As a freelance writer and editor, I work at home. I usually interact with other writers and editors via email or phone, and almost never in person. I don’t know what they look like, I haven’t seen their mannerisms or gestures, and I haven’t heard their voices — and forget making eye contact.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, for many people, surviving the scourge meant enduring a seismic shift in their routines. But lockdown for me was just a variation on a survival mode I had already perfected.
After a few years, with the virus waning, my main client invited me to a holiday party in Queens. That meant I could dress in something other than sweats and make the hour-long trip from my home in Babylon on southeastern Long Island.
As a reporter, I’ve written stories in different settings: I interviewed a naked man on a nude beach. Rode horseback on an overnight trek to an untamed back country California river. Covered earthquakes and floods. But, like many people, I sometimes dread being in potentially dangerous situations, as in driving in New York traffic, especially at night.
Still, after years of exchanging silent messages and wondering what the senders looked like, I decided to escape my cocoon. Armed with my cell phone and GPS app, I put in the address of the Terrace on the Park in Flushing Meadows and glanced at the screen map to preview the route, which would take 50 minutes. It would involve merging onto three parkways, the Long Island Expressway, and miles of avenues, roads, boulevards, and streets. It was still light out when I left at 3:30 in the afternoon.
Uh-oh. I soon realized that there was no GPS voice telling me where to turn and which exit to take. But I thought I had a good idea of how to get to my destination. I decided not to stop and fiddle with the GPS.
What could go wrong?
After an hour, my plan to arrive before dark hit a snag as I realized I was lost on the Grand Central Parkway. On- and off-ramps snaked above and around me in the black night as my dauntless Honda Civic forged onward in confusion. I considered turning around and going home: I might miss out on the festivities, but at least I wouldn’t be inching along in rush-hour traffic on streets surging with horn-blasting daredevils and zigzagging jaywalkers.
After nearly 30 more minutes of escalating anxiety, I knew I needed help. I turned onto Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills and parked in front of a row of stores. I was shaking, convinced that because Queens was one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the world, I wouldn’t be able to find anyone who spoke English; they wouldn’t understand me and I would be cast into a purgatory of car crashes when I would hit someone or be hit and I’d end up in the hospital, with my cell phone GPS silently indicating that my car was still parked in Babylon. My nerves went into high gear, fearful that the police would find me the next morning, frozen to death on a deserted dead-end block deep in the bowels of Flushing, surrounded by tall buildings stacked like dominoes about to tumble.
I’ve heard that in times of stress, our departed loved ones intervene. The spiritual part of my brain turned on as I heard my mother telling me that I was strong enough to handle this. My father wisecracked that I could face fear with corny jokes. They were giving me directions in a language I could understand.
With the voices encouraging me, I ran into a Benjamin Moore store. Almost in tears, I said to the man behind the counter, “Help! I’m horribly lost.” He looked at my phone, and speaking in heavily accented English while gesturing at the map, patiently told me which direction to take to reach my destination, which was actually just 15 minutes away. He calmly explained the route several times, which soothed my trembling. I was able to look at the screen map and understand the image. “You’ve got this,” the voices said.
I arrived at the party and got to shake hands and engage in convivial conversation with the talented writers and editors I’ve worked with in cyberspace. The decorations were sparkly, the drinks bubbly, and the band exuberant as they played for the crowd on the dance floor, and I took it all in, glad to be there, with my panic attack just about in check.
Before this, somehow I had avoided getting Covid. I also survived this journey. I didn’t crash into anyone or anything. I didn’t have to explain to a police officer why I was driving so slowly. I didn’t get a ticket or have my car towed away after parking in a bus-stop zone in front of the paint store.
Mr. Rogers often repeated his mother’s advice, who said, “Look for the helpers.” On the night of my client’s party, it didn’t matter what language the person in the paint store did — or didn’t — master. I was able to listen and understand the right directions from my helpers.
