we have more sophisticated technology that permits a power company to promptly address a storm-damaged power line.
At 3:57 p.m. that recent Thursday, my youngest daughter sent me a text to ask what I was doing; I replied that I was “looking at trees blow by,” and added that the lights had blinked out. Lauren came by with my granddaughter to bring me a power bank portable charger so that I could recharge my phone. The storm that had struck blind my neighborhood, had just reached theirs; when she leapt into my arms, Myah’s long braids, still wet from the inflatable pool in her back yard, left strips of moisture on her grandfather’s forearms. The moment was a bit of light that I carried into the dusk and dark of the power outage. Lauren checked on me again at 9:07 p.m.; I was sitting on the porch, and in the dying light, reading a book by Michael Chabon. On the west side of the street, the light provided by the city winked on, and I noticed that the house behind it had working lights. The west side was the best side at this time.
The lights came on in my house at 7:18 p.m. on Sunday, July 2nd, 75 hours, 18 minutes after they winked out. I was told that neighbors on the blocks near me were seen and heard singing and dancing in the streets; my next-door neighbor told me that she honked her horn in solidarity as she drove by.
The three nights of darkness did have moments of illumination. My daughter brought me a larger power bank, a rechargeable flashlight, and two battery-operated lamps. When she dropped them off, my granddaughter came with her. Five year old Myah sat on my futon in the dusk, and plaintively asked her mother, “Can we stay for a few minutes?” My heart leapt into that light. My next-door neighbor offered me breakfast (she has a gas stove) and on the second day, gave me a small bowl of delicious strawberries and two homemade cookies; her husband sat with me on my porch and helped dispel ennui. During the daylight hours and with the aid of my daughter’s super-bad flashlight, I finished three books by Michael Chabon. The neighbors with power supported those without by storing frozen food. I watched as a tree service removed a tree in another neighbor’s backyard, and silently cheered as AES line workers restored power. The workers returned my wave of gratitude as they drove away.
With the darkness dispelled, I sat down to write this and to add Michael Chabon’s ironically titled Moonglow, to the three others written by him.
cjon3acd@att.net