Monday, September 11, 2006
9/11/01
.....five years ago this very day....September 11th....I was on an early morning subway, around 8:30 or so, on my way downtown to 42nd Street where i was expected at a 9:00 am radio booking for a couple of "spots" for The NY Daily News...Peter was snug at home in bed, and his Mom, Patty , staying with us as she always does while she was in attendance at the United Nations Montessori Peace Conference, was in fact, at the UN by that time of the morning as well ,so she and I were both on the East Side Midtown....it was a pretty day, with blue skies and sunshine. When....
...on the crowded subway, commuters packed elbow to elbow, I heard a young business man say something to the people next to him, like, "Did you hear about that guy that flew his plane into the World Trade Center?" "When?, someone asked. "Just now, this morning" the first man answered...and someone made a joke about how blind the pilot of this supposedly private little plane must have been to have crashed into so obviously large a building....there were chuckles in the crowded car. And I thought " lucky it wasn't intentional...that would be bad."
A few others had also seen the news story on the tv before leaving home to board the subway cars....
By the time we got to 42nd Street, someone else had proposed that maybe it was intentional, not an accident...someone else had said "why would anyone want to do that?", etc...and floating in the air was the vague possibility that it could have been a small futile attack of some sad sort, but weren't we lucky that no one can really harm the USA??? Stuff like that...it was already a weird vibe in the air, however, as we all trudged our ways up to surface and hurried towards our various office buildings...weird feelings laced with laughter at the stupidity of the woe-begone pilot....
By the time i got to the Daily News Building on 42nd Street between Lexington and Third, word was pretty much around the street that it had been an intentional crash into the building though no one knew why...only that by the time we got into the building lobby, they had already set up checkpoints to check ID's before we could even get on an elevator...that was weird...i had never had to do that before.
By the time I got to the floor where I was to record the commercials, news was bad. And tv's were turned on all over the news room...clearly something awful was happening,because the World Trade Center Building was in sad shape and in fact looked like it maybe could fall...and then the 2nd plane crashed into the 2nd building, and our world was never the same afterwards...our session never did get started...we watched as the first tower crumpled to the ground...i got sick to my stomach...and finally said to all who were stunned and silent...."I gotta go home now..call me if the session is re-scheduled".. (which it eventually was)...i was sadder than I can ever recall being, out in public at least...a sad sick sadness, gently pervaded my whole body...it seemed to be happening to someone else.
The vision on the newsroom television of that building crumbling like so much waste paper...i remember thinking how I had been watching too much television and that it was actually happening in the city I was walking in...not a camera trick but real..I did not even think of the people burning alive in it yet...or the people flying out the windows to save themselves...flying through the air on fire...i was fixed on the odd image of the building gracefully floating through time and air to reach its hard final place....lots of papers seemed to float with it...and we all saw it....small airplane...large building...
I went down in the elevator, alone....through the lobby with its slow moving line of ID- checked folks who new little of what was happening....i had already seen an image of it...they had not...I knew the ending of the movie they were about to see...and i went out onto 42nd Street...I had tried to call Peter from the newsroom but was unable to get a call through the busy and frantic lines...i had tried to call Paul too...no luck...i have a vague memory of Peter reaching me somehow and of my telling him i would be home as soon as I could...i may be making that up...
I walked West on 42nd Street, not being absolutely sure that other buildings would not begin falling around me...people had begun to park their cars by the curbs and opening their doors, with their radios turned on full blast listening to the news as it was happening...the street was one long radio broadcast...people's legs sticking out of the cars, resting on the curbs...listening...something about the Pentagon under attack, etc..I kept walking West...
All the way to Times Square...where tens of thousands of people had to come to a complete and utter standstill, all cars stock still , all busses with their doors open, empty standing in the Square...people as far as the eye could see...a carpet of humanity...still, quiet with faces all upturned to the news ribbon flashing around #1 Times Square...looking at the news of what was going on mere blocks away, downtown of where we all stood...we could smell smoke and see ash as it floated gently north...there wasn't much of it, but there it was...and we all stood there...they looked up...I looked at the people, sure that i would never see another sight like it in my lifetime: Times Square at a quiet standstill. People looked stricken. Scared. Sad. Angry. Expectant. Stunned. I just looked at the empty busses and the thousands of people. Looking up, not at God, but at the news. At that moment, news was God. And we looked up for answers. The business men in their expensive suits looked so helpless.
I resumed walking. Word was spreading that all subways were at a standstill, and there were no cabs that felt like running either, so I knew I would have to walk home. I still could not call through on my cell, and as I walked I heard about how the World Trade Center was receptacle of so many of the City's cell phone towers,etc...there were many of us who were walking....and we walked North...I bought a huge bottle of water and kept walking....up 8th Avenue, I walked...up and up...or was it 9th? I think 9th...seemed better odds at maybe getting a cab over there...but there were none...only people parked and listening to their car radios...we were all in this odd movie...I walked and walked...finally called through to Paul and to Peter...told them I was on the way...Peter was sitting in our living room, in his underwear and tee shirt, watching everything the tv had to offer about what was going on in our world as it crumbled. He had not heard from his momma. (Nobody on the streets was really talking much to each other at all.)
