Thursday, September 11, 2003


2nd anniversary

why is this still so very hard?

on another beautiful day -- the hudson shining steel-gray, the cute l'il tugs chugging up the current, a wedgewood blue sky edged with wispy clouds of purest snow -- and i just can't bear it.

i could describe, as i have, the 25 large floral wreaths to the fdny, the police, the innocents murdered by osama bin laden. i could talk about the solemnity of the officers descending down the ramp in formation to the bottom of the pit.

or the tourists, who are at least respectful this year. the snipers on the corner of every building. drums galore and bagpipes skirling. bells. names.

somber announcements at 8:46am, 9:03am, 9:59am, 10:03am, 10:28am. we are asked to be silent at these times, although our tongues are bruised from wrestling back our questions, the things we are no longer allowed to say.

since i am now adept at typing through tears, i could in fact post at great length on this morning.

but those of us who work everyday at ground zero have a different attitude than the fake reverential tone of the newscasters. those towers are marked on our hearts with fire and they smoulder quietly everyday.

i mostly think of when i used to have a latte in the afternoons outside by the old fountain. my, it was ugly, that fountainhead.

i can remember all the other people i commonly saw there, most of whom were entirely unknown to me.

at the time they resembled nothing more than generic business people, messengers, mailroom boys, insurance clerks and office bettys, a mobile background in gray and blue for the splashing water in the great windy concrete cheerlessness.

and then those who worked at the shops -- the women at the coffee cart, the korean lady at the sandwich shop, the snooty clerk at the coach store, the sweet old man who sliced turkey at fine & schapiro, the only helpful clerk at the info desk at the bookstore.

who were they? what is wrong with me that i never learned their names? how could i have been so stupid as to let them remain anonymous to me?

why did i think they were merely window dressing? how could i have treated them in that way?

the kaddish that comes to my mind is ginsberg's, for his mother:

"it leaps about me, as i go out and walk the street, look back over my shoulder . . . . the battlements of window office buildings shouldering each other high, under a cloud, tall as the sky in an instant -- and the sky above -- an old blue place."

previous anniversary and list of complete bccy 9-11 coverage here.

posted by fortune | 6:51 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | |