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Tuesday, September 11
9:59 AM 6 Years Ago
i spent some of my morning watching the televised memorial service from ground zero..
i think the moment that affected me the most was when the bell was struck 3 times
at 9:59 AM to mark the moment when the north tower fell
I remembered in an instant, standing on my roof watching in something ions past shock and confusion as the smoldering tower impossibly collapsed in a sea of silver cards..
what i realize now is that nothing, not the south tower falling, not the many ash covered faces of ground zero, not the firemen crying a few feet from me, not the broken shards shooting up from debree, nothing shocked me after 9:59 AM 6 years ago..
in many ways my entire life is marked in the before and after of that moment..
i know that i am completely changed since that morning
i have no idea, nor will i ever know, who i would be today
who any of us would be
where we would all be if 911 had not happened
i only know
like all of you i wish it had not happened
i only try to be a better person
since it did
what i choose to remember most
is the kindness
the selflessness
the heroism
the hope
passed on
by total strangers to each other
today is a day
to love
not to hate
although it is more then reasonable to fill your hearts with anger
and fury
for me
the best way to honor all those who lost their lives
is by helping others live their lives
i choose love
Thursday, September 6
something fun on 911
hey kids
instead of sitting around crying on september 11th
i decided to take part in a great interview that you can phone in and listen too
check out the promo info below
in the wake of sadness on the anniversary of that terrible day
i have decided to pursue joy and new ness and wonder
as always
911 is the perfect day to go out and do something incredibly kind for someone
so please
spend the day being good to yourself and everyone around you
meanwhile
heres that info from the e-factor promo
thanks to the awesome jenny weber zeller for putting it all together
-
I’m about to be interviewed on the E-Factor. I invite you to listen in and be part of it! The date will be Tuesday, September 11th, at noon, Eastern Time (11:00 AM Central, 10:00 AM Mountain, 9:00 AM Pacific). Read below to find out more.
E-Factor is the popular bi-weekly, 60-minute conference call show, which explores the mindset of success, and the people who make success a reality. These are ordinary people from all walks of life, who do extraordinary things. They have become masters at who they are, what they do, and on this show, these remarkable people share their inspirational stories and secrets to help you create success in your own life.
E is for energy – the Energy of Success.
NEXT ON THE E-FACTOR: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH
Not Just Food For Thought
As owner, founder, and executive chef of “The Raging Skillet”, which New York Magazine voted as one of the hottest caterers in New York, Chef Rossi, is a true original who’s talents do not stop at the tasting-kitchen door. She is a humor and food writer, a columnist, playwright, radio show host, and painter. Her recent exhibition, Reaction, which showcased the changes in the work of NYC artists as a result of 9/11, was shown at The DNA Studio Gallery.
Rossi is the founder of the Artist's Room in New York City. Her upcoming show "The Chick and the Egg" will open on October 11th.
Currently working on a “book of edible memoirs” chronicling her bizarre and wonderful upbringing and subsequent metamorphosis into one of the food world’s most vivacious personalities, Chef Rossi does not stop for many things, but on September 11th she has agreed to sit down for an hour with the E-Factor.
Join us as we discover how this wild creator of fun, fast, and fabulous food, creates her own life by the same description.
Go to http://www.the-efactor.com to sign up for the call!
Saturday, September 9
September 11th 2006
911 2006
With the anniversary of 911 quickly approaching, I find myself doing, what I have done every year since September 11th 2001; take inventory of myself and inventory of the world around me since that terrible morning.
For me…well I still jump when I hear a crash, still feel my heart crawl into my throat when a jet flies lower then usual, still, (admittedly) get nervous when I see a group of Middle-eastern men in a huddle talking, still find myself tying up loose ends every time I’m getting ready to fly, still fight back tears when I stand on my roof and look out at where the towers had been, still remember the weird smell, still think of the endless dust of ground zero whenever I walk in falling snow, still remember the woman who said she saw me walking home late one day from ground zero and did not say hello to me because she thought I looked like the living dead, a zombie trudging down the Bowery and I thought all that love I tried to pour into the dead eyed broken faces and it never occurred to me that I was like that too for a little while, still look at firemen and feel so much love and compassion and gratitude that I think I will burst at the seams, still look at President Bush and feel anger that he turned universal well wishers into haters of America, still wonder why the hell Osama runs free while nearly 3,000 innocents are under ground, still have anger, still have asthma and still, still, still, feel eternally grateful that I was granted the chance to go down there and be a part of the most wondrous, brave, selfless and love-full rescue and relief mission that I had ever imagined.
I no longer take life for granted, I no longer think I have all the time in the world to see my loved ones, no longer believe that fame and glory and success are as important as health and life and laughter, no longer think that mass murder is a distant stranger, that angels only exist in heaven, that strangers can’t in an instant love you more then friends, that strangers can’t in an instant destroy thousands of worlds, I no longer wake up in the morning and feel that I have endless mornings to loll around in, but instead hop out of bead determined to make this day count, I am no longer innocent.
The world
No longer seems to want to work it out, talk it out, hash it out, negotiate it out, it wants instead to blow up its innocents, to teach children how to turn themselves into bombs, to teach educated adults to hate entire religions and races, to turn religion whether it be right wing Christian, fundamentalist Moslem or extreme Judaism into a right to kill anyone who opposes, the world seems to have forgotten its world wars, its Nazis, its genocides, its crusades and rivers of blood in the name of god, the world is probably angry because slowly but steadily with our machines and our smoke and our nukes we are breaking its heart.
And so…this downtown New Yorker, this American, this Jew, this woman, this out loud and proud gay mama, would like to plant a seed..a little seed, a tiny, itty, bitty seed that all of you take and put into your pocket and hold to your heart and warm and nourish and help grow into a strong root and then a proud tree projecting from your hearts out into the world, this tree of love, this tree of peace, this tree of kindness, of remembrance, of new beginnings.. it is time my friends, my family, my readers my wondrous strangers, my new faces and old ones, it is time to change the world.
Tuesday, August 29
breathing hard, need some advice
im facing something of a dilema
i wouldnt mind airing out with you
turns out governor pataki here in nyc
has given till aug of 2007
for early responder relief workers in ground zero
to file for workmans comp relief from
illnesses related to 911
for volunteers such as myself
we have to first prove we were there
which is easy
i have the photos, the ID badge
the video tape even a magazine im in
doling out food to the firemen
but then comes the harder part
proving that our ailment is a direct result of ground zero
well
i did not have asthma on sept 1st 2001
and did have asthma on oct 1st 2001
and ever since
seems clear but
but ...not really
then comes the harder part
i can work
i can function
i was working near the hole
on sept 16th and lasted
less then a week
i own my own home
and so far, thank god, can pay the mortgage
not like the many great people who were down there for months on end
and can't walk
can't breathe
can't hold a job
they are like vietnam vets
im more like a vietnam visitor
so i feel torn
nobody asked me go down there
but i had to go
for that i take full responsibility
what im angry about
is that they said the air was safe
they gave us paper masks and said it was fine
and i put on my paper mask
that did nothing
and worked 100 feet from the hole of the north tower
and now i have a prescription for an asthma inhaler
part of me wants to file
part of me things its not right
or not worth the fight
money better spent on the far worse off
i didnt ask to be compensated then
and would never have taken it anyway
but now
well
its been a long
long time
since ive had a nice long breath of air
so im torn
i dont know
i just dont know
as the anniversary approaches
i ask myself
would i do it again
and of course
yes
yes
a thousand times yes
only this time i would get there sooner
stay longer
but honey
i would first go out and buy the most state-of-the-art filtered mask every invented and another 500 or so for my new friends
Saturday, April 15
Flight 93 Passed Us Over
my good pal and mentor
nancy aka la matrix check out linkie love list dears
just asked me how i felt about the flight 93 movie
i'd only seen the first ads a few days ago and had a complex mish mash of emotions
part of me screamed its too soon
part of me screamed no we must preserve and remember
i saw an interview with the director and some of the families of the fight 93 heroes
and the families were all thrilled to have the movie made and their loved ones remembered
i guess its a bit like a mini version of the holocaust in some ways
(i said mini version i know 3,000 dead can not compare to 6 million so dont start the nasty comments...im jewish, much of my family died in the holocaust so shut up)
like i said its a bit like a MINI version because one is plagued with two voices
the need to forget and the need to remember all at the same time
to the part of me that says its too soon
i say this
better to make the movie while we are all here
our memories crisp
and our bullshit detectors on high alert
tell the truth
we will see bull doody
in the case of flight 93 of course
one can only piece together bits and pieces
but this we know
they fought back
the plane did not make its evil target
they are heroes
they died saving others
when i produced the art show Reaction
showcasing the before and after 911 of many artists' work
i worried that some would feel i was profiting from 911
so was quit to give all profit to a 911 related charity
as it turned out
hundreds about a thousand all told people came
and were grateful for the chance to
observe how art had been affected
and grateful for a safe place to feel 911
because the further we get from that terrible day
the more people feel embarrassed to feel deeply about it
i still cant talk about it for more then a few minutes without crying
so i dont
im sure i will see the movie
and sure i will be grateful for the dark theatre
there was something oddly poetic about learning about this movie
just before the first night of passover
happy passover by the way
and happy easter to ya all too
anyway
passover to me
has always been rich with tradition
i always make a seder
and always take time to feel grateful
passover in its core
is about simply this
thanking the higher powers
for being passed over
for not having the plagues and death
and the lost of a child set upon you
i had survivor guilt after 911
a lot of us did
then i had relief and began to try and learn how to cherish
every day of my life like a new one
i forget that
often of course
but things like passover and this move
remind me
each day is a gift
and if we are lucky enough to be alive
we must cherish our gift every day we are alive
i remember the many broken faces covered in dirt, bloody hands, frozen hearts,
looking up at me as if i somehow might say or do something to make it just a little better
and all i could do was feed them and say thank you and every once in awhile grab a cold, red hand
and hope that a human touch might warm their shivering soul
these are the images, sights, sounds, smells that will never leave me
that will never leave any of us
this is the reason that we as Americans
dont watch the news the same way we used to
now when we see a suicide bomber that has killed innocent lives in israel
israel no longer seems so far away
none of the senseless death and violence anywhere seems so far away
because it all so easily can land
right here on our front door step
i guess i will eat another matzoh ball
say another prayer
and probably find myself in the back row of a movie theatre
ready to remember and forget at the same time
thankful for being passed over
sad for those who were not so lucky
Sunday, October 2
Days Of Awe
Rosh Hashanah
2001
4 years ago
4 Rosh Hashanahs Ago
this re-defined for me the term
Days of Awe
La shana Tovah
to you all
Thursday, September 20 2001
Rosh Hashanah at Ground Zero
And then there was Rosh Hashanah
On my fourth and last day at ground zero, I opt to skip Rosh Hashanah services and get out to the site early, but I am delivered to a gloomy crew.