I was worried about her. We were all worried about each other...get home..that was the main thing to do...get home...and so finally, after catching and sharing a cab with like 5 other people, I did get home....and the vigil began...the vigil and the cooking.
Everyone cooked. Cooking seemed to matter...Food to comfort and to keep us safe.
Peter's Mom as it happened, was kept securely under lock and key at the UN Building, as officials made sure they were all safe...they were evacuated from the building...and pretty immediately started walking DOWNTOWN! To see if she could help...she went with her colleagues down to Union Square to see if there was any way to help people stumbling up from the Trade Center...like so many emergency rooms in the city, everyone wanted to help! But it soon became tragically clear that human bodies were being incinerated and pulverized, leaving very few whole humans to actually give any help or aid to....the ones who needed the help were the people wandering around and waiting to see if their loved ones had any hope of escaping the two flaming towers alive...so few did actually get out alive. SO many died. Such sad waste and evil loss. But Patty stayed out ,and down at the Union Square as long as she could, just in case.
Our apartment became the gsthering place for our friends,and we all huddled together and watched and listened. Paul and Steve came over and cooked and Peter cooked and i cooked and when she got home Patty cooked...we listened. We understood. We heard of the brave people on the airplanes who tried to stop further tragic things from happening...of the men and women who phoned home to say "I love you" one last time to those who knew they were losing their loved ones even as they spoke to them, and we wept with them. Walking out onto West End Avenue at one point during the otherise beautiful day, I was so deeply shocked to realize that the sky was still blue, and the sun still shone.....was that my imagination or was that ash in the air? All the way up at 103rd Street....mainly , it seemed as if nothing at all had occurred....it was time and space separating us from the tragedy of the world...Uptown from the fire and blood...blue sky protected us, it seemed. Nothing had truly reached us...we were only as close as our televisions let us be...but if we had gone a mere hundred blocks south....a few miles down the road...and, you know what? I never did.
I left town to go to the Barter for 3 years and never did visit Ground Zero...could not even bear the thought of it. Did not want to see it. Until I came home and saw it all cleaned up and ready to rebuild...I still cried like it was yesterday.
This morning in my Scene Study Class, I put the students through a relaxation meditation and asked them to put themselves at Ground Zero on the day five years ago...I needed them to feel it...and they did. I made the connection between the sort of hate that produces that kind of human destruction and pain, and the love they have to cultivate in order to be the most powerful and generous sort of artist . I asked them to go through their day today and chart their feelings of anger and love. See how they felt and manifested both. I honored to day in the only way i knew how to: pass it on to the young ones who may be able to make a difference, and I hope they do.
...on the crowded subway, commuters packed elbow to elbow, I heard a young business man say something to the people next to him, like, "Did you hear about that guy that flew his plane into the World Trade Center?" "When?, someone asked. "Just now, this morning" the first man answered...and someone made a joke about how blind the pilot of this supposedly private little plane must have been to have crashed into so obviously large a building....there were chuckles in the crowded car. And I thought " lucky it wasn't intentional...that would be bad."
A few others had also seen the news story on the tv before leaving home to board the subway cars....
By the time we got to 42nd Street, someone else had proposed that maybe it was intentional, not an accident...someone else had said "why would anyone want to do that?", etc...and floating in the air was the vague possibility that it could have been a small futile attack of some sad sort, but weren't we lucky that no one can really harm the USA??? Stuff like that...it was already a weird vibe in the air, however, as we all trudged our ways up to surface and hurried towards our various office buildings...weird feelings laced with laughter at the stupidity of the woe-begone pilot....
By the time i got to the Daily News Building on 42nd Street between Lexington and Third, word was pretty much around the street that it had been an intentional crash into the building though no one knew why...only that by the time we got into the building lobby, they had already set up checkpoints to check ID's before we could even get on an elevator...that was weird...i had never had to do that before.
By the time I got to the floor where I was to record the commercials, news was bad. And tv's were turned on all over the news room...clearly something awful was happening,because the World Trade Center Building was in sad shape and in fact looked like it maybe could fall...and then the 2nd plane crashed into the 2nd building, and our world was never the same afterwards...our session never did get started...we watched as the first tower crumpled to the ground...i got sick to my stomach...and finally said to all who were stunned and silent...."I gotta go home now..call me if the session is re-scheduled".. (which it eventually was)...i was sadder than I can ever recall being, out in public at least...a sad sick sadness, gently pervaded my whole body...it seemed to be happening to someone else.
The vision on the newsroom television of that building crumbling like so much waste paper...i remember thinking how I had been watching too much television and that it was actually happening in the city I was walking in...not a camera trick but real..I did not even think of the people burning alive in it yet...or the people flying out the windows to save themselves...flying through the air on fire...i was fixed on the odd image of the building gracefully floating through time and air to reach its hard final place....lots of papers seemed to float with it...and we all saw it....small airplane...large building...
