Rain showed up in New York City last night, and then Fall came in right behind it. It rained hard this morning, as it had all through the night, and it took me back in a way to Monday, when it also rained like this. The rain cleared up in the early afternoon, but the front that brought the rain left an Autumnal chill in the air. I could have used a light jacket on the way home this evening
It was probably just part of my grieving process, but I just couldn't get up for going into work this morning. I went, but I took my time doing it, making a few stops on the way, and then because of some unanticipated commuting mishaps I ended up setting another personal record today for length (of time) of commute.
My detour took me first to Union Square, which is right at 14th street where Broadway and Park Avenue intersect as they make their runs downtown (well, actually Park ends at Union Square, but this isn't a geography lesson). I went over here because I had seen on the news that one of the makeshift memorials had spontaneously sprouted on the South plaza. What I found was a circle of candles, about 50 feet in diameter, interspersed among a blanket of the missing person flyers that are now papering this end of Manhattan in simple tribute to the personal grief of tens of thousands of my fellow New Yorkers.
Gathered around this memorial was a collection of silent mourners, mostly college kids because this is just North of New York University, there were a couple of TV Cameraman milling around, one reporter was interviewing a very eloquent Department of Sanitation worker (yes, a garbage man) who was relating that the toughest thing was not going insane with grief--putting one foot in front of the other, doing your job and taking care of your family.
I spent some time looking at the flyers and I am certain that a few of these faces belonged to people I had seen around town, in bars and restaurants, roller-blading around the park, or in line at the grocery store. The most striking thing about the flyers is that the photos people used to design them aren't sterile school pictures or posed publicity shots, they are candid photos taken from parties and vacations.
In almost every case you can imagine that the person who snapped the picture was someone that the person in the picture dearly loved--you can see it in their expressions--their faces are full of joy, laughter, intimacy and kindness. These images of missing, probably dead, loved ones are being shared with all of us showing these now lost New Yorkers in the relaxed posture one assumes in good times with good friends and family. You just want to reach into the photo and shake a hand, slap a shoulder or peck a cheek. If you ignore the pleas underneath for any shred of information about their whereabouts and/or safety, it really resembles a huge family photo album showing off the pictures from the last couple of vacations and parties.
I spent some time considering the enormity of what is really a minuscule part of what we have all lost, then I began a walk uptown to just spend some quiet time with my City and the people that inhabit it. I just wanted to walk up Park Avenue South and feel the City as it used to be, dodging hand-trucks of produce company deliveries and the artful ballet of bicycle messengers. Everything seemed almost normal, except when I reached the Calvary Church at 20th street I noticed a steady stream of people going in for a noon memorial service. This is an unusual sight for a Friday morning.
I kept going north and got to my usual commuter bus stop, right where this particular narrative journey began on Tuesday morning, and boarded the same bus line that I was on when it all happened on Tuesday. I put on the same headphones connected to the same radio tuned to the same radio station that delivered the news to me.
On the air was a broadcast of the memorial service at the National Cathedral, and I listened to Billy Graham deliver a sermon to a mourning nation while the bus covered the very same ground that I was on when this all happened three days before. My God, how much has changed in three days. I have changed, you have changed, this City is forever different, as is the nation and the world. In the midst of all that, the view out the window of the bus is the same living tapestry of City life that I have watched and absorbed for the 21 months that I have lived here. It was on odd contrast of familiar feelings with the brand new concerns--a truly lost innocence.
New York City is starting to get a sense of itself and climb back up on it's feet, but still there are reminders everywhere that the world as we knew it ended three days before. Third Avenue was closed off at 92nd street for some odd reason and this put the bus in one of the legendary traffic jams that only a place like this can produce. We moved about a block about every ten minutes until we got to the blockade, and for some reason they were diverting all traffic except for buses. We were waved through, and I travelled up through the housing projects of East Harlem, as I am accustomed to, except minus the bustle of morning traffic that usually accompanies this part of my journey. There were police officers everywhere and I can only conclude that one of the many bomb threats that were being called in these days was being investigated in this area of town.
I got to work and for another day I was unable to accomplish much outside of answering questions and solving acute problems. I still have the same stack of work to do on my projects that I had on Tuesday morning, I was more into the swing of work than I had been all week, I hope over the weekend I can get the rest of my momentum back.
On the trip home, fortunately the subway lines that were closed yesterday had been reopened and the commute home was both odd and comforting in it's familiarity. There were American flags everywhere, apparently flag bandanas had been a big seller in the City, many people sported them as headbands, kerchiefs, and makeshift hats. People were chatting with each other on the train, and there were fewer blank stares and wistful glances. It's clear that people still hurt, but the strength of the people of this City is breaking through the gloom much like the sun broke through the rain clouds away this afternoon. The ordinary is inspirational these days, and the inspirational is almost ordinary.
Many people have written me to tell me that these e-mails are being forwarded around their groups of friends and colleagues, even some schoolchildren are sharing this journey with us all. A few very kind people have suggested I publish them or use them as a springboard to a career as a writer. I deeply appreciate the thought, but I am nothing more special, and the sentiments are no more unique than millions of similar stories being told by my fellow New Yorkers all over this beloved City.
This event is being called an attack on America, but I want everyone to consider that in the future we will learn that people from many different countries on this planet perished in the World Trade center on Tuesday. This was not only an attack on America, it was an attack on humanity and on civilization. The perpetrators are being called Islamic militants, but they are no more Islamic than Tim McVeigh was Christian. The Koran does not preach terrorism. In fact, suicide and the taking of innocent life is as much a sin for Muslims as it is for Christians. These men had no religion, they proved that on Tuesday morning.
