For Want of One Small Candle Aglow in the Dark
In pleased anticipation, I took a drive this evening. It was a perplexing experience. There are far fewer holiday lights this year, making both residential and business areas less welcoming, more forbidding, sadder. It was disturbing because one brain impulse would lead to the next and the next in a long line of semi-conscious ideas and few were positive. Nostalgia may run rampant at this time of year, but it is not necessarily a good feeling.
I can't know for certain why the lights are dimmer or missing; I can only speculate and surmise. Perhaps last year's highly decorative owners have moved, or worse, perhaps they've lost their home. Maybe someone is ill and holiday displays are inappropriate. It could be that the owners are simply growing older and more infirm, less able to expend the energy and effort that goes into such planned displays. Their children might have grown up and moved away, or the holiday spirit might have by-passed their hearts this year. Or, the economy may have shrunk their willingness to risk smaller income for larger utility costs. Whatever the reasons, my frequent haunts are significantly less vibrant and bright than expected. It seems particularly cruel at a year end in which hope is about all some people have left.
Our area has supposedly been less severely impacted by the housing crisis and general economic downturn, but it's uncertain if that is really the case or if it is only the most recent in the series of false faces dreamed up to cover the truth by skewing it...as though local atmosphere would somehow taste and smell better if we didn't know that a healthy spritz Febrez masked old mildew and rot.
Our city, like our entire state and so many others, has finally acknowledged a massive budget short fall, far too late in the fiscal year to correct or lessen it's impact. Necessary services are disappearing while the mayor and town council scrambles to justify the unjustifiable. Some things are continuing, however, because supposedly the money has already been set aside...things like a massive arena and convention center they say will bring in visitors and conventioneers. Of course. As though other locations than ours will have the money for frivolity and frolic, so we'll keep building and not worry about fewer firehouses, closed shelters, bare cupboards in the food bank, or less police on the streets. It's all in appearances and the appearance of propriety, right?
Along with small businesses and trucking companies, we locally depend on a massive complex of medical services and teaching hospitals, Ford Motor Company, General Electric's Appliance Park and a major hub for United Parcel at our land locked but expanded international airport. That particular expansion only cost a few modest neighborhoods of lower income housing. No biggy, right? The medical community remains relatively stable, or at least largely silent about their profits and losses (so tacky to equate illness with money you know), but both Ford and GE locally have taken big hits. So many jobs have been lost. Many small businesses have starved. It seems to reason then, that many workers in those starved businesses will be facing their own critical decisions on food and shelter.
This community has always been especially good about lending helping hands. Of course, this is also part of the Bible Belt so the idea of charity is imbibed with mother's milk. Ironically, one of the most charitable places for one-on-one giving that I've ever experienced is the New York City subway system. Like the City itself, that giving is special. There's something earthy and magical about it. Whether it is a musician moving from car to car playing a saxophone, or a deaf man handing out cards, or simply a bag lady with a paper cup, those subway riders who are first to reach for their donations are those who appear to need them as greatly as the person seeking help. Those folks, regardless of race or nationality, always give, probably because they themselves are just one minor disaster away from also having to depend upon the generosity of others. That one step removed possibility is truly a great equalizer. And it does make you think, if not me, who? And if not now, when?
Contrary to what you might think, all this does blend together in that chain of thinking I mentioned in the first paragraph. The lack of seasonal lights made me think of the old exhortation about 'not hiding your candle under a bushel.' Next, of course, was the idea that if we'd all just 'light one little candle,' no one would be in the dark. Somehow when we think of lighting the dark of night, we think of the bright lights of Broadway, or the glitz and neon in Las Vegas, or the snap of flashbulbs at a rock concert, or the floodlights at a political rally. Only in Christmas Eve services at various churches, or in times of crisis, unexpected death, or national tragedy do we collectively think of lighting a candle, and then the light is an expression of grief or solidarity, snuffed out at the first hint of the crowd disbanding, that lowly candle then relegated to birthday cakes, sexual scenarios or aromatherapy sessions.
Just imagine, if in the dark of night, we were all to light and keep burning indefinitely just one little candle....
I can't know for certain why the lights are dimmer or missing; I can only speculate and surmise. Perhaps last year's highly decorative owners have moved, or worse, perhaps they've lost their home. Maybe someone is ill and holiday displays are inappropriate. It could be that the owners are simply growing older and more infirm, less able to expend the energy and effort that goes into such planned displays. Their children might have grown up and moved away, or the holiday spirit might have by-passed their hearts this year. Or, the economy may have shrunk their willingness to risk smaller income for larger utility costs. Whatever the reasons, my frequent haunts are significantly less vibrant and bright than expected. It seems particularly cruel at a year end in which hope is about all some people have left.
Our area has supposedly been less severely impacted by the housing crisis and general economic downturn, but it's uncertain if that is really the case or if it is only the most recent in the series of false faces dreamed up to cover the truth by skewing it...as though local atmosphere would somehow taste and smell better if we didn't know that a healthy spritz Febrez masked old mildew and rot.
Our city, like our entire state and so many others, has finally acknowledged a massive budget short fall, far too late in the fiscal year to correct or lessen it's impact. Necessary services are disappearing while the mayor and town council scrambles to justify the unjustifiable. Some things are continuing, however, because supposedly the money has already been set aside...things like a massive arena and convention center they say will bring in visitors and conventioneers. Of course. As though other locations than ours will have the money for frivolity and frolic, so we'll keep building and not worry about fewer firehouses, closed shelters, bare cupboards in the food bank, or less police on the streets. It's all in appearances and the appearance of propriety, right?
Along with small businesses and trucking companies, we locally depend on a massive complex of medical services and teaching hospitals, Ford Motor Company, General Electric's Appliance Park and a major hub for United Parcel at our land locked but expanded international airport. That particular expansion only cost a few modest neighborhoods of lower income housing. No biggy, right? The medical community remains relatively stable, or at least largely silent about their profits and losses (so tacky to equate illness with money you know), but both Ford and GE locally have taken big hits. So many jobs have been lost. Many small businesses have starved. It seems to reason then, that many workers in those starved businesses will be facing their own critical decisions on food and shelter.
This community has always been especially good about lending helping hands. Of course, this is also part of the Bible Belt so the idea of charity is imbibed with mother's milk. Ironically, one of the most charitable places for one-on-one giving that I've ever experienced is the New York City subway system. Like the City itself, that giving is special. There's something earthy and magical about it. Whether it is a musician moving from car to car playing a saxophone, or a deaf man handing out cards, or simply a bag lady with a paper cup, those subway riders who are first to reach for their donations are those who appear to need them as greatly as the person seeking help. Those folks, regardless of race or nationality, always give, probably because they themselves are just one minor disaster away from also having to depend upon the generosity of others. That one step removed possibility is truly a great equalizer. And it does make you think, if not me, who? And if not now, when?
Contrary to what you might think, all this does blend together in that chain of thinking I mentioned in the first paragraph. The lack of seasonal lights made me think of the old exhortation about 'not hiding your candle under a bushel.' Next, of course, was the idea that if we'd all just 'light one little candle,' no one would be in the dark. Somehow when we think of lighting the dark of night, we think of the bright lights of Broadway, or the glitz and neon in Las Vegas, or the snap of flashbulbs at a rock concert, or the floodlights at a political rally. Only in Christmas Eve services at various churches, or in times of crisis, unexpected death, or national tragedy do we collectively think of lighting a candle, and then the light is an expression of grief or solidarity, snuffed out at the first hint of the crowd disbanding, that lowly candle then relegated to birthday cakes, sexual scenarios or aromatherapy sessions.
Just imagine, if in the dark of night, we were all to light and keep burning indefinitely just one little candle....
posted by kaz at 8:34 PM
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