I went down in the elevator, alone....through the lobby with its slow moving line of ID- checked folks who new little of what was happening....i had already seen an image of it...they had not...I knew the ending of the movie they were about to see...and i went out onto 42nd Street...I had tried to call Peter from the newsroom but was unable to get a call through the busy and frantic lines...i had tried to call Paul too...no luck...i have a vague memory of Peter reaching me somehow and of my telling him i would be home as soon as I could...i may be making that up...
I walked West on 42nd Street, not being absolutely sure that other buildings would not begin falling around me...people had begun to park their cars by the curbs and opening their doors, with their radios turned on full blast listening to the news as it was happening...the street was one long radio broadcast...people's legs sticking out of the cars, resting on the curbs...listening...something about the Pentagon under attack, etc..I kept walking West...
All the way to Times Square...where tens of thousands of people had to come to a complete and utter standstill, all cars stock still , all busses with their doors open, empty standing in the Square...people as far as the eye could see...a carpet of humanity...still, quiet with faces all upturned to the news ribbon flashing around #1 Times Square...looking at the news of what was going on mere blocks away, downtown of where we all stood...we could smell smoke and see ash as it floated gently north...there wasn't much of it, but there it was...and we all stood there...they looked up...I looked at the people, sure that i would never see another sight like it in my lifetime: Times Square at a quiet standstill. People looked stricken. Scared. Sad. Angry. Expectant. Stunned. I just looked at the empty busses and the thousands of people. Looking up, not at God, but at the news. At that moment, news was God. And we looked up for answers. The business men in their expensive suits looked so helpless.
I resumed walking. Word was spreading that all subways were at a standstill, and there were no cabs that felt like running either, so I knew I would have to walk home. I still could not call through on my cell, and as I walked I heard about how the World Trade Center was receptacle of so many of the City's cell phone towers,etc...there were many of us who were walking....and we walked North...I bought a huge bottle of water and kept walking....up 8th Avenue, I walked...up and up...or was it 9th? I think 9th...seemed better odds at maybe getting a cab over there...but there were none...only people parked and listening to their car radios...we were all in this odd movie...I walked and walked...finally called through to Paul and to Peter...told them I was on the way...Peter was sitting in our living room, in his underwear and tee shirt, watching everything the tv had to offer about what was going on in our world as it crumbled. He had not heard from his momma. (Nobody on the streets was really talking much to each other at all.)
I was worried about her. We were all worried about each other...get home..that was the main thing to do...get home...and so finally, after catching and sharing a cab with like 5 other people, I did get home....and the vigil began...the vigil and the cooking.
Everyone cooked. Cooking seemed to matter...Food to comfort and to keep us safe.
Peter's Mom as it happened, was kept securely under lock and key at the UN Building, as officials made sure they were all safe...they were evacuated from the building...and pretty immediately started walking DOWNTOWN! To see if she could help...she went with her colleagues down to Union Square to see if there was any way to help people stumbling up from the Trade Center...like so many emergency rooms in the city, everyone wanted to help! But it soon became tragically clear that human bodies were being incinerated and pulverized, leaving very few whole humans to actually give any help or aid to....the ones who needed the help were the people wandering around and waiting to see if their loved ones had any hope of escaping the two flaming towers alive...so few did actually get out alive. SO many died. Such sad waste and evil loss. But Patty stayed out ,and down at the Union Square as long as she could, just in case.
Our apartment became the gsthering place for our friends,and we all huddled together and watched and listened. Paul and Steve came over and cooked and Peter cooked and i cooked and when she got home Patty cooked...we listened. We understood. We heard of the brave people on the airplanes who tried to stop further tragic things from happening...of the men and women who phoned home to say "I love you" one last time to those who knew they were losing their loved ones even as they spoke to them, and we wept with them. Walking out onto West End Avenue at one point during the otherise beautiful day, I was so deeply shocked to realize that the sky was still blue, and the sun still shone.....was that my imagination or was that ash in the air? All the way up at 103rd Street....mainly , it seemed as if nothing at all had occurred....it was time and space separating us from the tragedy of the world...Uptown from the fire and blood...blue sky protected us, it seemed. Nothing had truly reached us...we were only as close as our televisions let us be...but if we had gone a mere hundred blocks south....a few miles down the road...and, you know what? I never did.
I left town to go to the Barter for 3 years and never did visit Ground Zero...could not even bear the thought of it. Did not want to see it. Until I came home and saw it all cleaned up and ready to rebuild...I still cried like it was yesterday.
This morning in my Scene Study Class, I put the students through a relaxation meditation and asked them to put themselves at Ground Zero on the day five years ago...I needed them to feel it...and they did. I made the connection between the sort of hate that produces that kind of human destruction and pain, and the love they have to cultivate in order to be the most powerful and generous sort of artist . I asked them to go through their day today and chart their feelings of anger and love. See how they felt and manifested both. I honored to day in the only way i knew how to: pass it on to the young ones who may be able to make a difference, and I hope they do.
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