Empty

I was slightly nervous. I had a doctor’s appointment with a new internist. Her office is in uptown Charlotte off of College Street. The best way to arrive is via Fourth Street, across the street from Flixbus. When I first moved back to the area from Chapel Hill, I would visit this parking garage quite often. Today was a different day. Before, in 2007, I was parking for a hair appointment. Back in the day, finding a parking space was difficult, but on this day, it felt like a ghost town. I pulled in and did not see one car. I was heading for level six. As I made my way up, I did not see anyone. When I made the turn to level six, there were five or six cars. Instead of searching for a space, I had my pick. I got out of my car and shut the door. It echoed in the empty space. I walked into the mall level. I noticed the marble floors as I headed for the elevators. In the past, the building was busy with restaurants and shops, doormen, shoe shiners, flickering screens, the pianist and a perfect melody for big dreams. Today, two security officers stood silent, staring out the glass doors facing College Street. I called an elevator. The doors opened to an empty space, with a sign that said, “Four passengers only.” In 2007, the building had certain elevator cars labeled private for the many savvy bankers who put Charlotte on the map. But not today. Today, I was the only person heading for the twelfth floor, and no one was waiting when I arrived. The doors opened to a large waiting area with floor to ceiling windows that gazed out over the Bank of America building. The days of Hugh McColl, a fuzzy blur in the past. No one was sitting in the many chairs lined against the walls, but there were signs that labeled certain chairs “unavailable” to allow for social distancing. On this day, the room was mine. Only one other person was checking in, as I awaited my turn. I headed for the windows. What once created a feeling of excitement, as I would look out over the city, today felt rather flat. Uninspiring does not describe the understatement of my feelings. The receptionist interrupted my thoughts as she called my name. She walked me down an empty hall to room five. The new doctor was warm and attentive. She asked, “Have you felt unusually sad, aloof, uninterested in doing things since COVID?” I told her, “Not really, why?” She said that so many of her patients have struggled over the past year. I explained that it had been stressful, but I kept busy and spent a lot of time outside, blue skies had kept me sane. She nodded and we moved on to happier topics. I was soon led to the lab, and then out the door with an array of new appointments…podiatrist, colonoscopy, mammogram, six month check up, the healthcare agenda, no cure for a broken country, a lost society, the scales of inequity. I headed to the empty elevator, dropped back down to the mall level. I saw no one. The security guards had left their posts. I walked to the parking garage. Everything was exactly the same, quiet like a library without books. I made my way to the exit. No cars. Totally empty. I unlocked my car, looked over both shoulders, an empty world. I got into my car, removed my masks, disinfected my hands, my life, and began my descent. On level one, I pulled out onto the street. For a Monday, traffic was light. I drove towards Dilworth and pulled into the parking lot of Covenant Presbyterian Church. A beautiful stone church with a glorious steeple. The lot was empty. I parked and pulled out my bag lunch. I looked at the houses in the neighborhood. Everything was the same, and yet everything was different. Before the collapse of 2008, Charlotte was a city, high on money. The banks were booming. Charlotte was transformed. In one day, however, everything changed. The financial collapse had the city on her knees. Now in 2021, it is a pandemic. But it is not just the pandemic, it is a melancholy that has settled in. We are a changed country. There is way too much despair, way too little hope, and an uncertainty of who we are. As a little girl, I felt anchored. My world was an open book read with enthusiasm and promise. The book, now has almost closed. We are no longer imagining tomorrow; in fact, many people are just trying to survive the day. There is no promise. I just don’t know where we go from here. What is it exactly that we desire? We have been granted this miracle life, this once in a lifetime experience, and yet we never really arrive, we just grow old. I think about the empty parking garage, the empty building, and yet it all somewhat becomes us. I hope we can find life again, somewhere deep inside of us. A flicker of light to illuminate the sacredness of our existence, and in that revelation, I hope we can love again, laugh again, not in a drunken stupor, but with eyes wide open. We live with blinders on, an unawareness, it is as if we are drifters on a blue planet, not knowing which way to go. Right or left, or remain frozen in tragedy of greed and despair. In 2007, I would leave uptown and head up 77 to Lake Norman. Traffic was always a nightmare. One evening, I pulled into my old neighborhood at the end of Brawley School Road, and spray painted across the shingled house at the entrance in white letters was Chuck Palahniuk’s quote from The Fight Club:

“The things you own, end up owning you.”

Ironically, Donald Trump eventually bought the golf club in this neighborhood. I think our problem lies in this quote. From a national perspective, we are owned. Remember the old quote:

“No Matter Where You Go, There You Are.” — Unknown

Well, without a doubt, here we are. The big, vast emptiness of really everything and really nothing…space, heart, soul, meaning.

“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” — Joseph Heller