How we react is going to say much more about us than it will say about what they have done. I am going to bring these daily narratives to a close with this one, as I have as much need to get on with my life as everyone else. I welcome you all to continue to email me if you need to share something, even those who are being forwarded these e-mails who don't know me. If something happens that is particularly worthy of comment I will do so. I just need the evenings I am spending composing these e-mails back in my life now, it's time for me to get back to some sense of normalcy.
I would like to leave you all with a poem to read and ponder. It is an adaptation, written for this tragedy, from a poem written by Thich Nhat Hanh called "Call me by my true name." I have also copied the introduction from the website from which it is taken--www.beliefnet.org--I hope it brings you some of the comfort it brought me. Thank you for reading and letting me share what I can barely put into words, God Bless us all.
After much soul searching, New York journalists Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat found themselves repeatedly returning to the spiritual practices of compassion, connections, and unity conveyed so beautifully in Thich Nhat Hanh's classic poem "Call Me By My True Names."
This Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist refuses to divide the world into easily identifiable victims and villains. With powerful prose and vivid imagery, he reaches out to take into his heart all those who are suffering — the innocent and the violent, the powerful and the powerless, the oppressed and the oppressors. In "Call Me by My True Names," he practices radical empathy as he identifies with a frog and the snake that eats it, then with a starving child in Uganda and the arms merchant who sells deadly weapons to Uganda. In a very poignant passage, he describes himself as a 12-year-old girl raped by a sea pirate and as the pirate whose "heart [is] not yet capable of seeing and loving."
No one, Thich Nhat Hanh demonstrates in this poem, can be excluded from our thoughts and prayers. Even elements of the natural world and things are to be cherished as recipients of our compassion. Even the perpetrators of horrible violence are part of the many names we call ourselves. "Please call me by my true names," he pleads, "so I can see that my joy and pain are one . . . and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion."
Here we offer a new poem, based on his classic.
I am a World Trade Center tower, standing tall in the clear blue sky, feeling a violent blow in my side, and
I am a towering inferno of pain and suffering imploding upon myself and collapsing to the ground.
May I rest in peace.
I am a terrified passenger on a hijacked airplane not knowing where we are going or that I am riding on fuel tanks that will be instruments of death, and
I am a worker arriving at my office not knowing that in just a moment my future will be obliterated.
May I rest in peace.
I am a pigeon in the plaza between the two towers eating crumbs from someone's breakfast when fire rains down on me from the skies, and
I am a bed of flowers admired daily by thousands of tourists now buried under five stories of rubble.
May I rest in peace.
I am a firefighter sent into dark corridors of smoke and debris on a mission of mercy only to have it collapse around me, and
I am a rescue worker risking my life to save lives who is very aware that I may not make it out alive.
May I rest in peace.
I am a survivor who has fled down the stairs and out of the building to safety who knows that nothing will ever be the same in my soul again, and
I am a doctor in a hospital treating patients burned from head to toe who knows that these horrible images will remain in my mind forever. >
May I know peace.
I am a tourist in Times Square looking up at the giant TV screens thinking I'm seeing a disaster movie as I watch the Twin Towers crash to the ground, and
I am a New York woman sending e-mails to friends and family letting them know that I am safe.
May I know peace.
I am a piece of paper that was on someone's desk this morning and now I'm debris scattered by the wind across lower Manhattan, and
I am a stone in the graveyard at Trinity Church covered with soot from the buildings that once stood proudly above me, death meeting death.
May I rest in peace.
I am a dog sniffing in the rubble for signs of life, doing my best to be of service, and
I am a blood donor waiting in line to make a simple but very needed contribution for the victims.
May I know peace.
I am a resident in an apartment in downtown New York who has been forced to evacuate my home, and
I am a resident in an apartment uptown who has walked 100 blocks home in a stream of other refugees.
May I know peace.
I am a family member who has just learned that someone I love has died, and
I am a pastor who must comfort someone who has suffered a heart-breaking loss.
May I know peace.
I am a loyal American who feels violated and vows to stand behind any military action it takes to wipe terrorists off the face of the earth, and
I am a loyal American who feels violated and worries that people who look and sound like me are all going to be blamed for this tragedy.
May I know peace.
I am a frightened city dweller who wonders whether I'll ever feel safe in a skyscraper again, and
I am a pilot who wonders whether there will ever be a way to make the skies truly safe.
May I know peace.
I am the owner of a small store with five employees that has been put out of business by this tragedy, and
I am an executive in a multinational corporation who is concerned about the cost of doing business in a terrorized world.
May I know peace.
I am a visitor to New York City who purchases postcards of the World Trade Center Twin Towers that are no more, and
I am a television reporter trying to put into words the terrible things I have seen.
May I know peace.
I am a boy in New Jersey waiting for a father who will never come home, and
I am a boy in a faraway country rejoicing in the streets of my village because someone has hurt the hated Americans.
May I know peace.
I am a general talking into the microphones about how we must stop the terrorist cowards who have perpetrated this heinous crime, and
I am an intelligence officer trying to discern how such a thing could have happened on American soil, and
I am a city official trying to find ways to alleviate the suffering of my people.
May I know peace.
I am a terrorist whose hatred for America knows no limit and I am willing to die to prove it, and
I am a terrorist sympathizer standing with all the enemies of American capitalism and imperialism, and
I am a master strategist for a terrorist group who planned this abomination.
My heart is not yet capable of openness, tolerance, and loving.
May I know peace.
I am a citizen of the world glued to my television set, fighting back my rage and despair at these horrible events, and
I am a person of faith struggling to forgive the unforgivable, praying for the consolation of those who have lost loved ones, calling upon the merciful beneficence of God/Yahweh/Allah/Spirit/Higher Power.
May I know peace.
I am a child of God who believes that we are all children of God and we are all part of each other.
May we all know peace.
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat