Writing the void

It's been awhile since I've done this. Back when I blogged regularly and with enjoyment, the internet was a quiet place—a palace of empty rooms and whisper chambers. Now it's a packed stadium where social media gladiators rise and fall to our ever-shortening spans of attention. In the age of Twitter and Tik Tok, blogging is quaint. And writing just to put down one's thoughts seems better suited to bullet journals, or at least a Medium post where the writer might be more likely to gain a few readers. But I am here today because the writing is not a means to an end, but an end in itself. I crave a space less private than my notebook, and less public than a social network to pound out my thoughts. I am sitting in my new "office," our tiny balcony that hangs over our neighbor's patio and looks out on the flat backs of the buildings facing 20th street. I hesitate to call it a view, for a view implies more depth of vision—something that ends in a vanishing point. If I look up, I can see the sky reflected in the windows, and if I lean a little to the left, I can see a patch of it—blue, with heavy, purposeful-looking clouds rolling through. From time to time, a smudge of sunshine falls on the little card table I've made into a desk and I have to reorient myself to pull my laptop back into the shade. It has been 167 days since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic, and 158 days since New York City shut down. During the first three months of shutdown, I felt as if I were living in a little space ship orbiting earth. Everything was estranged, and yet we were self-contained, moving along day after day on our own little clock. I went out every day for a run or a walk, but the city I encountered was foreign and empty as a moonscape. At home, I read the Iliad and fell into restless dreams of gods and warriors. After George Floyd was murdered, the city's pent up energy began to uncoil. It was as if the streets were a blank page, and the protesters took to it, writing history as they marched. Hoards of policemen gathered in Union Square Park. Shop owners boarded up their storefronts. At night, we could hear the thwap-thwap of helicopters, circling like birds of prey. And then the restrictions began to loosen. On a rainy Saturday morning, I stood six feet apart from other inhabitants of Gramercy as we awaited orders of coldbrew and pastries from Daily Provisions. Crueller safely in hand, a man turned to me and said, "I have been dreaming about this." As had I. New York, it seemed, would revive.