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Wednesday, August 28 the anniversary
Considering the fact that this has been a site almost exclusively dedicated to the way September 11th has affected this one little wacky life ... mine ... I guess you may be wondering why I've been so quiet about the impending one-year anniversary. The thing is ... the closer we get to September 11, 2002, the more I realize how far I really am, and how far perhaps many of us are from moving on. I've been quiet on the subject lately because, well shit ... I'm just tired of dwelling on it. I want to get up and get on with things. I've had some great validation in my writing and painting career. My catering life is back on track after a post 9/11 dip. I've paid my bills and still have something left over to get out of town with. I've got people in my life who love me. I've got a really amazing set of ... hmmm ... nevermind. My point is, there are things to celebrate. There are huge things to celebrate. The very fact that I'm alive and well is cause for a party, but I can't celebrate. I have survivor's guilt. Don't know why this comes a surprise to me. I can suffer a guilt complex at the drop of a hat. You get a headache; I think it's my fault. I'm convinced my mother would be alive today, if I'd just called a little more often. Well, she would! I've thought a lot about what I want to do on September 11th. Part of me wants to make sure I'm not alone for a second. One of the hardest things about that day, was how incredibly alone I felt. I've made my cubana promise to spend the day with me. She has a friend who has an office overlooking I also have a project I finished some time ago that I'd like to deliver that day. I made prints of a painting I'd done last year dedicated to the brave men of Ladder 3. It's called Heroes Never Die. I made 12 prints, one for each of the families of Ladder 3's fallen heroes. I want to deliver the painting and the prints on the 11th. I figure the guys will need a cheer up that day. But then ... if I were to really re-live that day as it went for me nearly one year ago, I'd climb up on the roof again at roughly the same time as just after the second plane hit ... close my eyes and watch the towers burn again, open my eyes and look at the hole in the sky, close my eyes and watch them fall again, open my eyes and scan the clouds remembering the thick billowy smoke that lasted for days and days. Then I'd remember what it felt like to be so helpless, so horrified and so frozen. I'd remember the panic of my neighbors running to buy canned goods and water. I'd remember the women in my neighborhood pushing baby strollers ... so ordinary ... except that that they and the babies were wearing ventilation masks. I'd walk west to the highway again and remember the dust and the terrible smell and the sea of news crews for as far as you could see and the first buds of red, white and blue like tiny little flowers pushing through the cracks of concrete. I'd call my friends and family and remember what it felt like to know that they thought I might be gone but have no way to get word to them. Sigh. I have no idea what to do on September 11th. I want to do all of these things and I want to do nothing. Part of me just wants to stay home and hide under the covers, with the phone off. I want to lie there perfectly still, in total quiet and listen ... listen ... listen ... Shhhhhhhh. Maybe this time I'll hear them. I'm still waiting for those nearly three thousand souls to answer. I've been asking them the same question for almost a year now. I always ask the same thing. Why?
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