911
Over on J's desk, I have set up my shrine.
Two candlesticks, two white candles. Lit at dusk, to burn until they are no more.
I lit them, and tried to meditate over them. I thought, I emptied, I opened my mind, I concentrated… nothing worked. I realized there were two things, though, that were appropriate and necessary.
- I needed a photograph of this impromptu shrine, and
- I needed to talk.
So I did. I took a few pictures, sat down at the desk again, and focused. And then, as though they were a pair of conjured spirits, burning before me, I talked to them.
I thanked them for the good times. The amazing meetings. The staggeringly massive presence you felt walking through the underground mall, realizing this was the nexus of American commerce. The pretty corporate offices. The horrid sushi that I got one time as treat for myself while killing time (from that one fast food sushi place, you know the one, right by the corridor to the A/C/E) and could barely bring myself to eat in the end. The duty station. The times I got to say hi to Rudy, shake his hand, watch him buzz through in a whirlwhind of media and assistants. The time I spent waiting for a Y2K disaster that never happened. The time I spent waiting for a hurricane that veered just shy of us in the end.
And then I apologized. For not being there when they needed me. For not being at my post on the 23rd floor of 7 WTC by 9:30 that morning.
And then I realized, sadly, that there was nothing I could have done about it. FDNY still had primary comm before the towers fell; my presence would not have saved any brave lives, nor fine lives, nor any of the "second-class" Port Authority officers. I would have been down there, likely sacrificing my life (imagine me with a few lungfulls of tower dust and smoke), and it really wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference. There were other people who ran radio traffic, other people who set up comm nets, other people who fulfilled Red Cross liaison duties. NDMS in NYC didn't dispatch; they were the ones calling for help, requesting DMATs, furiously trying to staunch the river of blood that was flowing from the southern tip. One which St. Vincents, while thorougly overtaxed, handled well.
And so I apologized again. I've been carrying survivor guilt for a year now; it was my City, the place that I damn well made it on my own, fuck all what anyone else thought, claimed, or said, and now I had abandoned it in its hour of need, not being there to do precisely what I was trained to do, what I was registered to do, what I was really good at doing. I felt the burn of not being there with every TV special, with every newscast, with every email from Bruce or Bilmo or even Stinky. But I realized that, ultimately, it wasn't my turn. It wasn't the right time for me to shine, to do what I do best, even to go out in a blaze of glory — the true swan song. And so I told them that it wasn't my time, there was something else waiting for me, and that everything that needed to be done was done by other people, and it didn't need me, didn't uniquely need me. I was a cog that was replaceable, and a year earlier, less one day, I had been replaced. And it was time to make my peace and say that it was okay.
Because the thing underneath it all is this:
I feel left out.
I was part of the City. I wore that fact, as Denis Leary said, like a fucking badge. I was proud to be able to joke, to tell stories, to talk about my cosmopolitan ways. I was proud, proud of my Lincoln Center apartment, proud of my Central Park view, proud of my job in the heart and soul of the economic center of America. Proud to dine at places like Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park, places that you'd see on Sex in the City or such. I was proud that going to the Shostakovich String Quartets, where I'd bump into Wallace Shawn in the bathroom, was just another evening activity for me. I was part of It. Sure, I wasn't one of the Beautiful People, but I was sure as hell a burgeoning member of the Cultural Elite, spending money on art museum memberships, benefits, fancy dining, art films, classical concerts, drunking effete beers and rarefied scotches at dba. I was Making It, New York style, in New York City. Me. The geek with the lousy heart. My doorman got my packages and Fairway delivered my groceries.
(Jesus, the more I write this, the more I realize I had Bought In, in such a major way, in a way I had never even realized.)
And then September 11, 2001 happened, and the definition of a New Yorker changed, in four disasterous instants that lasted forever.
And suddenly, I was a Phoenician.
No longer was I the tough guy who took 3 AM subways and buses because I needed to get home, dammit, I work in 6 hours. No longer was I the guy who had a thousand stories about midtown and quirky things that happened there.
Nope. Now I was a guy who remembered "the way it used to be, back when I lived there." And now I was a guy who lived in Arizona. A fresh recruit, new enough to hate snowbirds but nowhere near old enough to remember everything north of Indian Bend Road as pristine desert.
And I hated that. I loathed it. I wanted more than anything to have the powerful moniker of New Yorker back, the guy who made New Media dough and spent like a New Media bachelor or Yuppie2K DINKer.
And so that rebounded in my head, wrapped around a neurosis and a regret and a history of searing burning disappointment, denial, and rejection, and *poof* I was a guy with classic survivor guilt. I was Left Out. Society had just evolved, changed, and I hadn't moved. In 2000 I was a New Yorker. The 21st century came, things Happened, and suddenly in 2001 I was a Phoenician, and there's fuck all I can do about it.
So, my spirits of the towers burn away, over on the desk. And finally, in some small way, having read all the wonderful stuff that Bruce and Virelai have written, having had hour after hour of conversation, after having explained and thought and analyzed and scrutinized and bled, I realize that it's finally time to put some of this behind me.
In 20 minutes, it will no longer be September 11 in New York City.
In 20 minutes, my life will still be my own.
It's time to reclaim that which I lost, not just a year ago, but before that as well. Time to take back a piece of my identity, and time to remold it and make it a vibrant part of my present — not just some framed picture from the past.
My life flows on in endless song above Earth's lamentation;
I hear the real tho' far off hymn that hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife I hear that music ringing;
It sounds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?
