Blackout

Philippines

It was the summer of 1984. For me, a summer of transition between 6th grade elementary and 7th grade middle school. It was also my first time traveling to the Philippines since my family immigrated to NJ back in 1973.

We were visiting my three cousins on my mother's side. They lived in the town of Hermosa, in the peninsula of Bataan, a region from which both my parents hailed. It was the first time meeting my cousins since I was 2 years old, when we left for NJ. Arnold was a few years younger, but AnnaPet and Agatha were about the same age as my brother and I. They were fun, and they were family, so we got along well ... after I got past my initial awkward, nervousness of 'meeting' them for the first time.

Our summer visit landed us right in the middle of the 'rainy season' in the Philippines, which meant torrential downpours were common and expected. During one such storm at my cousin's home, the electricity blacked out. Being from NJ, this was not something something I was exactly used to. Wait ... what happens now - what do we do? But for my cousins - they took it in stride. They went to the kitchen drawers, grabbed candles, and lit them throughout the house. Rather than watch TV, we sat with each other on the living room floor. Surrounded by the ambient glow of candles, we played board games, told stories, and laughed at corny jokes.

We visited many places during that summer-long visit to the Philippines: mountain resorts, city tours, and cultural explorations. But that blackout at my cousins' house - no electricity and no amenities, just each other's company - stands out as one of the best nights we spent all summer.

College Cable

Fast forward to 1992. I'm sitting on the bed in my off-campus apartment in New Brunswick, on Suydam Street. The room is a freshly painted gray, from when Herman, Dave and I moved in a few months ago. Sitting cross-legged on my twin bed, I lean back against the wall and sigh, exasperated, staring blankly at the 'metro' shelf across the room. The shelf is sparse, with nothing more than a few books and a 17-inch TV.

The room has an eerie quiet, probably because the TV is off. It's usually the first thing I turn on after I return home from class. But today the TV is blank, silent. The grey surface of the screen cold and empty, staring back at me with a small collection of dust and the barest reflection of my own face in quiet despair. I couldn't believe it.

We had not paid the cable bill.

There would be no TV for at least a month.

I recall the anxiety of that moment.

How can I get by without TV? How will I watch the Knicks? Or the news? What will I do to relax after school? How boring is this month going to be?

What do I do now? Like, right now - what am I supposed to do?

But I also recall that the following 3 months (yes, it took us that long to pay a cable bill) were some of the best-read days in my young life. I went through books like a mad man. I read classics that I never had picked up - like 'Wuthering Heights' by Bronte and 'Frankenstein' by Shelley - and got acquainted with philosophers like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. And I wrote about them in my personal journal, navigating ideas and lessons in my own space and time, derived from these thinkers before me.

I remember feeling pretty smart in those 3 months, until HBO re-entered my life, and the books, while still a reserved part of my day, took it's place back in the shared space on my shelf, and in my time.

Normalizing

I look back on these memories now, as we start to recover from our world-wide blackout from COVID. The past year has been a quiet, necessary adventure. Started with the shocking realization of this pandemic, we were forced into a new kind of solitude, a blackout of epic economic and social proportions. And the grim loss of life encountered by our world - by our friends and family - deserves our utmost respect and consideration, while being a constant reminder of the importance of our loved ones in our lives.

But looking back on this past year, the personal growth provided by this blackout is not lost on me.

Without being able to safely go out to restaurants, I was forced to learn to cook my favorite dishes at home. While I've always enjoyed cooking from time-to-time, this year I found a confidence in the kitchen realized from simple plates like fried calamari and pretzel sticks, never previously before adorned on the kitchen table except from takeout bags. And while this is one form of self-growth I've taken on, I've observed others do the same with music, or landscaping, or with handy-man skills within their own homes.

Maybe most significantly, in the midst of this forced quiet, the social calendar became bare. Larger weekend gatherings with friends and acquaintances were replaced with quiet conversations, which by nature were more thoughtful and intimate.

And we spent more time with our family.

Since the pandemic started last March, we've had a family-movie-night every weekend. And while it's been a great opportunity for the boys to be watch never-before-seen classics outside of their generation, it's also just as much been about the conversations afterwards. We've talked with the boys about which 'Breakfast Club'-type groups exist in their schools, or the about the anti-consumerism themes of Fight Club. And it's pretty funny how often we now reference movie lines in the house - how instead of saying 'wait, hold on', the boys'll break out the Scottish accent of William Wallace from BraveHeart saying 'Hoooold .... Hooold!' (as he held back his troops against the English advance.)

All opportunities and memories realized from this forced quiet.

The Night Sky

I can't help but think of one more memory - a common one - looking up at the night sky.

Living in central Jersey, I've looked up at it often, and I've seen Orion, and the North Star. They dot the sky every night, and in a quiet moment I'll look up and look for the celestial markers. But it's only when I've looked up from a remote field or hill, in the rural areas away from the cities, that I see the breath-taking beauty of a sky full of stars. Yes, they are always there, but I can only see and appreciate their magnificence when the obtrusive lights and noises of the city and bustling life are quiet, dissipated - blacked out from the night sky.

I think in general, there's a lot of obtrusive light and white noise in our lives, noises of which we are often no longer aware because we've grown accustomed to them as part of our everyday experience.

Small dramas from our social calendar, fully packed weekend schedules of our kid's practices and obligations, errands to the the grocery store and Home Depot. Expectations and anxieties, and sometimes literal noises from the TV's and devices playing in the backgrounds of our lives.

Reading back on this now, I know these are all necessary things - good things. Life things.

And admittedly, I look forward to going back to so much of what we missed out this past year.

But I also know that this past year's quiet has given me the opportunity to appreciate certain parts of my life - self explorations, quality and depth in relationships, conversations - opportunities made possible because of this past year's forced quiet - opportunities I hope to continue, and not forget, as the world and my life opens back up to it's previous scramble and energy.

And so in anticipation of the upcoming bustle, I hope to remember, and maybe schedule a blackout here and there. To turn off the lights and quiet the noise. To have nothing in front of me except maybe some some cousins and a lit candle, maybe some family or friends, or a book, or nothing at all - and appreciate the beauty of everything that's always there - that beauty you can only see in the quiet of a blackout.