Find Your Flashlight- Dominic Naggar

I’ve been putting off writing this for a few days now.

A lot of you read my last article, and really liked it. I heard from a few people saying they liked the positive outlook I showed in it. They said I helped them to get lost for a minute, and captured them in my scenery, so that they could forget about the pandemic for a minute. I’m glad - that was the goal, after all.

When I heard from you about that, I thought, Hey - I should do that again. I’ve felt absolutely friggin useless since March, while there’s people out there helping the recently evicted, feeding the homeless, sewing masks, and keeping COVID patients alive. I collected a few volunteer hours over the summer, but it’s nothing in comparison.

I thought maybe this could be how I help. Every edition of The Wall, I could write something hopeful. Not a “Look on the bright side!” - I’m sick of hearing that so I figure most people are - but something distracting to remind people that there was a world without COVID, and there will be again.

So why’d I put this off? Well, honestly, I’m feeling a little hopeless myself, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to help other people have hope when I’m all out of it. There’s no more sunrise beach trips for me; no more drive-in movies; and no more lake trips. As we descend into winter and the pandemic starts its (hopefully) final assault on our way of life, it’s getting harder and harder to socialize safely. I miss my friends and my family. News broke recently that the vaccine is on its way, but that hasn’t registered with me yet. I’ve been imagining the day that news would break for months. I thought there would be cheering, and celebrating, and hope in people’s eyes. But things have never looked so bleak.

That’s why I went out into the woods yesterday and stood at the top of Weir Hill. I had my camera, but I mostly just stared at the sunset and tried to forget about the world beyond the trees.

That’s what I love about the woods. In the woods, there’s no anxiety-inducing news; no frantic hand sanitizing; no wary glares from strangers daring you to break their six foot personal space bubble.

The wind was steady and cold while it forced the trees around me into a wild dance. Bare branches waved, and I imagined from the sky the treetops wouldn’t look so different from a rippling ocean, like the one I used to watch the sun rise over. The wind pushed the fallen leaves up the steep hill against the will of gravity, and swirled them around my dusty sneakers. It numbed my cheeks below my eyes, and made my nose run a bit.

The sun was the color of a pumpkin in the distance, eclipsed by long clouds as it descended between two hilltops. A thick and dark cloud plowed slowly but powerfully across the sky, moving away from the sun and towards me. I could make out the wrist far west, and the tips of several fingers reaching over the Merrimack Valley from its titanic palm.

I watched the top of the sun slip behind the hills in the state forest, and the wind was almost instantly colder. The hand darkened as headlights came to life on 495 - once again, that glowing snake that I had seen from the airport over the summer meandering through the New England woods.

A gust of wind lifted fallen leaves from the dead and barren grass, and I tucked my arms in closer to my body. The wind pierced my clothes like a thousand knives; it wasn’t at all like the warm summer breeze I used to feel on the lake.

As the wind died down a bit I stopped squinting my watering eyes, and watched the horizon rapidly darkening in the distance. The sun was gone now, and the Hand Cloud was moving through the sky like an icebreaking ship, its long fingers bearing down on my home.

I raised my camera and snapped a picture of the hulking hand in the sky. I zoomed in and took a picture of the glowing trail of rush hour commuters on the highway, miles away. I took out my notebook, and scribbled down the sentences that gave me the idea for the approach I would take to this article.

The temperature was dropping quickly without the light of the sun. I had known that would come, as we had all known in the spring that the winter surge was coming. Experts had been wary of the months we’re entering now since the very beginning; they knew that as Northerners returned inside after the summer, the virus would thrive.

We’re in the worst of it now, I hope. We’re in a ‘final battle’ of sorts. I think a lot now about my childhood heroes - Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Captain America - and how awesome it must be to be a hero with powers. I didn’t take into account the darkness they faced in their lives, now that I’m facing something similar in the real world.

But for the first time, help is really on the way.

Repeat that to yourself.

Help is on the way.

The vaccines are coming. They won’t be here tomorrow, but they’re coming. They’re going to get us out of this nightmare. But we still have a little ways to go.

It occurred to me on the hilltop that no darkness is impenetrable. Even in the darkest of nights, you can always find a North Star or a flashlight to guide you. I was afraid of the dark as a kid, and I always knew the darkness couldn’t get me as long as I had some light (I slept with my closet light on until I was about twelve, but that’s besides the point).

My flashlight is hikes in the woods, my Nikon, and my writing. These are the things that make me feel safe, and less alone. Those three things have been guiding me since March.

I’m going to try to come up with something a little more hopeful for the next edition of The Wall. But for now I’ll just leave off with those sentences I scribbled down on the hilltop:

Find your flashlight. Whatever it is, it will guide you through this. You’re not alone. We all go through hard times. We lose friends; relatives pass away; our parents get divorced; we get rejected by a crush; we break up with our boyfriends and girlfriends. We spend all our lives treading in and out of shadow at our own pace, but this darkness we plunge into as one.

Hang onto your flashlights. The dark can’t hurt you when you have one.