On Saturday afternoon, I was on my way back from Columbus, where I was auditioning for the role of the Stage Manager in a community theater production of The Skin of Our Teeth, which I will argue, is one of the most spectacular American plays ever written—imaginative, heartbreaking, prophetic, strange. I was only a mile from town when I saw a fearsome circular white light that appeared where Something Blue Bridal used to be and where my friend Margaret used to work and where now I believe they built some kind of accelerator, which in my humble opinion, was only going to make things worse.

Anyway, I quickly pulled over and watched as the town seemed to get pulled into the white light. For a second everything appeared to be made of light, like I could see through every building, every tree and the light was glorious but also blinding. I glanced away for a moment and then saw something—some kind of bubble floating from the direction of the woods, actually it looked a lot like Glinda when she is a pinkish bubble in the Wizard of Oz, which even at my age, is a film I insist on watching at least once a year, and this purple bubble floated down and began to grow, getting bigger and bigger, surrounding the almost-invisible town. And then the white light became even brighter and eventually began to fade.

At that point I was not sure what was going on and decided to take my leave, as one or two times things had happened like this before to me. As many of you are aware, I used to live in New York in the 1990s and it was not uncommon to wake up at some stranger’s loft several days later. Anyway, I decided to drive back to Columbus and make a report to the local police who were, shall I say, less than helpful and who made several rather insensitive comments about the place I choose to live.

The thing I was worried about, of course, was Albee, my cat, and after waiting two days, I decided to return to see if anything had changed.

I got back to town this morning and was standing where my house was supposed to be—really my mother’s old house if I am telling the truth—when everything suddenly flashed back into existence. It was beautiful and frightening and fiercely mysterious and I am still not sure what happened exactly. But as I said, I have been through these sorts of things before, and sometimes all you can do is look for the wonder.