Blackout

During the storm a few days ago (well, the storm was in the morning and this happened at night) my street got a blackout.  This is a journal entry from that night.

Tonight the light was snatched away.  I left my painting and my preoccupations and was IN this old building.  A neighbor above shouted BLACKOUT! like Happy New Year's.  Neighbors coming outside into the night, laughing.  "So much for dinner!"  "I was cooking too!"  "It's the whole street!"  "Is the bar open?"  "Hell the bar is blackout too prolly."  "If only this had happened at schoo!"  "And Miss Carol's lights too?"

Wait a little while at my desk.  My eyes do have large dark windows for occasions such as this and I am just waiting as they widen, widen, widen before they cast out nets.  And your fingers are smarter than you know.

Light!  Even a little!  I get to the door by my knees and feet with antennae looking for bumps and sharp dangerous things.  My face hates to go forward because it's imagining a thousand ghostly walls to smash it flat.  Screen door, open.  cool night.  Sweet rain.  Patter, wet leaves, a taxi drives by with a light on, their voices ("Dad, the cars still have lights")  the sweet sad wind, the old train voice.  Silver thinned with black in my dim house.  a candle!  Brighter than a star.  I never knew a candle was so bright.  So a candlelit room at night: once I thought of that as a dark room but now I see this as a room where forms can emerge and singing yellow stars restore the world I know.

When the lights came on it was like bleach like chalk and a little sadly I saw myself once more close and lock the outside door.