Let There Be Light

I bought a lamp yesterday. Two, actually. It was a pretty big deal.

You see, a couple of months ago, the floor lamp in my living room stopped performing its

one and only essential function, providing light. Just like that. Not sure why. Maybe it got a better offer elsewhere.

Since my still-unemployed state means all purchases must be carefully deliberated, I held off on a buying a new one, using instead a battery-powered Brooklyn lamp I purchased in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. That proved a mediocre replacement at best. But I had to make do, even if my eyes squinted every time I read something.

My apartment in an aging, three-family home has no overhead lighting, and natural light barely squeaks through the east-facing windows. Thus, I need lamps, several of them in fact.

So when another lamp in my living room flashed and blew out the light bulb, I knew I couldn’t hold off any longer. I need light, even if the price was to be too dear.

Armed with a gift card I got for Christmas, I reluctantly headed to Target to browse the lamp aisle, finally settling on two lamps that were reasonably priced and reasonably attractive (in other words, not too tacky, cheap looking or just plain ugly). I also bought two light bulbs (which weren’t cheap, either). The $25 gift card and 5% charge card discount took a $62 total purchase down to a less-stress-inducing $37 bill. So, now I have light in my living room.

Purchased over a decade earlier (at Target, coincidentally), my old floor lamp did its duty admirably, providing light in the evening and standing sentinel during illnesses and job losses, only balking when its bulb died, leaving me to frantically search for a new one that I never seemed to have at hand. 

I liked it because its stem mimicked a tree trunk, with small juts of branches. It complemented the leaf motifs at the ends of the curtain rods I installed at the same time, as well as other leafy artwork of the autumn variety scattered in my small living room.

Its only failing was that it got old. The wire conduits that once pulsed with the electricity that transported light from the outlet to the bulb simply disintegrated, like brain cells damaged by dementia (or too many viewings of The Real Housewives of New Jersey).

Indeed, when I went to move the old lamp, its base broke into pieces of I don't know what. I lugged it downstairs, put it on the curb, to be hauled away by the garbage collectors. It's now been replaced by a sleeker, more modern version.

I know the feeling. It happens to people, too.

This rather dismal episode was just another reminder of what unemployed people go through on a daily basis. Every discretionary purchase is thoroughly and painstakingly considered: How much will it cost? Do I need to buy it now? Can it wait? Should I take from my savings to buy it?

I’m not talking about big-ticket items, like a new apartment, a trip to Italy, or a FIAT 500. Those, we realize, are mere dreams, fantasies unlikely to happen soon — or possibly ever. Clothes? Fuggedaboutit. Though I have bought underwear and some deeply discounted yoga pants. Job or no job, I like to maintain a semblance of a decent appearance.

Truthfully, I’m okay with cautiously watching my spending. As a jobless loser, I know I must focus on the basics: rent, food, car and health insurance. (Though I can’t be sure how much longer I can afford even those items.)

But when I can’t even contemplate purchasing basic and relatively inexpensive household items like lamps without getting anxiety and stomach cramps, then maybe you can understand how difficult it is to be a long-term unemployed worker, how shut out from the “much-touted” economic recovery we feel. It’s as if everybody got on the party boat and we were left at the dock.

Doctor appointments, dental appointments — delayed until the pain becomes unbearable or the symptoms persist extraordinarily.

When I did have a job, I can’t say I was a big, wild spender and lived rather modestly. I know the value of money and hate (too much) debt. Yet I knew I could make purchases like lamps without too much mental or financial trauma. Not anymore. Every. Penny. Counts.

Even when it comes to essentials like I food, I gravitate toward the cheaper cuts of meats, the cheapest versions of cereal and coffee. What’s on sale? Here I come.

There are other items I’d like to buy for my apartment, like new Venetian blinds.

But with no job and no one in sight, it will have to wait.

Winter is Coming. It’s Here.

As sudden as a thunderclap winter is here. It’s cold. It’s snowed; not Buffalo-seven-feet-holy-hell snow, but enough to remind us who’s the boss this time of year.

The cold is biting, cracking the delicate skin of your hands. The cold is like a wall of ice that you pound against but cannot move. Will it ever get warm again?

A rather mild, comfortable summer lapped into a warm fall. Were we fooled into thinking

winter would never come? So when it snowed — before Thanksgiving! — it was shocking, to the say the least. It was as if nature got the same memo as retailers that want to speed up the seasons to get shoppers to buy more and earlier. So there was snow.