The Board of Health has shut down our grills and any food production. We are only allowed to dole out, pre-cooked burgers and sandwiches.
We are given something over a thousand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to dole out. They're a flattened, flimsy excuse for nourishment. The rescue workers were about as interested in PB&J as we were.
"No more burgers," says a dejected cop, who goes on to show me his hands, raw and beaten. He says he has been digging out nothing but death all day.
"I've been in there with my bare hands, but it's just shit, body parts and dirt."
This day is different than the others have been. There is sense of gloom in the air that is thicker than the dust. Gone is the rush of adrenaline and hope.
Roger, the man who has seemed most like a leader of the delivery crew, chews his cigar in frustration. He wears a hard hat covered in graffiti with an American flag taped to its side.
They just want us to pack up and get out of here!" he says.
I step into the church in search of serving utensils and find a dozen rescue workers scattered on the pews, most of them with tears in their eyes.
After serving the few non-peanut butter sandwiches that we had, mostly turkey, I decide to take my last walk through the hot zone.
I deliver a bag of a hundred PB&J sandwiches to the guards at the pile. We are no longer allowed in to deliver them ourselves.
I find Brian, one of the guys who works for my catering company, sorting through boxes of underwear and t-shirts. He is organizing things to be sent elsewhere, perhaps to the Salvation Army.
He, too, is filled with gloom.
But then, as we are commiserating on how this is the strangest place to spend Rosh Hashanah, an amazing thing happens.
An army soldier with a long, white beard piles up some Styrofoam crates one on top of the other and places a plastic holder used to transport bread on top as a make-shift table. He covers the plastic with a blue velvet cloth on which is embroidered the star of David.
Then he lays down a prayer book for "The Day of Awe" (the High Holy Days) and a shofar.
A group of Jewish soldiers gather around him as he begins to recite the prayers. Brian, myself and some Jewish volunteers who hear the prayers quickly join in.
Then, there in front of the worst vision of death and ruin any of us may ever see, he blows the shofar.
The sweet-sour mournful sound of the ram's horn pierces the dust and the gloom and resonates far off into the distance.
I feel something warm and wet wash over me and wonder if this is what it means to feel soulful.
The women being to cry, and we all kiss each other. "La Shanah Tovah!" we say, holding each other. We are all total strangers. We will probably never see each other again, but we kiss and hug like family.
"Thank you so much!" I say to the man as I notice that he is wearing a tallis made of camoflage.
"Aaaah! It's nothing," he says laughing. I'm in the army. I do this all the time."
Sunday, September 11
Four Years Later
This morning the sky is clear, blue
The air is crisp, still cool but waiting for the next wave of morning to warm it as the sun grows brighter, still brighter moment-by-moment
Much like the morning four years ago when I awoke to face a new day feeling optimistic, feeling ready for whatever a September morning in New York City might bring
Then the world was inexplicably altered
In a matter of hours, in a matter of minutes, in a matter of seconds
Everything shattered
This morning those memories come shooting back, the slide projector in my head, playing image after image… the first tower falling, the sound of screams of miles away, the smoke, the smell, the fear, the panic..
But what comes next is what I most want to remember..
The kindness, the bravery, the love, the pride, the thousands and thousands of strangers who gave up their time, their money, their goodness to do anything they could do to help..
I remember the face of the broken policeman who stared at me glassy-eyed and dazed as I placed food on his plate and whispered, “thank you.”
Where is he today? Is he whole again?
I remember the young Indian man who stumbled into ground zero and slept on the benches of St. Paul’s Church for a month while he gave our clean socks and bottles of eyewash to the rescue crews.
I remember the great butch, teddy-bear Dom who looked around at the hungry, thirsty, tired rescue crews and found some folding tables, covered them up with all the donated food he could find and when the canteen he’d started became a publicity boom for the church, he was no where to be found. He didn’t care about taking credit. He only cared about helping.
Today the media coverage of the four year anniversary of “911” is mixed with media coverage of the after-math of Katrina. Interspersed in the images of the families of those lost on September 11th holding up photographs of their loved ones as the memorial ceremonies at “911” begin, are images of families who have lost everything in New Orleans and the surrounding areas, who are living in shelters, home-less, city-less, who may have lost their loved ones, their pets, who have lost all their possessions, in many cases everything but the clothes they are wearing.
And again there are those people..the ones who borrow vans on Long Island to drive to New Orleans and rescue cats and dogs, the ones who are sharing their homes with strangers, the ones who give money they don’t have, the ones who are wading through contaminated water to get to people trapped in their homes..
Kindness, bravery, love, decency, the ability to risk your own well being to save a stranger…on the morning of the four year anniversary of 911, we are seeing all this again..
And this…this….this…is the legacy of “911” that I hope prevails..
Not the hate, not the terror, not the horror, not war, but goodness, kindness, selfless-ness and compassion..
To honor all the lives lost on that terrible morning four years ago…help a life, support a life, save a life, nurture a life…give of yourself to a life….today..
Saturday, August 13
September 11th Revisited
Last week while I was sitting on the deck of The Red Inn having a glass of Sauvignon Blanc waiting for the sun to set, two men sitting next to me started a conversation with me.
Turns out we were all New Yorkers…somehow in between the comparisons of the best food in town, the way the boats look just before sunset and how fabulous the deck at The Red Inn was, our talk turned to September 11th.
Maybe it’s because the anniversary is coming up, maybe it’s a right of passage that New Yorkers do when they meet up in an outside town, maybe its because one of the guys works on Wall Street, but all of a sudden in front of all that beauty the three of us were transported to that terrible day.
The Wall Street man’s building had the windows sucked out. He was late for work that day, thank god, but stood below watching the people jump. His lover did not know until later that day whether or not he was okay.
In an instant I was in the midst of one of the most lasting memories I have, almost as intense as watching that first tower fall and that is the dust, the thick wall of floating debris that turned ground zero and the surrounding area into an eerie place that was hard to describe to anyone who had not been there.
It was strangely peaceful in the sickest possible way. It muffled the noise like falling snow. It felt like walking through a quiet snowstorm and yet you knew that some of what was falling on you were what was left of lost lives. The sick peace of it reminded me of what someone once told me it felt like to freeze to death.
“You get really sleepy at first and kinda peaceful…then you feel warm and not cold.”
I will never forget my first day at ground zero walking through the wall of dust finding the etching in the dust made by the loved ones of those lost…
”Johnny we are looking for you”
“They may take our buildings but they will never get our souls”
This morning I turned on my laptop and found the news showing the just released footage of the firefighters from that terrible day, 15 hours of radio transmissions and 500 oral histories that have just now been made public.
There are the descriptions you have heard, how everything turned black and filled with screams.
There two are personal stories like the fireman who realized the objects falling were people and turned away so as not to violate their last private moment and decision.
Here we are approaching another anniversary of this terrible day. Few people I know talk about it anymore except on the anniversary. Or when something newsworthy on the subject comes up from it.
But we are all changed from this terrible day.
I asked a close friend of mine if she felt that I had changed from that terrible September and she said, “Completely…but it is mostly for the better.”
Mostly…
I do like to think that I have become kinder, more willing to talk, to listen, to work things out before starting a fight.
I like to think that now…I understand the need for peace more then ever.
I just wish our president had changed in this way too….
Tuesday, June 28
911, timber and iraq
well nothing puts a gal into perspective like a pal visiting from israel
its amazing
all us americans are all up in arms
or giving away our liberties in the name of safety and freedom?
while the folks i know from israel who have lost pals in suicide bombings, served in the army the whole shebang
are fairly mellow
life goes on
live every day like its your last
be happy its all that matters
these are their mottos
and you know good ones too
cause the message i left with after watching the towers burn and fall
and after feeding the bloody and broken at ground zero
was not to go out shooting
but to go out loving
to find the people all round in me and reach out in some simple way to touch them
and make their world a little better
i admit most of the good will
and kindness that filled me
taking the void
of the horror has faded
and im back to being a bitchy new yorker again
but still its there
i am different
i am changed
and no
i did not change and want to kill or lash out in rage
i changed and wanted to care
and hold
and protect
and heal
and i still gotta say to the baby bush
iraq?
nah
wasn't the right time
wasn't thought out right
and sure isn't turning out to be the big bone you thought it would be
in retrospect
maybe you shoulda just told us all the truth
just said
they tried to kill my daddy
they're not as scary as north korea
they got oil
and i need a big ass win
truth
yeah
woulda been better then at least folks could make an honest decision
about this whole thing
weapons of mass destruction
stick it in yer
timber company
georgie
FYI
does anyone recall
when donald rumsfeld said this was gonna
be a few days to two weeks of war time
now georgies saying it can be a 12 year commitment
hmm
bad planning anyone?
Saturday, September 18
Days of Awe
Some things are worth repeating
and in honor of the high holidays and the "911" anniversary I thought this one was
Folks who have read my memoirable link
or read the 911 writings here
or read this piece on Mcsweeneys
have already read this
but for those who have not
and even for those who have
I thought it was worth a second peek
3 years later
spending Rosh Hashanah at Ground Zero remains
one of the most powerful if not the most powerful
moment of my life
I will never
EVER
forget
Shana Tovah
--
Days of Awe
by Rossi
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — On September 16th, after spending every day since the 11th walking up and down the West Side Highway, trying to volunteer but finding no one who would take me, a woman whose wedding I was supposed to cater called to tell me it was canceled because the city had turned her party space, Seamen's Church Institute, from a maritime museum and party location near the South Street Seaport into a home for hundreds of rescue crews. There was no electricity, no plumbing and no running water, and they were trying to feed, clothe and give counsel to anyone who could get to them.
By the time I showed up at Seamen's, Billy and Dominic were already there, unloading trucks filled with supplies. Billy and Dominic are the security guards at the Institute, sweet men whom I've gotten to be pals with over many years of catering events there. Dominic's head was wrapped in a flag, and he hadn't shaved in days. They were both wide-eyed and pale.
"We were trapped in the tunnel when it happened," Billy said. "I had to walk out and leave Dominic. He told me just go, go."
The best man at Dominic's wedding is among the missing. "There's no way! He was on the 76th floor!" Dominic said. "I can't think about it.... Just keep moving! I've been here since Day One, haven't been home in a week."
It didn't take much to get me on board. "She's a chef," Dominic told the man in charge.
The man in charge gave me a volunteer pass, a hard hat, and a ventilator mask, and I was put on a pick-up truck en route to ground zero.
"She's going to St. Paul's!" someone said.
"Where's St. Paul's?" I asked the driver.
"Next door to the Millennium Hotel. They say it's stable."
We were led through police barricades and armed guards until the truck finally dropped us off at the church.
What I saw was an old brown church, with a row of port-a-johns to the right and a long stretch of tables to the left. The tables were covered with everything from hot dogs to thermoses filled with coffee. There were boxes of doughnuts, eye solution, Band-Aids, hundreds of apples, and thousands of bottles of Gatorade on ice. Dozens of firefighters, cops and construction workers were in line to eat, and a small group of women were doing their best to keep up with the hot dog requests on two small backyard barbecue grills.
I added coals to the dying fires, threw on a few more packs of hot dogs and looked for anything resembling a pair of tongs.
St. Paul's dated back to 1762. It had been the place George Washington prayed, and here it stood still, covered in dust and dirty but unharmed. Each step leading into the chapel held a different box of clothing or supplies: socks, flannel shirts, work gloves, second-hand hard-hats. Inside, on some of the wooden pews, policemen sat collecting their thoughts. Soldiers napped in the back rows.
My grills were set up in front of the church's cemetery. Two-hundred-year-old tombstones, so old their inscriptions had long since eroded, poked out from piles of burnt and charred papers from the World Trade Center. I looked at one piece of paper, a bit of banking business of some kind, a cover letter from a fax.
"Have you been given the drill yet?" a woman asked me. She was stuffing the hot dogs into buns.
"No."
"If you hear the alarm, you've got to run around and out of the gate. Then run as fast as you can, that way toward the Seaport."
"Okay," I said.
- - - -
On my second day grilling for the workers, I was taken on a cold drink-run to the place called the Hole. I went with one of the guys, pushing a wheelbarrow filled with ice and Gatorade. The Hole is the deep, collapsed area at ground zero. The Hole is adjacent to the Pile, where the debris is piled more than seven stories high.
Soldiers guarding the Hole let us by, allowing us to go to the tent set up less than one hundred feet from the debris of the second tower. Smoke and steam rose out of the wreckage as firefighters on their fresh-air breaks sat unfazed a few feet away. Nothing I'd seen on the news had prepared me for this. Sharp burnt bits of metal stuck up fifty feet or a hundred feet &151 I have no idea how high. I had to crane my neck to find the top of the debris. Shards of bent, broken metal rose up over my head. The background was total destruction.
"I'll take one of those!" a silver-haired firefighter said, and I handed him a Gatorade.
"Where you from?" he asked.
"I live here," I said.
He took off his helmet and ran his fingers along his scalp. "I'm sorry what they did to your city. We just flew in from California to help out."
I said thanks and felt dizzy from the sight I was still catching in my peripheral vision.
The tent was full of firefighters, and they cheered when we poured ice into their cooler of warm sodas and energy drinks. We handed around the cold Gatorades.
"I haven't had something cold to drink since 6 a.m.," one of the guys said. It was sometime after noon.
- - - -
Later that day, Seamen's delivered two hunks of steel they'd welded into grills. They were four-foot-long pits filled with charcoal that sent up smoke and fire so intense I had to throw down a burger and then jump back. The legs were too tall, causing Hector, the tallest griller among us, to stand on milk crates just to flip the burgers. I kept up on the backyard grills.
When shifts changed, fifty rescue workers at a time showed up hungry for burgers. They settled for hot dogs only when we ran out of burgers. Someone said we fed a thousand people on my second day.
"You guys are the best," said a carpenter from Queens.
"No. You're the hero," I said.
"Nah. We're all in this together. It's you guys feeding us and the people who run up with eye wash the second you rub your eyes, and the people cheering you on as you drive in. That's the reason I can do what I do, because you all do what you do."
"Thank you," I said.
"Do you know how many times I've heard that since I've been out here? I can't even count them." He walked away shaking his head.
There was an air about ground zero that was not filled with sadness so much as something like love. No one looked as though they had slept.
Steve, an out-of-work actor, had been there for a week. He threw foil-wrapped hot dogs directly into the Hole. The men working down there caught them.
"More! More! I need at least a hundred hot dogs," Steve said. He was wired and pushy, but none of us took it to heart.
Scott supervised the many drug store and clothing donations. He slept on a blanket on the floor of the church for a week.
"Are you with the church?" I asked him.
"Nah, I just found my way out here."
A pastor from another church came once to deliver ice and stayed for a week. His job was simple. He ran to Costco six times a day and bought all the burgers and dogs he could carry then drove them back to ground zero.
- - - -
Things changed on my third day. There had been no official statement, but everyone knew the rescue mission had become a clean-up mission. The pace of the workers slowed. There were no more news crews and no hurry in the air. People started to break down.
The dogs sent out to sniff for survivors had become depressed from only finding bodies. The crews took turns hiding, so the shepherds and labs could find them. When the dog sniffed out the guy who was hiding, they received hearty praise and hugs.
I went with a relief run to the Hole and handed out packets of trail mix to the crews. They loved the chance to eat something healthy and took handfuls of the packets. A sign on a nearby dumpster read, "Airplane parts, FBI."
The men have a look on their faces that reads, "It's over."
The Board of Health sent inspectors to make sure we wore plastic gloves. They asked us to wrap the apples in foil and cover the grills. The dust, they felt, was a health hazard.
"We're pretty sanitary over here," I said. "Are you worried we might be creating a health problem?"
"More like we're worried about your health," the inspector said.
One of the girls said they think the bodies might be creating a biohazard.
We were told that they would shut us down soon.
"These guys are going to be down here for months," the inspector said. "We want to come up with a long-term way to deal with this, working with the local restaurants that have been closed."
The inspectors told us not to use the huge steel grills, as they have no covers, so we added a third backyard barbecue grill, and I ran back and forth, turning hot dogs and replacing the covers on each of the grills.
A truckload of replacement volunteers arrived to give us a break, but no one wanted to go.
"I think tomorrow might be the last day they let us do this," Scott said, instructing the new crew on how to sort clothes and supplies. "I'll be here for as long as they'll let me stay."
I stayed until my eyes were blurry from smoke and then caught a pick-up truck back to the Seaport. Crowds of people took snapshots of us as we drove past, this motley crew in the bed of a truck with the American flag flying off a makeshift flagpole.
- - - -
On my last day at ground zero, I skipped Rosh Hashanah services and got out to the site early, but I was delivering food to a gloomy crew. The Board of Health had shut down our grills and any food production. We were allowed only to dole out pre-cooked burgers and sandwiches.
The trucks from Seamen's Church brought over a thousand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. None of the rescue workers was interested in peanut butter and jelly.
"No more burgers," a cop said. His hands were raw, beaten. He said he'd been digging out nothing but body parts all day.
"They just want us to pack up," said Roger, the volunteer who seemed the most like our leader. He wore a hard hat with an American flag taped to it.
I stepped into the church in search of serving utensils and found a dozen rescue workers sitting in the pews, most of them with tears in their eyes.
I took my last walk to ground zero. I delivered a bag of a hundred peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the guards at the Pile. We were no longer allowed in to deliver them ourselves.
Back at the long row of donation tables set in front of the burnt-out shell of 5 World Trade Center, Brian, one of the guys who works for my catering company, sorted through boxes of underwear and t-shirts. He was organizing things to be sent elsewhere, perhaps to the Salvation Army.
As we commiserated on how this was a strange place to spend Rosh Hashanah, an amazing thing happened.
An army soldier with a long white beard stacked several Styrofoam crates one on top of another and placed a plastic shelf used to transport bread on top the crates, forming a table. He covered the table with a blue velvet cloth on which was embroidered the Star of David.
Then he set down a prayer book for the days of awe and a shofar.
As he began to recite the prayers, a group of Jewish soldiers gathered around him. Brian, some Jewish volunteers, and I heard the prayers and joined in.
Then, in front of the worst vision of death and ruin any of us will probably ever see, he blew the shofar. The sweet-sour mournful sound of the ram's horn pierced the air and resonated into the distance.
The women began to cry. We kissed each other. "La Shanah Tovah!" we said, holding each other. We were all strangers. We probably would never see each other again, but we kissed and hugged like family.
The soldier with the shofar wore a tallis made of camouflage. "Thank you so much," I said to him.
"Ah, it's nothing," he said, laughing and taking my hand in his. "This is the army. I do this all the time."
Saturday, September 11
September 11th, 3 years ago today
There are far too many words, spinning in my head this morning
and truthfully
if I really think about it
there are no words
there is only this day, this morning,
an anniversary of a now infamous date 3 years ago today
and many, many, many people feeling their hearts tear open once again
I wish you all peace
I wish you all strength
I wish you all love
Go, go out...
Do something nice for someone today
anyone
Add just a little bit of joy and goodness
to this endless pile of sadness
Live
Live today
Live everyday
La Chaim
Tuesday, September 7
To Live In September
reading the goddess michele (small Victory);s web site today
i was reminded of the "911" anniversary coming up this weekend
funny how my mothers Yertzite ( know i spelled that wrong)
and the "911" anniversary seem to come closer and closer together
anyway
i guess i'd kinda pushed it out of mind
because like michele
i am ready and have been ready to move on
pretty much after the 2 year anniversary i made a decision to just
put it all behind me
live,
learn
remember
but not dwell
but lately all the security here in nyc
and the riot cops
brought it screaming back
and even while i was in provincetown
i went to a september 11th photo exhibit
and wound up
losing it emotionally shortly there-after with my trusted pal debilah
so i guess it wasn't that i put it behind
but rather shoved it aside
but its three years later
and its time
and like i have felt from the start
i guess i still feel like i have no real right to grieve so much over this day
as i did not lose a loved one
or suffer a physical wound
only a wound in the heart
like so many of you
but then
that day changed me
it truly and deeply and permanently changed me
as it changed many of you
as it changed this country and this world
and its important to take note of that change
i am not the person today
that i would be
if "911" had not happened
and truthfully
i dont even think the change was small
i think it was huge
i think it spun me around and spit me out
a very different person
i hope
i hope with all my heart a better person
i do lump september 11th with the death of my mother
for some reason
maybe because they both happened in september
maybe because they were both shocking
both such huge
bolts of instant loss
and oddly the lessons i learned were similiar
don't postpone life
don't ever postpone your life
because we never know how long we have
we could go to work tomorrow
and walk in the front door and never walk out
3,000 people went to work that day
that beautiful, crisp, sunny, clear morning
3,000 people never came home to their families, their lovers, their friends, their dreams, their lives
Live
every day of your life
do not ever
EVER
postpone your life
i do this for my mother
i do this in some way to honor the many lost innocent souls
who will no longer have the chance
i live
thats all i can do
and can try to do it to the fullest of my power
i live
Wednesday, April 14
"911 Prayer"
you know i've been thinking a lot about september 11th these last few days
and no
not about who to blame
and how much to blame them
but about how it felt
to me
to be in downtown Manhattan that terrible morning
if you've read any of my "911" stuff
then i don't have to go into the whole sordid thing
the sight
the smell
the terrible terror
and horror
and hell
most of you
felt it too
but what i've been thinking about these last few days
is how september 11th lives in my world now
today
it has become so much a part of my fabric
my very being
that i now, rarely note the difference between what part of me and my life is altered from this terrible day
and what part is not
i know before '911' i hated going under ground, into the Holland Tunnel
or the Lincoln Tunnel
but that was because of the smell, the fumes..the claustrophic feeling
now i hate going in the tunnels because i always get the same image
of the tunnel blowing up
and millions of gallons of water crushing me
i take the bridge
the traffic is often heavier
but this way i get to die on top
not on the bottom
and plus hey i don't have to pay the toll
i can not go to my fave place in the warm weather
without instinctively looking towards where the world trade center had always been
trying to trace the empty space in the sky
and remembering how they looked like smoldering cigarettes
remembering how they fell like decks of silver cards
i can not go to the wall street area without trying to recall what the towers used to look like from each vantage point as i pass
i can not see a fireman, a firetruck or a firehouse without thinking of '911' and the heroes who died
without thinking about the men with the bloody hands and vacant eyes
who i fed in those early days of september 2001
when a firecracker goes off
when one too many sirens go by
when the lights flicker in a storm
when the news says, stay tuned for a special report
i always freeze for a moment and wonder
is this the day?
is it happening again?
i came to new york in 1981
and moved to one of its worst brooklyn neighborhoods
high crime nyc was my introduction to adulthood
i have emotional scars from those days
i am defensive to the core
i never
ever
like to have anyone walking behind me
i am what you might call
a "seasoned new yorker"
but now i am something else
i am a "pre 911" new yorker
a person who remembers the towers as being a part of my every day life
who took for granted that they would always be there
a person who remembers what it was like to worry as you approached the midtown tunnel, but that was only worry about how heavy the traffic might be..
so yes
im changed
forever i guess
as many of you are too
i don't know who in American politics is to blame for "911"
or how much to blame them..
and i guess...that's not quite the place i want to put my energy
i feel its better served worrying about making sure this never
happens again
and that the lessons of brotherhood/sisterhood
heroism
bravery
selflessness that rose up in this great city
and this great country
in the fall of 2001
is never forgotten
join with me will you?
say a prayer for all of us
that we don't get so caught up in power struggles
and political bullshit
that we forget what's really important
being happy,
being kind,
being peaceful,
being decent to each other..
Saturday, December 6
snow storm in september
aaah its snowing
snowing
snowing
still snowing
and it looks so glorious from my living room window
even the projects look magnificent
i love this part of a snow storm
when it's falling in all its gloriousness
when everything seems like its covered in a white
lush cotton blanket
when all noise is muffled
by the thick white endless mist
it feels like pure peace
it's odd for me to say this
but whenever it snows
i remember being at ground zero a few days after september 11th
i looked at the burnt destroyed buildings
and the rescue crews
and the burnt work papers covering the tomb stones
at St. Paul's Church
but the air was so thick with dust
that everything felt muffled
everything felt softened
it was as if we were in a brown and gray snow storm
the endless floating blanket
of dust settled on our faces, our scalps, in the back of our throats
it covered the noise from the machines so we felt as though we were hearing the steady rrrrrrrr thru ear muffs..
maybe it was my need to shut off
or shut down
maybe it was my heart wanting to find some sense of beauty in all the horror
but standing amidst the dust i felt for a moment as though i were standing in the center of a snow storm
i closed my eyes and imagined that all of this death
and destruction could somehow be
cleansed
sanitized
repaired
by a great white wash of snow
but it was not a snow storm
and the longer i stood there
the more it dawned on me
that the dust covering us
muffling the noise
creating an eery sense of calm
contained millions and millions of bits of murdered innocent
people
and now
today
it is snowing
and it is so beautiful
so glorious
so magical
but a part of me
is brought back
is dragged back
to the eerie
brown and black storm
i stood inside
on september 16th..and for the days afterward
when my heart dragged me to the center of death
and i searched.. as perhaps
we all did search
for something
safe
to focus on
to take away
from the madness
snow
snow
soft
lush
protective blanket
so innocent
so pure
so soft
lord
i love the snow
Saturday, September 13
Birthday not death day
Although this is the last time I plan to write about 9/11 for a while,
here are some photos I haven't posted of those times. Click photos to see larger images.
Our team that fed rescuers
A rescue dog in booties
Rosh Hashanah at Ground Zero
|
ok for those of you who wondered
how i spent the 911 anniversary
it went something like this
i woke up
watched the memorial services on tv and remembered
how la cubana took me to an office overlooking ground zero
last year
and we watched from many stories above
i think tv was better this year
2 years later
tv is better
for the next several hours
it seemed like everyone in the world called
to talk about mundane business stuff
and i was amazed
didn't anyone know what day it was?
la cubana arrived in full scale work mode
my chef called with day-to-day business questions
and by 12:00
i began to feel like the only person
outside of the thousands at ground zero
who didn't want to work
didn't want to talk about mundane stuff
and did want to dwell on what this was the anniversary of
i walked from the east village to the water on the west side
and walked halfway down to ground zero
remembering
all the thousands of news crews that had been there two years ago
and the endless smoke and terrible smell
this day it was beautiful
the grass was filled with sunbathers
the kiddy water park filled with laughing children
i sat on a bench and stared at the water
i watched the children play
and i began to breathe
and i began to smile
it was a gorgeous day
remembering september 11th did not have to be all about
sadness
it could be about healing
about treasuring new things
new beginnings
about trying to be better
my friend Adeena the world famous poet (hey she's written 6 books that's famous enough for me) and her 5 year old daughter Safia
wanted a place to go
they had, together mother and child,
watched both planes hit
and while saphia being young
and innocent needed nothing but a place to play
Adeena needed somewhere to go
i met them at the starbucks in time square
this was now
oh about an 80 block walk for me
(in sandles!)
we relaxed for awhile
and then headed for the ground zero reunion party
at September Space
you probably remember me writing about September Space
its a non-profit set up as a place of healing
for all those affected by September 11th, not just the families of the victims and they do a lot of work with the workers who had been down there.
They offer free coffee, donuts, pizza, massage, art therapy, a quiet place to chill out.
Two years later I wondered if September Space would still have a purpose. Maybe most of its visitors had moved on.
but the reunion they were hosted was a free dinner and reunion for the volunteers and I hoped if I didn't see anyone I knew at least I would be around a place filled with people who felt the way I did on this day.
It turned out to be the best place to take Safia.
They're very kid friendly over there. They immediately set her up with glue, pipe cleaners, feathers, paper, twirly things, everything a kid needs to create a masterpiece.
I walked around and looked at the giant 911 quilt put together by a girls school, the many drawings from the art therapy program, the private rooms for meetings and for massage.
An older man wearing several ground zero security tags walked by. I recognized him from St. Pauls. This was the podiatrist "Al the foot doctor." Needless to say he was the most popular guy around. He spend 8 months in the church massaging the feet of the workers.
Margie the great cheerleader from the point thank you perch on the west side highway arrived. She came with her brother. They had spent a year on the highway waving and holding up thank you signs for the ground zero crews.
A lot of Salvation army workers arrived, they had doled out sandwiches, soup, socks all the s's.
Many of them wore their bits of ground zero memoirabilia, much the way Vietnam Vets might in a veterans hall.
I began to realize that the room was full of the people who had come down there to offer relief to the workers who had come down there to dig.
Two years later it was the relief volunteers who now needed relief.
I will admit to you that I found something frightening about the thought of coming to this place often. I liked the chance to relive and remember two years later but to come all the time, every week, i think would make me feel like I was still there, that I was not moving forward. But that's me.
For Margie, an elderly woman who walked with a cane and the help of her elderly brother, I imagine that going back to a life of a retired, semi handicapped woman
after a year on the highway, was probably something she just couldn't do. Having a place to come to and continue offering her special blend of cheerleading skills, might feel to her like salvation. I don't know. I'm not in Margie's head, but I liked seeing her there.
We filled up on chips and tuna fish thinking that was dinner and then a really decent meal of salad, pizza, turkey and fried chicken showed up. I was full, but being a pig, I decided to eat some salad and chicken
and forced Adeena to have pie and donuts so I could live vicariously through her.
Safia created a masterpiece of feathers and twirly things.
I saw Lisa the mastermind of this operation, an adorable little vixen who I still think looks like Valerie Bertinelli and I promised her a piece of art for her office.
Most of the people there knew each other, if not from ground zero, then from the weekly meetings held there for the "ground zero fellowship."
For me, one night of remembrance on the anniversary was enough. I might come back on the 3rd year, I might not, but anything more than that, for me, would feel like stepping back into a place I only want to recall from a distance.
I'm glad September Space is there and I'm glad that two years later there is a place for Margie the worlds greatest cheerleader to go and cheer some more and I'm glad that two years later, Al, a short elderly foot doctor can have a place to go where he can wear his security badges like medals and find people who think they are medals and maybe, they are.
For me...well...it's time to move on...I stepped back into this world for a few days..I reposted my story from two years ago...I let myself roll in the good, bad, horrible and beautiful for a few days... and now it's time to proceed.
Now is the time for life not death.
Now is the time for newness not the re-hashing of old.
I promised you all that I would re-post my pieces from two years ago for much of this month, but I think today will be my last post on the subject of "911" for awhile.
It's just not healthy for me to dwell on this.
What I will remember most about my night at September Space was the wonderful piece of art Safia created and how when we left she told her mother that it was not what she expected. "It was the best party..mommy....like a birthday party!"
Yes...Safia I think you have the right idea......a birth party ...not a death party...
As for Adeena, well I suspect this will all wind up in one of her poems one day...and that's just perfect to me...
Two years later it is poetry, art, children, joy, new-ness birth, peace, love, family, friendship and goodness that I want to dwell on.
Thank you to September Space for offering me a safe place to remember.
But now I must march forward...
Thanks to Safia for reminding me that joy and wonder can be found in the strangest of places and thanks to Adeena for going with me and being my own personal cheerleader...and for eating the pie for me...
Happy lives ya'all and all my love and prayers to the loved ones of the victims of "911" and to all those who went down there and to all those who didn't go down there but found their own ways to offer up kindness and care.
p.s. i had a very odd
comment that i jus deleted by some weird ass fool
who momentarily made me forget about all the love
i just conjured up and want to bite his/her head off
instead i just deleted the pricks comment
if you wish to leave
obnoxious rude
totally uncalled for and nasty comments
here then go stick your head up your ass
instead
because i will delete you
thanks
and now back
to all the love
peace
and humanity
i care about
Friday, September 12
Two Years Ago Today
Two Years ago today this is the post I wrote on my website.
I'd only had the web site for oh about a week and had started the site as a fun light rant on life.
Well life changed for most of us that morning two years ago yesterday and when I had a moment of clarity I sat down to collect my thoughts and this is what came out.
Two years later I am grateful that I had this site to document everything I saw, heard, smelled, felt, sensed.
It's like a photograph from the inside of my mind.
Two years later I am not the same person I was. I'd like to think I am kinder, softer, stronger, clearer. I'd like to think my priorities are more in order and if they have fallen to the wayside, I'd like to think that the anniversary yesterday may have gotten me back on check.
Two years later I still can't make sense of the absurdity of it all; why it happened, how it could have happened. Hell most of me still can't believe it happened.
A close friend of mine yesterday told me that Americans are spoiled, that we had never experienced on our turf what most other countries around the world have experienced. She said that terror ridden and, or, wartorn countries like hers, like Israel, like the occupied territories of the Palestinians, like Bosnia, like Northern Ireland live September 11th every day. That two years later her attitude is simply to move on because death and terror were a part of her formative childhood and the only way to move on was to move on.
I hear her and I understand where she is coming from and I admit that yes, Americans are spoiled in a thousand different ways and that yes, September 11th was like one giant de-flowering of our virginity, but to lose 3,000 lives in one hour was a shock to our system and to everything we knew on such a scale that even two years later it makes one stop, pause, think and ponder.
I will never know what it's like to grow up in a war torn country
and she will never know what it's like to feel as safe and as powerful as I did the morning the I woke up on September 11th and then to have it taken from me. So I shall simply respect our difference.
For me, I will never take peace for granted anymore and I will, feel a deeper sense of remorse and understanding at the horrors I see on the news aflicting strangers from around the world who don't feel quite so much like strangers anymore.
anyway...
two years ago today
I posted this...
Wednesday, September 12 2001
And then …
Early in the AM at least early for me, while I was spell checking my rant about how much I need noise and hate quiet, a rant that ended with how friggin' peaceful I felt ... I heard an explosion but did not even flinch ...
I hear explosions all the time from the projects, figured it was just the usual big firecracker in a garbage can thing
Then a client called and said, "I wanted to talk to you about business, but they just crashed an airplane into the World Trade Center." ...?? So I hung up, turned on the news, freaked out and ran up on the roof. ...
There from the roof deck of my Lower East Side building I saw the unbelievable -- the twin towers on fire, gaping holes on the tops of each. It took a moment for me to remove myself from all those Armageddon movies. This was real. In a rush that went from my heart to my stomach, I felt the fear of all those trapped in the towers. It wasn't even 9:30 a.m., but I spun around to see a sizable chunk of my neighbors climb up onto their roofs and fire escapes, their jaws hung as low as mine was.
I ran downstairs for my camera, feeling like a louse, but I just had to, and grabbed Mike from next door and the baby sitter from 5A. I needed someone else to see this and tell me I was not dreaming.
"Holy shit!" Mike screamed. I snapped some pictures, but the camera felt poisoned, so I tossed it on the picnic table and just stared.
We all just stared.
I tried to comprehend how many floors were smoldering.
"It's not so bad. … They'll get them out," someone said, or was it me?
Then it happened -- just as I was thinking, "How much more will this burn before they find a way to put it out?" there was a flash of silver, bits of silver catching the sunlight, just trickling down … and the first tower, just seemed to implode. It came crashing down into itself, right before our eyes. And there were screams from every window and every roof top, and one of them was mine. And I started to cry
This silver deck of cards had just collapsed right in front of us.
It was so absurd, it could not even register.
"No, no, no, no, no!" I heard myself say.
"Oh my God! Oh my God!" came the yells from roof tops stretching to the base of Manhattan.
Armin from 2A came upstairs and just stared blankly. Then we turned our sights on the second tower. The fear from all those people trapped in the top of the other tower and the ones trying to make their way down 30, 40, 80 flights of stairs was so tangible, you could feel it floating in the air amid the vast billowy black and gray smoke that came up like a nuclear mushroom cloud.
We watched, and our cell phones did not work, and our home phones did not work, and our loved ones were trying to call us. We watched.
My neighbor Ray the lawyer came rushing up. He had just escaped from the financial district only a couple blocks away. "I just climbed out of the subway, and a wall of people pushed me back!" he yelled panting and sweaty.
Mike snapped pictures with his zoom lens, shaking his head, trying to make jokes that did not work. The baby sitter bounced the baby on his lap and pointed to the black sky saying, "Man, you are going to tell your grandchildren that you saw this!" to the bewildered baby. A frozen chill began to creep up my arms and legs.
"You've got goose bumps all over you, man!" Mike said..
I ran downstairs to get coffee for myself and the baby sitter cause I felt dizzy and weak and just as I touched my door the screaming started again, ran back upstairs just as the second tower is crashing down, the unbelievable has happened twice. … And the screams are everywhere, everywhere, and the smoke is so thick that all of downtown Manhattan is obliterated as it blows endlessly towards Brooklyn. I watched the end of the second tower disappear into a mass of black and silver.
And we can all feel the death of thousands
They died right in front of us
I could not see their faces, but I could see their faces
I still see their faces
I stroke the part of the sky where they were with my fingers
There is no peace
There is nothing but smoke
We are frozen there on the roof for a thousand moments
I have the sensation that everything I have ever known is being rewritten in my head, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
And then the aftermath
The panic
What will happen now?
Is this our Pearl Harbor?
Ray's secretary gets through to him, and I ask her to call my brother. Kathleen comes home and we run to the grocery store for supplies. At times like this, they say to buy water.
The grocery store is filled to the walls with terrified people buying nonperishables.
I load up on anything, I don't even know what I bought.
Some sugary juice, cheap cat food, water, something frozen
Cheese
Canned pineapple of some kind, or maybe it was corn, yes, corn
The police are all around when I emerge
The off-duty officers called in
All of downtown is blocked off.
But we are downtown.
You can feel the tension
Crime yet to be born
The city filled with people who will not work today, pacing, what to do now, where to go.
"Everyone I see is drunk or high," the laundry lady says. ..
There is the sense that nothing makes sense today.
There is a strange dead burnt smell that I can taste in the back of my throat
The fighter jets buzz by
The helicopters climb through the murdered skyline
No one will vote in the primaries
Kathleen goes to Beth Israel to donate blood
Carolyn to Bellevue
I can not give blood, but I wonder what, what, what can I do
I check the air, and worry about the smoke and my cats
And see the tower collapsing, over and over and over again in my head
Carol and Tommy are bankers; they work downtown.
M.E. finally gets through on the phone. She was about to walk the 84 blocks to my apartment. She missed her flight to Washington. Thank God, I tell her. Thank god
"I love you!" I say and ask her to find out if they are ok, Carol and Tommy.
I think they work on Wall Street but I'm not sure.
Tracey calls. Calls can now get in but not out, I have her call my father to tell him I'm ok. She invites me to take the cats and come to Brooklyn but I opt for staying home with the windows shut and the A/C on to filter the air. I would have to walk to Brooklyn across the bridge and home with the cats seems a better bet for now. I've always been afraid of heights.
"Tell my father I'm alive," I beg her.
I am alive.
This day now sits before me like a pathetic afterthought.
There is nothing to do but ponder and watch the tower crumbling, crumbling, crumbling in my head.
Later on, after the news has shown me the videos of what is already taped to my eyes forever, I go back up on the roof to monitor the smoke. Is it blowing my way? Do I need to evacuate? It has mellowed, turned more gray.
Then all of sudden it is black again. Black and billowy and thick, but lower, not like the towers. It covers the buildings like a thick blanket, then spreads out piercing the gray, this new terrible thing, a floating dark ocean.
"Did you see it?" the baby's mother screams rushing up on the roof. "We just heard it on the news! The smaller building, No. 7, just came down!"
"I saw it," I say knowing I have not seen anything today since the first tower crumbled before me.
The city has become a game of dominoes.
I look at the Empire State Building and wonder, who will be next?
Thursday, September 11
The 11th Day of September
All is quiet
All is still
The soft muffled blanket
Laying over downtown like a giant ear muff
Floating
Drifting
Ear muff
Not white
But gray
Not frozen
But charred
Tiny bits of who we were
So long ago
A million years ago
When we woke up this morning
When we were greeted with radiant sunshine
Crisp wondrous breezes
We threw ourselves into this lovely day
Just another day
Time to go to work
Just another day
But this one was a little sweeter
A little sunnier
What could be better in the world
Then clear skies
And singing birds
In New York City?
We are that strange breed of animal
That finds peace amidst chaos
Nature on our roof tops
Ecstasy in one perfect crisp sunny morning
A million years ago
When we were innocent
When we believed that sunny lovely days meant all was right in the world
When we thought silent, floating, layers of thick nothingless only happened in snow storms
Sunday, September 7
What did not Burn makes us Smile
Michele at "Small Victory"
(see linkie love list darlings we all know how lazy I am about typing in code, and well I'm blonde and it always takes me three tries before I get it right...ok?)
anyway
the goddess Michele or whom most of you know I am a huge fan
has the most amazing on-going projects going on called "Voices"
read her site and read the voices of so many affected by "911"
or add your voice, be a part of her documentation of history...it's a gorgeous project..
Michele is a gorgeous project herself...
Today I learned about the surfacing of the amateur videotape by the Czech immigrant living in Queens. This tape shows the rarest of footage, of the first plane hitting the tower.. that it's been sitting in his closet all this time and nearly erased by his son is amazing..
I have not seen the tape yet and I can't decide whether I feel a desire to see it or a horror, but I'm sure if I watch the news for more than five seconds today it will show up..
The timing just before the anniversary is of course, sadly poetic
 I started looking at some photos taken of me at ground zero that I'm attempting to email to my editrix the great Nancy of Queerday.com. to hopefully post this coming week ...
I considered running them on my site two years ago but decided against it because everyone in the photos is smiling, myself included.
It seemed absurd for us all to look so charged, so happy as if we were doing a job we absolutely loved.
But you see, nearly two years later, that's the thing that has stayed with me the most. Now that the horror has let go its icy grasp, I remember most the love, the kindness, the unflinching bravery and goodness that was more thick and tangible than the endless smoke.
I think of Dominic the tough guy security guard from The Seaman's Church, who wrapped an American flag around his head and charged down to the hole the day after the towers fell and started looking for a way to help..
Dominic's partner in arms the adorable boyish Billy was at his side, together they found ways to distribute soda, water, Gatorade, food to the firemen and make-shift volunteer crews digging body-parts out of the "hole."
By the time I made it down there on September 16th, 5 days later, Dominic and Billy and just about everyone at The Seaman's Church had joined forces with the
empty and aching St. Paul's church and set up a relief canteen that was attempting to feed up to 2,000 rescue workers a day.
Yes rescue workers because on September 16th this was still a rescue effort. There was still hope.
When I arrived Dom wrapped his arms around me in a way that made me feel like I was draped in pure love, whittled down to its simplest form.
He and Billy had lost one of their best friends, they had nearly lost their own lives and they both stared at the world through wide, unblinking glassy eyes. Dom was on fire.
He was charged, manic, smiling, cheering, ready to save, feed, cheer up, guide, dance, sing, scream. He was ready to do anything buy cry.
I wonder if he has cried since.
There were so many heroes all around me, so many men and women who did not think they were heroes, who I assume still do not think they are heroes.
They came from everywhere; Canada, San Francisco, Brooklyn, Queens, Florida.
When I told them I was a New Yorker they felt sorry for me.
This one is from the photo gallery at St. Paul's site.
That's me on the right in the back with the hardhat. |
Me who was just grilling hamburgers for them and carting Gatorade to the hole. They were the ones with someone else’s blood on their hands. Burns from the smoldering ash.
I think of the Indian man who quietly stood in the corner making sure the snack bins were full, the water cold. He had found his way out there and just didn't go home for oh I don't know how long, maybe two weeks. He spoke little, smiled a lot and just quietly stood behind the buffet line handing out goodies, nodding when they thanked him.
and I think of Dom, sweet, big guy, teddy bear Dom.
The last time I talked to him over a year later, he still hadn't come down. He reminded me of a Vietnam Vet. I was sure that he still saw all those images every time he closed his eyes.
"I'm thinking about joining the marines," he said.
Dom is about 50.
I look at the pictures of Dom, me, the army rabbi, Brian the nice little Jewish boy who doled out new dry socks to the firemen and yes, we were all smiling, we were all looking like perky cheer-leaders in front of burning mayhem.
But it's right that we should have smiled, because then and now, we had found the one good thing to come out of that wreckage;
Humanity.
Tuesday, September 2
New Memoir, Old Fears and Moving On
Hello love-bugs
I'm taking La C away for a few days on a secret mini vacation for her birthday.
Shhhhhh. She has no idea where I'm taking her.
But I'll tell you this, it's on the beach (although it's raining AAAK).
It's romantic (ok well the rain works here).
and mostly it's away from work, responsibility and well work.
To keep you entertained until I return sometime on Thursday, I thought I'd put up a whole new memoirable.
I call this one "Rabbi's and Mozzarella."
So reach on over to the "Memoirable" button and click to read.
Meanwhile all the New Jersey I sucked in at the Bruce concert the other day is sending me into some wicked Dejavus land, so you can expect more memoirables sometime soon.
By the way if you haven't already please go over to Michele at Smallvictory on my linkie love list and check out her "Voices" project. Add your story to the list of voices of "911" if you have something in your soul burning to get out.
Personally I've been thinking a lot about "911" the last few days, actually I should say I've been thinking a lot about it since the black out. I think the black out dragged me back in a way I was not expecting.
I know a lot of you who started reading my site in the year from Sept 11th 2001 to September 11th 2002, might have noticed an extreme lack of posting on the subject of "911" considering it was all I talked about for a year.
Well sweeties, that was because on the one year anniversary, La Cubana so immersed me in everything "911" that I was finally filled enough to be fed up.
I think I went past, love, fear, horror, sadness, shock, soul searching of my feelings over that terrible morning and into something more like obsession..
It's odd to say but "911" became something of an addiction for me and I had to just walk away from it, try not to talk about it, try not to think about it and just move on for at least a year.
Now coming on the two year anniversary, I find myself gingerly ready to start talking about it..however cautiously, but wary, so wary that I don't find myself sucked in to a dark place.
I've spoken with my pal and mentor Nancy formely of Jillmatrix.com, now of Queerday.com and told her my idea for this month.
I think what feels right to me is to re-post my posts from two years ago starting on September 12th. I don't know how many I will do, maybe a week's worth, maybe a couple weeks. I'm just gonna feel it through. I am also going to do something else that I have not done before and that is to post some of the photos that I took or were taken of me at ground zero. I guess this will part of my healing and hopefully be a proper way to acknowledge the anniversary.
and don't be surprised if after i re-post these pieces and write whatever pours out of my heart during this month of September, that the subject of "911" doesn't come up on this site too often again..
I don't know, some of the volunteers from ground zero are getting together for a reunion at the non-profit help center called "The September Space" on the anniversary.
The September Space invites me to events all the time and I always feel a pull to go, but then I start to feel like a Vet of some short terrible war who keeps getting together with the buddies to relive something instead of moving on..
So I never go, only been there once..
I have to keep marching forward...
I'm torn
If if do go to that Reunion I have to make sure it's to heal and see perhaps some familiar faces for the first time, un-covered from dust and ash and maybe cry or hug or something
IF I do not go, then I'll find my own way
But my way has got to be forward into the light
I can not
not
get sucked back in again to that dark, smoky place
yes i did see the most beautiful heroism
the best of humanity in those days
and that's the part I want to keep with me
the rest
the horror
the shock
the fear
the sadness
i want to leave behind
even now nearly two years later
i do not feel like i have the right to mourn "911"
as i did not lose a loved one
even now i am conflicted on so many levels
but i do know this
that it needs to stay behind me
not alongside me
and not in front of me
wish me luck
Thursday, August 28
Conspiracy in the Air
I didn't pick up the paper yesterday, largely because sometimes I just need a break from horrifying things
but i was told by a pal of mine
that the big story was all about Hillary Clinton's major investigation into 911
and that the really big story was that there were poisons in the air that the city/government lied to us all about..
if any of you reading this, have a copy of the article maybe you could send me some of the particulars in the comments section
but this does spark off all kinds of conspiracy theories
let me tell you my own story
and let you decide what you think
is true or not true
on september 10th of 2001
i was somebody who had mild allergies
i blew my nose a few times a day and maybe once or twice a week
i would take a mild allergy pill
by October 1st of 2001
i become someone who had to take the prescription allergy medicine every day
and would still have severe attacks on an almost daily basis
my allergies became so severe that as you may recall
6 months ago i embarked on a total homeopathic
cleanse and hopefully cure
the first thing my doctor did was test my blood
he informed me that i had the same level of carbon dioxide in my blood
as someone who smokes a pack a day
i do not smoke
and have not for hmm 15 years
granted much of this could have been caused by just being new yorker
in a high stress life
okay now let me back up
in the week that i was at ground zero from september 16th on
i only wore my mask when i went to the hole- the actual spot of the collapsed towers
when i was a block away in front of the St Paul Church i did not wear my mask
partially that was because it was hard to talk or breathe in such heat from behind the mask
and mostly it was because i wanted the heartsick heroes of that terrible time
to look into my face when i served them their meals and to know that i cared about them
which i did and still do
nobody told me to put on my mask
and frankly a block away the air felt clear
and it just didnt feel so important
of course about a hundred feet away the air was so thick with dust
that it felt something like a cross between a snow storm and windy day in the dessert
but from my perch at the st. paul
well i just rarely wore my mask
i know now
that much of my respiratory problems are most likely because of this
but to tell you the truth if i had to do it all over again
im not sure i would wear the mask
anyway
making eye contact
whispering
thank you
you're great
you're a hero
smiling
making them smile
i dont think i could trade that in
anyway
back to conspiracy theory stuff
many months later
towards the latter part of the clean up of ground zero
i spent a little time
volunteering at a warehouse
that outfited the tours of firemen
when the new men would come in
we would give them carhard jackets with their names on them
new boots
flashlights
eye wash
gum
candybars
oh you name it
when the old crews came out
they could keep their carhard jackets but their boots
caked with the mud of ground zero
had to be bagged in plastic bags marked hazardus waste
and we had to NOT touch those boots with our hands
they were placed in special hazard bins and shipped out
somewhere
while i was helping in this procedure it occurred to me
that the mud that the higher ups had decided was sush a hazard
it could not be touched by the human hand
was the same mud
i had plowed around in
in my street shoes
tank top
and jeans
nobody told me not to touch my shoes afterwards
actually i still have them
in my closet
i dont think its a coincidence
that ive been so sick since that week
at ground zero
and i do believe that what hillary clinton
is digging up is true
and is probably just a small part of a large truth
thats gonna kick the ass of watergate when it comes out
as to the conspiracy
part
i just think
we the public
werent told the real deal
and i do think
the higher ups
knew a whole lotta stuff
that they werent telling us
maybe we were better off
as panic might have ensued
maybe not
i dunno
but i do
know that whatever was on the boots of those firemen
was in the air
and on my clothes
and probably is still sitting in my closet
so keep digging hillary
and keep us posted
i want some answers
even if they won't change a damn thing
as for me
if i had to do it all over again
the only thing different i would have done
would be to get down there and start helping
on september 11th
not september 16th
what i know now
is that on that day of 911
when the world felt like it was breaking apart
i could have done more to help in one hour than i have done in the two years since
but then again
on 911
like so many of you
i was too busy wondering
if I or someone I love
was gonna be next
and well...
maybe if i had run down there that terrible morning
i wouldn't be here writing this today
Tuesday, September 17
highway angels
I'm thinking about Marjorie.
I first saw Marjorie on the highway in the fall of 2,001, she was part of the self-proclaimed "nuts on the highway" the cheerleaders who held up thank-you signs and waved as the rescue crews drove down the west side highway to ground zero.
She was there again when M.E. and I crossed the highway off Christopher Street on the first anniversary of "911."
It was a dark night filled with a strange powerful wind that had started suddenly in the morning and seemed to grow stronger as the day crept in. Tree branches broke off and blew away. Traffic cones lay on their sides. The water mounted again and again in stiff white peeks. It was an electric kind of night. 8:30 felt a lot more like midnight as M.E. and I crossed the highway on route to light "Yartzeit" candles along the Hudson.
Then we saw her.
She's an elderly woman, age-less in the sense that she could be anywhere from 60 to 75 and neither extreme would surprise me. Her short round body is supported with the help of a cane and a slighlty younger but still white haired brother named John.
The wind blowing in from the Hudson just 50 feet away, brought in a steely cold breeze, but Marjorie was dressed only in a light house dress with a "shmata" of sorts draped over her head to keep out the cold. Bits of her snow white hair jetted out from the bottom.
"We wanted to be here with the people we've grown to love!" Marjorie explained, waving at police cars.
When I told her that I been a volunteer at ground zero, she smiled, reached into her pocket and pulled out a pin. It was a little gold hand making the American sign language symbol for "I love you."
"Anyone who was down there deserves to be appreciated," she said.
I can't tell you how that simple gesture so perfectly capped off what I'd been feeling that entire day.
At 8:30 in the morning when M.E. and I arrived on Broadway a block from ground zero we were greeted by a group of strangers who draped "lais" made out of orchids around our necks.
We took the elevator up to M.E.'s lawyers office and watched the memorial from an illegal fire terrace 39 flights above. We were literally on top of the crater of death..of hope.
I watched the marchers walk in to the circle. We huddled together high up in the air on our treacherous little over-hang. We held our breath for the moment of silence. We heard the chimes. We watched the families of the victims come in and throw their roses in the circle.
The breeze picked up and turned into a tremendous wind and I watched with amazement as what looked like giant fingers of dust reached up and stretched over the mourners.
"Restless spirits" I said to M.E. and that's exactly how it felt.
We watched those tiny flicks of red fall into the circle and the people too far below to have faces but not too far away to be felt.
After the second moment of silence we went back down and walked to St. Pauls. I stood in the place that had been my work station in those terrifying days after September 11th.
This place was different now.
So am I.
M.E. took my picture a sort of "then and now" kinda thing.
We made our way through the thousands of on-lookers and crossed broadway.
A girl sat on a stool in the middle of the side walk.She held up a little sign. It read "I give hugs."
" I want you to have a real New York day now." M.E. said and she gave me one, taking me to the Oak Bar at the Plaza Hotel for lunch. To the old, glorious synagogue Temple Emanual for a spiritual pick me up.
We planned to end our day throwing our necklaces made of orchids in the water and trying to walk all the way along the Hudson to the eternal flame in battery park.
We made it to the flame some time around 10PM (I still have the blisters to prove it) but my orchids never made it to the water. I draped them around Marjorie instead.
"Ohhhh" she cried in joy.." and you know today is my birthday too!"
"Your birthday is September 11th ?" I said/asked bewildered.
"Yes!" she answered in a tone that was something like happiness.
Happiness?
I understood then that Marjorie, like the girl on the stool and the people who sewed a thousand orchids into necklaces and the people who created beautiful pieces of art and hung them on memorial walls and the children who wrote notes and tucked them into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and maybe, maybe like me had found their place in all of this.
She was exactly where she wanted to be. Cheering on yet again the heroes of "911."
She was glorious.
"Say a prayer for us too!" her brother John yelled as we crossed the highway towards the water.
"We will."
Wednesday, September 11
September 11th 2002
September 11th, 2002
Stop.
Put aside all your busy thoughts.
Turn off the television.
Shut off the CD player.
Be still.
Breathe.
Be present in this moment.
Be here, with these words.
Be here entirely.
Breathe in.
Out.
Feel this moment.
This moment is a gift.
This day is a miracle.
You are here.
You are alive.
You have a capacity to love that is so vast you could never reach its limits.
There are no limits.
One year ago today, you watched thousands of innocent people die.
You watched two seemingly invincible icons crumble.
They were the big twin brothers at the bottom of the city, boyish and pompous and rich and powerful and young and playful. There were nothing like the simple elegance and constant beauty of their classically elegant older sister, the Empire State Building, but they were family. They were our boys. Just like we often do with family, we took them for granted until they were gone.
Now our baby brothers are dead.
One year ago, you watched something so horrible that no disaster movie will ever feel quite like a movie again.
You saw them jump.
You saw them disappear into a mountain of dust.
And when it was all quiet again, you saw the few, far too few, survivors crawl out, covered in layers of chalk, blinking, helpless and hopeless.
You felt helpless.
You felt hopeless.
Some of you, may have relived that day a thousand times and told yourself all the things you would do differently if you could go back in time.
Maybe you would have tried to help.
Maybe you would have been kinder to the people around you.
Maybe you would have remembered to tell the person lying next to you that you love them.
Well it’s September 11th again.
It is today.
It is now.
So what are you waiting for?
There are people who need to hear your voice. Tell them you care.
Walk everywhere today. Find total strangers and give them something, anything, a simple gesture of kindness. Buy lunch for a homeless person. Go to an animal shelter and save a life. Take your shoes off and walk through the grass.
Look in the mirror.
Do you like what you see?
Do you feel that you’ve done enough?
If you don’t feel that you’ve done enough, congratulations!. You’ve still got time. Get out there and spread yourself around like peanut butter. You’ve got so much to give.
If you do feel like you’ve done enough than I’ve got news for you. You’re full of shit! There is never enough. There can never be enough love or goodness.
One year ago today, we watched our family be murdered. Maybe they were of no relation to us. Maybe they were strangers. Maybe. But they were part of us.
Haven’t you wondered why it is that you mourn these strangers so deeply?
How can you feel their deaths so personally?
Why even now do you feel chills when you think of them?
Why is it when the families of the victims appear on television talking about their lost loved ones you feel like you understand? You feel the loss. You feel guilty for even trying to share a slice of their pain, but you do feel their pain.
Why?
Because they are your family too.
Because we are all in this together.
It is September 11th again.
Here, now, today, in this moment, we are in “911.”
Today is “911.”
Here is your chance.
Don’t make their deaths be in vain.
Try to fill this terrible cruel void in our hearts, in our skyline, in the cosmos, with something else.
Fill it with your goodness.
Fill it with your love.
Fill it with your honesty.
Fill it with your bravery.
Fill it with your vulnerability.
Fill it with you.
------
This was the last rant at my old address www.rossi.blogspot.com.
All new rants will be right here where you are now at www.rossirant.com.
rossirant
I started this site at blogspot one year ago and wanted to finish it on this day; September 11th 2002.
This site has been something more than a voice for me. It’s often felt like salvation.
Thank you for listening to me.
Thank you for answering back.
I promise to keep ranting here at Rossirant as long as you’ll keep reading.
A special thanks to Nancy at jillmatrix
For creating my new web site for me as an awesome birthday gift and for helping me every step of the way with my old wed site. She’s been like the Florence Nightingale of wed-land for moi. Thanks Flo!
Monday, August 12
I'm sorry, what did you say?
If you want to take a break from the atrocities of terrorism, anti-Semitism and strong feelings of "what the fuck can I do?" then just do what I did: Get an inner ear infection.
I think this is the third one I've had this year. My doctor says they're brought on by my allergies, which somehow quadrupled after September 11th.
I'm fully expecting to turn on the television one day and see a special on the airborne disease downtown New Yorkers caught in September of last year that was all hushed up.
But enough about conspiracy theories. My point is, having an inner ear infection sucks if you want to have any balance whatsoever, (ballet and tight-rope walking are lost to me, alas) but it's great for zoning out from life.
Hell, I feel like it's the '70s all over again, and I didn't have to smoke anything.
I had another one of my fabulous roof parties, at which I grilled steak for 50 people and fed it to 13. Everyone was talking at once and floating in and out of conversations and I couldn't focus on a single thing anyone said. So I just sat there and smiled and agreed. The really weird thing was everyone thought I was totally entertaining.
They thought I was ^%$#& charming! This weekend, I went to my pal Joanna's wedding. It was truly beautiful. She went with a Pacific Rim theme, and everything was jade green or bamboo brown with chopsticks and candles and lots and lots of tropical drinks. Joanna looked glorious, and the Asian-inspired food was beautiful (even though GASP, I didn't cook it).
The food, FYI, was prepared by Caroline, who occasionally works as one of my sous chefs, but clearly she's been holding out on me, since she never once shaved a jicama or pickled a ginger on my watch.
M.E. says I intimidate kitchen babes. ... Must be the army boots, but I digress.
Anyway, the point is that all this gorgeousness was made magical and dreamy and, well, rather blurry by my inner ear infection.
It was great!
Normally, (whatever that is) I feel far too guilty about the thousands of lives disappearing before my eyes those many months ago in September to allow myself to truly enjoy something as shallow as, say a celebration of love.
How can I possibly allow real joy to settle in, when so many have suffered? I should put down my margarita immediately and mourn!!
Yes, and all that self-sacrifice does exactly what?? For anyone??
I'm quite certain the innocent lives lost on 9/11 will not be brought back by my lack of joy and their families will not gain happiness by my suffering. So why not have the fucking margarita?
'Cause I'm just nuts, that why, and I've been nuts since September 11th, and I don't care who knows it anymore!! Which brings me back, yet again, to my inner ear infection.
It let me have fun.
It even, took away so much on my inhibition that I was finally, (after 3 and half years of her trying) able to truly let my Cuban mamasita lead on the dance floor. Honey, you should have seen the white-haired family contingency from Germany. At first they thought we were just being, well ... European.
The dizziness in my head took the fight out of my spine, and I just let go. I let M.E. push me and pull me through the dance floor, twirling and swaying and shimmying and, I might have dreamt this, but I'm pretty sure M.E. even got me to dance to Spanish music without looking like a gringo idiot.
"You were amazing!" she said shocked and confused. "It's called an inner ear infection!" I said, radiant and still spinning in my head from the spinning on the dance floor.
An elderly, but SPUNKY, woman who'd been close dancing with her husband a few feet away came up to us.
We prepared ourselves for some sort of "Don't do that in front of the children" lecture.
"You girls are so courageous! I'm so proud of you!" she beamed and kissed us both. "I see so many couples like you who are too afraid to get up and dance. Don't ever stop!"
She kissed us several more times, and hugged us, too. Then, for the rest of the night, gave us the thumb's up sign whenever we hit the dance floor. Now that was a rush.
One moment I was getting carried around the dance floor while my brain spinned and then next I was a gay role model.
The night was delicious and sweet and surreal and loving, and never once in all that jade and bamboo did I remember the demons that interrupt my thoughts whenever I start to feel at peace.
I guess if I were well, then I'd have to admit to you that letting myself go like that means I'm some sort of a traitor to 9/11, but I had an excuse; really I did. I've been sick. This inner ear infection, you see, and so I think it's OK for me to be dopey and happy until it goes away.
Maybe I'll catch a cold by then.
Wednesday, July 17
My mother was a Depression baby.
I don't remember a single day in my entire childhood that I ever felt we weren't living on a budget.
"For a rainy day ..."
or
"You never know ..."
... were phrases offered to me instead of "Let's go to Mexico!"
My family did travel a lot, but our method for doing so was a camper wedged on top of my dad's old Ford pick-up. There was no AC in the back, (the camper part), no television, no music, nothing but the endless, stream of billboards whizzing by.
