The Light From Everywhere

A long time ago, what must be over 10 years ago now, I was a man just recovering from alcoholism—a long bout of sickness— and the first few weeks and months were filled with a special kind of freedom.  But aside from all the weighty big topics that came up in such a time, I also was just able to start discovering the internet. It had been there during my drinking but it wasn’t something I had much interest in or capacity to utilize. My very first blog was on some sort of AOL blogging community.  I loved everything about it. I loved that I could write was on my mind, and write whatever I wanted to say, however I wanted to say it, and some people would actually read it! This is back before everyone was doing it (and way before everybody stopped doing it!) But of course, basically still nobody was reading. Anyway, one of the first entries I ever wrote was called “The light from everywhere, the light from nowhere”. It had just snowed the first snow of the year, which must have been 2004. I was in love with a woman at that point in time who was a pain in the ass, but I was in love with her anyway. That night, as the snow was coming down, I drove her home to where she lived on the side of a mountain, and in the cold snowy wind, we shared a kiss on her doorstep. I wrote a lovely blog entry about it on that AOL website, which has long since been erased by the great internet gods. I wish I could remember most of it, or  that I had saved it somewhere, because I know even now it was a doozy.  I talked about that ambient light which those of us who live in wintry states are very familiar with, which seems to slowly take over the nighttime in the first few hours after a snowfall, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.  And then I made an analogy between this light, which I had just seen that night for the first time in my sobriety, and the slow sneaky way that love overtakes a person. It was a really great piece of writing. Well, I am a 10 years older old fart now, and a little more cynical. Still happy as a clam, but I kind of hate snow, and I don’t plan on falling in love anytime soon. I often think of that blog entry when I see the light from everywhere. Tonight, as a big nor’easter blew into Philadelphia, I had already done all the outside things I needed to do for the day, and was just planning on settling in for the night, putting on my sweatpants and maybe putting in my DVD of “Picnic at Hanging Rock”, and eating some rice and drinking some diet soda. But as I got up to go to the bathroom and walked past the front door, I saw the light from everywhere and the light from nowhere, and I was drawn outside. I can’t re-create for you the magic of that first blog entry 10 years ago, but I did take some video, and I was feeling pretty good about the world: