Fall in[to] NYC: after my fisrt Sandy night

Leggi in Italiano 

I should have written this article at least 3  Starbucks and 2 Gregorys ago. But when you are in a post-Sandy NYC, in a still blacked-out Manhattan area, these places are iper crowded like Victoria’s Seacrets during sales. The difference is that here, today, pleople want to interact. And when peoeple has an hurrican to tell, you just listen.

So, the second day after my first Sandy Night I get into Gregorys to have a coffee and a Wi-fi, and I start writing. Until Theo interrupts the call on a roof-hanged mobile phone (it was recharging) and asks me ‘how are you’.

He eventually tells me what happened to the damaged light power plant and I understand that this area of Manhattan will stay black for a while.  He tells me that workers are prepsently busy in draining water out of the flooded power plant, then they’ll recover the damages.

As the story is not reassuring, Theo is. He puts me in a good mood. Moreover, no one seems worried, so better to align to the general attitude.

I try to write again an hour later from Starbucks, before the Korean lunch with some new friends I met before Sandy arrived. And there beside me, here comes Ed, Long Island music producer with a flooded house.

He did not comply with an order to abandon homes during the hurricane, as many of his fellow citizens. He tells jokes about the flooding, and he also makes me laugh. As he leaves, he gives me his business card. Like everybody does.
Just a post-hurricane interactios between strangers,  in the center of the empire, even on the first day post Sandy (yesterday). Where everybody has a persona hurrica to tell and laugh about. I’m starting to learn a lesson more…

Once the storm passed, the impressive image of a half lit Manhattan and the image of me writing by candlelight as in a bad imitation a Jane Austen’s novel, crash against the fact that I’m hopelessly daughter of my time. And the thought of not having intrnet or cell phone makes me a little scary.

Moreover I’m in a skyscraper.
High. Very high. So, either I stay stuck in the tower or I fall my braid as Rapunzel did. Unless …
unless I travel 30 floors on foot, armed with a torch. And that’s what I did.

Along the tiny stairs I met people, obviously. In my same situation, obviously. All out of breath but very tranquil, obviously. Among them, Marion, Lucille and Paulo. From Paris the formers, indigenous the latter. We joke. We tell scary stupid stuffs (it was still Halloween’s eve).

20 minutes later  we are in the first semi-open pub, drinking white wine. A toast to Sandy, our new friend.
And I, inside me, toast to the light that passers take in my wandering life, everyday.