It wasn't so bad in the early '70s when the billboards were plentiful and entertaining, but by the late '70s, highway beautification had stepped in, and all we had to look forward to was another 60 miles of trees before the next rest stop.
I became a champion day-dreamer.
To this day, I have a fear of driving long distances without a co-pilot because I may go into "the zone" the second I hit a nice long stretch of open road.
I asked my folks a lot when growing up, if we could travel in higher style, to better places, or if I could just stay the fuck home and sun-bathe in the yard while they high-tailed up the highway, but Mom was relentless. She wanted us to see the country, and she wanted to do it all within some magical budget that she revealed to no one, but that was always there hovering over us like a green cloud.
Mom spoke fluent French and had a love of all things French. She had a pen-pal for 50 years in France whom she hadn't seen since college. We'd been to Montreal (cause you can drive there) countless times, but she'd never been to France or anywhere else off the North American continent.
I remember the time when, after all the kids were out of the house and life was quiet, my mother surveyed her retirement accounts, my dad's pension plan, the savings, the real estate investments and what was left for the kids and decided it was ok to let loose.
"Now I'm gonna have some fun," she told us. She had a stroke that year and died 5 years later.
"I will not postpone my life!" was the message I kept with me after she died.
But I forgot.
I got busy.
I spent years obsessing about my future, trying to create some kind of a nest egg for myself, trying to do something to make myself feel safe in this world.
I traveled a lot but rarely out of the tri-state area.
Then September 11th happened.
After months of feeling as though I could not leave New York City for any reason, because to do so would mean walking out on a loved one in trouble, I slowly started putting the pieces back together. But the puzzle had changed. I wasn't who I'd been anymore. I was someone new. Most of us were.
I looked at the new me with bewilderment. I'm still looking.
"I will not postpone my life" morphed into "Today I will live life."
I went to London and spent a week walking around in the rain, discovering the city by foot.
I took chances.
I let my guard down for the right people.
I jumped instead of tiptoeing.
All this is leading up to my crazy spontaneous trip to Spain.
I've never been to Spain. I don't speak Spanish. I hate to fly. I am frightened of going to new places. I am frightened of different countries. I am frightened.
I'm practical. I book trips well in advance. I get the best prices.
Not this time. It's a last-minute trip. Well, at least for me. I got a good price but not a great one, and I'm flying 4 times in one week. I fly into Madrid and after a few days go to Ibiza, spend some time there and then to Barcelona for 4 days.
It's not very me, but it is who I want to be.
More daring, more fun, more willing to embrace newness and change.
I head my mother's message and my new September 11th mantra, and they play off each other.
"I will not postpone my life. Today I will live life."
They have bonded into some kind of melody that plays in my head often. The lyrics change but essentially mean the same thing. It's usually sung to me by a raspy voiced rock-tress like Janis Joplin or Melissa Etheridge.
Today. I will live. Today I will fly. Today I will not be afraid and if I am I will take my fear and ride it into this excellent un-written chapter of my life. My life is today.
Buenos tardes, noches, dias ... take yer pick. I'll eat some fantastico comida for you-all.
Adios! This pequito senora is off to Madrid!
Thursday, July 11
Had something of an odd experience the other day.
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?
Friday, July 5
Did anyone in Manhattan try to mail a letter yesterday?
Yesterday being July 4th.
Well I did.
Yep I was determined to pay some bills that had been collecting dust in my Things to Be Ignored box, so I wrote a few checks, shoved 'em in envelopes and off I went.
At my corner mailbox, I pulled the handle, but the dad-burned door wouldn't open. Didn't faze me. I mean, this is the East Village. Anything could have happened. Might have been someone too wasted to tell the difference between the garbage can and the mailbox who crammed too much stuff in there, or the thing just might have been broken.
So I plodded on, undeterred.
Found another box on Avenue A, but it wouldn't open either. That's when it hit me. Duhhh. The mailboxes were locked shut.
I know it's odd to say, but none of the terror warnings for the Fourth of July had sunk in. This did. The %$#@&* mailboxes were locked!!
Not only did the reality of the fact that this city was worried about someone dropping bombs into our mailboxes hit me, I was also struck with the terrible notion that I would now have to finish all my day's errands while carrying a huge wad of letters.
Oh, how I suffer.
As the day progressed, I noticed other things, about a hundred cops on the corner of 14th and 1st getting ready to patrol the FDR, a whole lotta very nervous people walking even faster then usual, a ton of police barricades piled up to be delivered eastward.
Naturally all of this made me feel profoundly patriotic.
How dare I consider doing not much of anything on this day when I should be celebrating freedom and the fact that my building has a killer roof-deck.
So I threw a spontaneous potluck rooftop soiree.
Tommy and Ed came over with beer and wine. I bought a shit-load of Chinese chicken wings, some hummus, chips, cheese crackers ... the usual Rossi vittles. Carol and Sandy came over with Thai food. Kathleen brought up a tart (the kind you eat not the kind you date).
Turned out my neighbor Mike was having a get together with some of his rocker (DUDE!) pals on the roof, too, so it was a real party.
Now here's the deal with my roof. Even though it's practically on Avenue C, we get a lousy view of the fireworks, 'cause one of the projects is so huge it blocks out the central view. So basically what we see is the fireworks that shoot up high enough to be over the building or what comes cascading down the sides. It kinda sucks, but when given the choice of cramming in between thousands of rowdy people on the FDR amid high terror alerts, or watching the tops and sides of the fireworks from a comfy roof deck with tons of wine and munchies, everyone thought this was the way to go.
First thing Kathleen said to me when I met up with her on the deck: "Did you see the Batmobile?"
Turns out a fighter jet was patrolling, not to mention a whole lotta helicopters.
Next door to us is Christopher's tenement building. It's a story higher and a bit to the east, so they have a perfect view of the works. Earlier, Christopher had promised to invite us all up to his roof. I was expecting to get a call to go over there any second. Instead some cops were peering down at us from his roof.
"Did you see the snipers?" one of Mike's Dude! pals asked.
Is that what they are?
Then Kathleen's cell phone rings. It's Christopher. An elderly woman who lives in his building was just found dead on his roof. Yeah the roof that was only about 15 feet away from us. The cops were there for her, not as snipers.
The woman, who as a rule could generally be found buying beer at the corner bodega had gone up on the roof in this sweltering hundred degree day to drink. She'd passed out at some point and lain there in the intense heat all day long. How long she'd been dead, I don't know, but Christopher said she was barely recognizable.
The night took on a bit of an eerie tone after that. None of us knew her except as one of the many characters in the neighborhood, but knowing that a corpse was lying just beyond the wall 15 feet away is a bit of strange element to mix into a party.
I guess it was good thing that she died on July 4th. Who knows how long it would have taken for them to find her if not. This night was the most social night of the year for her building. Christopher told me the whole building goes up there on July 4th. It's tradition.
They were there last night, but they were quiet.
I wondered how it felt to them to climb up there, ready to celebrate and instead find a dead neighbor.
When the fireworks started, I forgot all about the corpse, and the mailboxes and the cops and the batplane and delighted in the tops and sides of a gorgeous fireworks display. We all cheered and hooted and hugged and kissed and joked.
Kathleen passed the tart around, and I kept screaming, "Stop calling me that!" every time she offered, "Tart?"
Carol regaled us all with her non-PC rants about the proper revenge for 9/11. Let's just say it left the Sears building as the tallest in the world. Tommy flexed his newly developed biceps (swimming with resistance paddles or some such thing). Ed and Kathleen bonded over celebrity bathroom decor. Sandy explained exactly what "Mushy" means in her country. It was a fun group.
This, then, was the night, the first Fourth of July after September 11th, with good friends and lots of laughter amid the strangeness of it all.
I let my eyes stroke the perfect view of the red, white and blue Empire State building and then turned toward the hole in the sky that was the World Trade Center.
"The sky seems so empty over there," Carol said.
"Not to me," I thought to myself, because I see them still standing there. They flicker in and out like candlelight, but they're there.
They are always there.
Wednesday, June 19
Something's missing. I can't put my finger on it ...
Oddly, it hadn't occurred to me how much 9/11 has seeped into my very pores until I woke up yesterday morning after three days in Provincetown and realized what that odd, "I forgot something" feeling tugging at the bottom of my stomach was.
A complete lack of 9/11!
That is not to say that this fun, lazy, artsy, gay seaside summer community feels no remorse for September 11th ... quite the contrary. This is, after all, a town largely fed by city folks from New York and Boston. ... It's just that the gritty, in-your-face 9/11 reminders of downtown Manhattan are nowhere to be found.
I guess it really hadn't occurred to me how much these little daily reminders have flavored my life. The memorials of candles and dying flowers in front of the fire-stations, the mural of the towers and the remnants of Jesus candles on Avenue A and 13th Street, the corner I swing by on my way to the gym.
There are all the local businesses displaying "Remember Our Heroes"-type posters and the hawkers on 14th Street with their "ground zero" baseball hats.
My whole neighborhood is seasoned in September.
But not here.
No Provincetown is the last stop. The last piece of land before the ocean, the tip of the cape, the end of the road.
This is where you come to escape your life or to find a new one.
Everyone here is trying to forget something or find something.
There are people falling in love, even if it's just for one night.
There are people starting over, even if tomorrow they will start over again in another bar with a different beer on tap.
I've been coming here on and off for 10 years.
I've fallen in love and in lust here, buried loved ones here (well, in spirit, anyway), walked the beach along the harbor, watched the sunset over the breaking waves.
This is a town for new pains and the healing of old ones.
What better place to come with the spirits of 3,000 souls haunting you?
Perhaps I will bury them just before high tide.
There are no memorials here, no World Trade Center murals, no ground zero T-shirts, no Jesus candles filled with old rain water and flower petals.
But there are the distant sounds of gulls and whale boats sounding their horns and waves and heartbeats and many, many, broken hearts ... mending.
Slowly, slowly mending.
Wednesday, June 5
Life is full of ceremonies.
There are the obvious ones we all know about and often celebrate: graduations, weddings, the blowing out of candles.
Then come all the tiny ones, ceremonies so subtle we don't even know they've occurred until we look back.
I remember the last walk I took through the house I'd grown up in. It was emptied of all the clutter and mayhem my mom used to fill it with. It was empty of my mom. It wasn't really a home anymore so much as a shell.
I walked through every room, running my hand along the walls. I climbed the stairs and let my fingers trace the banister. Mostly I sat on the windowsill in my old bedroom. This room seemed shockingly small. Well, it was, maybe only 100 square feet at the most. Yet this tiny haven had been my salvation. For the seven years I lived there, it was the only place I could go to simply be myself. ... Whoever that was. How often
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