I was walking to the gym (wanted to work off one too many orders of fish and chips from my recent Long Island trip).
A friend of a friend stopped me on the street to say hello. We got to talking, and she said she'd seen me in the 'hood before but did not say hi.
When I asked why, she said ... I had been simply unapproachable.
I assumed she was referring to the emotional battle armor I tend to strap on whenever I walk anywhere, a remnant of too many years in bad neighborhoods, but she wasn't.
"You were covered head to toe in soot and the look on your face ... your face ... well ... you were just glazed over," she said, but I still didn't understand until she added, "It was a few days after September 11th."
She'd obviously caught me on the end of one my long walks home from ground zero. I remember those walks. I would leave the site, filthy and exhausted and could never bear the thought of a taxi or the subway so I would walk home from ground zero to the East Village. I always cut through Chinatown, then went up the Bowery, over Houston and into the village. It was a long walk, but I never felt my feet touch the ground. It always seemed like I was riding on a conveyor belt. I think I must have daydreamed most of the way, I was always surprised when I reached Avenue A.
I guess what felt so odd about this simple exchange with this woman I barely know is that this walk, which seemed to me to be something out of a past life experience, had been witnessed by someone. She had watched me stream right past her on my conveyor belt and instinctively knew what I did not at the time understand, that I was not really there. I was buried somewhere underneath my numbness. I was standing still and the world was taking me for a ride.
I thought about the way my fingers and toes, arms, legs, cheeks, eyelids, scalp feel today, when I walk about the city. I can feel these things. When my feet touch the ground I can feel the impact. I wiggle my toes when they fall asleep and they wake up. The sun on my cheeks burns a little in a nice way. The breeze pulls my hair and I tilt my head back to let it pull some more. I like having my hair pulled. I'm in my body now. I'm back.
But.
How long was I gone?
Where did I go?
Did I bring anything back with me that I wasn't supposed to?
Did I leave something behind?
Were you gone, too?
Did you ride on conveyor belts in the fall of 2001?
Have you come home yet?
Have you?
