September 11, 2009
I am glad for today's pouring rain and swirling grey skies.
It was eerily beautiful the day it happened. A stunner in the early fall where the edges of buildings and outlines of trees vibrated with clarity and contrast. The sky was a depthless blue that belied understanding. The air was comforting and invigorating.
The city was buzzing with life and potential and prosperity. It was one of those days where everyone walking past was smiling and alive. God damned it felt good! I loved those days in New York.
I had just days before returned from a trip to Alaska, still hung over with emotion and lingering memory from that great experiment in collective love and generous accomplishment. A bike tour from Fairbanks to Anchorage with people from all camps and backgrounds selflessly exhausting themselves to raise money for those who couldn't. Failing to properly prepare for the ride, I smooth-talked my way aboard the mobile tech crew, a normally close-knit friend-of-a-friend type deal, at the last minute. After a half-hour conversation with an eccentric old coot and bike nut he was convinced that I certainly do know how to make machines (in this case, bicycles) work and work better. I was to command a rolling one-man bicycle repair and tuning station out of the back of a box van, where I ended up sleeping most nights.
Worn people and broken bicycles came around to my circus tent for six days running. They were comforted and massaged by bystanders looking to help as I did the same to their bicycles. The community spirit was most certainly in the air and inescapably present for everyone taking part in this event. For real. Not in the bullshit ways you hear proclaimed emptily oh-so-frequently.
A pinnacle of beautiful humanity.
If you've had such an experience, you're reading me loud and clear, and know it'll hang around for quite some time having made an indelible impression on your being.
Contrasts and conflicts. . .
On a rooftop thirty blocks away, we stood together. Friends, work acquaintances, New Yorkers. Stood feeling a depth of isolation and sorrow almost unfathomable. Together. Sparse worried whispers exchanged. Pagers, phones and computers down. We really believed it to be the end. Third and final world war. How could we know otherwise?
Words stopped dead cold as the second building disappeared slowly and the billowing clouds of debris rolled up Seventh Avenue like fog rolling in at the end of a bad horror movie. Too slow to be real.
No words.
Dead silence in New York City. No horns. No screeching tires. No music. No phones ringing. No barkers. No subway rattle. No elevator bells. Dead fucking silence in one of the biggest cities on the planet. It was deafening and unforgettable. Down on the streets not a car was moving. Not a car was left running.
As one, every human in sight lurched head down slowly and shuffled onto the streets below without a sound. Quiet unshared tears flowed. Slow gentle sighs from some. I don't know where they all headed. Maybe they don't either. No one was in any state to question or offer help at that point. It was as if every single person was delivered a near-death blow at once. With no exceptions.
The dust cloud settled to the ground after a while, leaving that absolutely fucking beautiful stunning sun and blue sky shining through to confuse and confound us further. People from downtown were walking up the avenues with briefcases in hand, blood running from faces, clothes torn, heads down. Silent. As I got closer and closer to my apartment downtown there were more and more of these "lost" people. Attempts to get their attention so that one might offer help of some kind were met with nothing. No acknowledgement. No glances. No sounds. There was no way to communicate with them.
Another contrast . . .
I was with my friend Richie, who lived at the southern tip of Brooklyn and had no way to get home or otherwise contact his family.
Stopping at St. Vincent’s hospital to offer blood or other assistance we came upon throngs of people in line around the building and down the street for blocks. Estimated time to donate blood? Unknown. There were thousands already waiting to do the same. There were triage tables set up on the sidewalks, where junk vendors usually reside, staffed by hospital staff and civilians alike.
We continued to my apartment where we donned work boots and heavy clothes before heading down to the local precinct to join the rescue effort. We came upon yet another swell of people all similarly attired who were also waiting to volunteer for rescue efforts. The officials on the scene, understandably, had no information for us. Their communications equipment was spotty at best. No contingency plan existed for such a case. Real anarchy. The kind where authority does not exist because absolutely no one has even a speck more information than the next guy. I recognized the need for authority in a way I had not previously considered. Not the type that cruelly controls others or doles out fines and punishments. The kind that brings comfort and order by having a code and a plan.
They never did let civilians help with the rescue effort. But there were plenty who were willing.
Everyone dreamed of ways to help others and forget themselves.
Another pinnacle.
Later days . . .
In the following weeks my neighborhood, being below Houston St, was placed under military rule with fully armed pairs of men at every street corner. We had to show an ID containing our address and picture to be allowed to go anywhere. People in the neighborhood made meals and coffee and snacks for these guards after a few days, seeing how tough a job it must have been. They could not accept them, according to protocol, understandably. People then brought flowers and cards and thank-you notes to place in the area where these men worked. Flowers and machine guns.
I lived on one of the few streets in Manhattan where you could see the Empire State Building at one end of the street and the World Trade Center at the other. This was likely not a fact that many were aware of on a day-to-day basis. But to step out of your apartment one day and see the view changed—it seemed as though the whole street had been painted a different color. The absence was striking and changed everything.
For almost a year thereafter you could smell a sickening odor of burnt plastic and rubber wafting through the air. There'd be some days when we felt we'd be OK again only to be cruelly reminded the next as this smell crept into the area. That spring I started a garden in my back yard (little patio, actually) hoping to spend time there meditating and finding a way to live again.
I have seen the peaks and the lows of our kind, shown to me so clearly and starkly that year. It made me rethink everything.
What lasts is my love for New York and humans of all stripes.
I love them and I love you.
Jason
2009-09-11