Mere days ago most trees wore their autumnal patina proudly, looking like gold and red bobbles atop spindly trunks. Now, the rain and wind and yes, snow, have stripped the trees of their leaves, floating them perhaps reluctantly to the ground. Now, the dried-out leaves crunch under my feet when I jog.

At least when there was snow, the bare branches were prettified with dollops of white and looked like the trees seen on forced-cheer holiday cards. Now, the snow has melted, and the shorn twigs look like the sunken cheeks of the dying elderly.

Winter is coming. It’s here.

I don’t mind the winter, I really don’t, as long as I don’t have to drive in snow and ice. That’s scary, especially since a bad accident in my teens broke off two front teeth. Otherwise, I was lucky.

Honestly, I prefer the cold of winter than the humidity summer. Ah, summer! I’ve always had a bit of a troubled, mixed-up relationship summer. I remember summers spent at the Jersey Shore, sitting at the beach, feeling the ocean breeze sway around me, gently brushing my skin; those airy wisps always seemed to tug the stress from my body and mind. How can you not be relaxed walking along the beach as the sun sets and the blue sky deepens?

And there's baseball. Need I say more? Actually, Tim McCarver said it best: You will never leave a ballpark in a worse mood than when you entered. I'm always amazed by people who say the game is too slow. But that's what we like about it! It's leisurely, unforced pace is its main attraction. You want frenetic? Watch a hockey game.

But summer always seemed too bold and brassy for me, too exhibitionist for my taste. Maybe that’s because I’ve never had a bikini body. Show off my legs? I think not. Oh, and did I mention the humidity? My body does not react well to humidity. It makes me tired and nauseous and cranky. I can’t breathe! Give me my AC!

There’s always a hurried undercurrent to summer, as if everyone is trying to stuff everything, every activity, every trip into three months. What about the other nine months?

So when the garish neon colors of summer slowly morph into the more subdued, mellow hues of autumn it’s as if nature is exhaling after a long exertion. It’s time for a change, time for cooler temperatures, a return to the calmer routine of school and work, of clothes that cover our bodies.

Fall is my favorite season. Yet there is a hint of loss, of an end, coming in the fall. Those fetching yellow and red leaves, once so green and supple, are to die even though we want them to stay gold. Nothing gold can stay…

Winter is coming. It’s here.

Whether a winter will be dodged-a-bullet bland or teeth-chattering severe depends on the caprice of the jet stream. Odd as this may sound, I'd prefer a cold, harsh, snowy winter — as the season is supposed to be. That way, when the tentative warmth finally arrives, as if by noblesse oblige, we can feel like we have earned the spring.

Meek or frigid, we know for sure there will more cold days than warm, days when we’ll spend hours digging out our sidewalks and cars, days when movement is restricted by ice and snow.

We can find comfort in that. A snowstorm can cocoon us in its white, light armor, shield us from harsh realities, as we stay (we hope) in warm homes, bundled in sweaters and fluffy robes, sipping hot cocoa (or red wine). Better not venture out, we might get hurt.

If I ruled the world (tis a pity I don’t), I would mandate that it only snow in December, so we can have the white Christmas and winters of our childhoods—real or imagined. I mean, snow in January is just so, so…existential. It has lost its meaning. It’s just a lumpy white annoyance with no holiday to make it remotely bearable. It's something to get through.

At least in February, we can start to count the days to when pitchers and catchers report, always a sure sign spring and warm temps are approaching. Even though early March may heave up some wet snowstorms, we can at least watch spring training games, where we can observe the amusing scene of major league pitchers — the most bubble-wrapped of all sporting gods — scurry to put on jackets while running the bases in frigid 86 degree weather.

Admittedly, spring can be a bit bipolar, and rather brief. It can be cold and rainy through April, and then suddenly turn hot and humid in May. Again, what's the hurry? Can't we have a normal spring instead of a quick dash into summer?

I like early March, though, only because it reminds me of late fall. Soon, the trees regain their green crowns. Summer is near and the cycle repeats itself.

I like living in a place where the change of seasons is pronounced. I would hate to live in a perpetually hot climate, like Florida.

Perhaps the reason I’m thinking about the change of seasons is because I know my life is changing, or has changed. My former 9-to-5-workday life is no longer a reality, a way of life that has drifted to the ground like dying autumn leaves.

What will replace it? What new life, fresh routine will take its place? Will it be a gentle homecoming, like the fall? The hectic newness of summer? A harsh crash like winter? A short sprint like spring? At this point, I cannot say. I don’t know.

Winter is coming. It’s here.