Last-ish Thoughts

I haven’t posted any last thoughts on the 9/11 anniversary, because I’ve had a very hard time settling on some. That’s not to say I don’t have any — I’ve written several drafts, and thought of more. But they seem either too negative or too unfocused. What do I want to say about this? What statement would be useful, for me or anyone else?

The bottom line, very generally, is this: when it comes to our response to 9/11, I don’t think we, overall, have done it very well. From the earliest days, when our national leaders were amazingly absent and only Rudy Giuliani seemed to have any concept of just diving in and doing what was needed, to this past Sunday, when the public was excluded and the organization around the site was simultaneously heavy-handed and utterly chaotic, this event and its ongoing aftermath seem to have become an excuse for emotional porn and jingoism more than anything else.

Betty Bowers, the fabulous satirist who bills herself as “America’s Best Christian,” had it right when she said, “Most of the media commemorations this week have been harrowing tales intended to evoke tears (emotional porn), which flatter the survivors with how much they feel, rather than honor the victims with how much they lost." When a friend shared this quote with me it made me realize how deeply I’d fallen into that trap, myself, and it helped me break free of it, for which I’m grateful.

I’ve always been pretty disgusted with the public discussion about rebuilding the site. By enfranchising so many discordant, uncollaborative, and deeply biased voices, the process has seemed to play on and enflame sentimentality over healing, and to look back at those who died in the Towers rather than allow any look forward to what would really benefit the city and the nation in coming generations.

The fact that the construction process is so hidden from public eye also seems like a huge failure — all people want to do is see into the site, see what’s going on there and try to square the new view with their memories of what it used to look like. But the construction walls shut us out utterly, and in the one public space (a pedestrian bridge over the West Side Highway) that allows a partial view of the Memorial, security guards yell at anyone leaning against the wall to take a photo and chase children away. Out on the all the streets surrounding the site, policemen yell at anyone who pauses to take a picture or try to see in, although there’s very little traffic to block and no obvious security concern. It all seems ridiculously secretive.

But having said that, I now officially lay off. I’m interested to see what the site develops into and how it looks when it’s finished. All those trees and that huge open space in the middle of such a dense urban area is definitively a good thing. And the pools and fountains do look impressive. At some point, the whole place will become normalized, just part of Manhattan’s layout, and the police will relax about it. So let’s wait and see.

Meanwhile, I can’t say the anniversary events gave me anything in particular. But I’m still extremely, unhesitatingly glad I went. I feel a sense of separation, if not exactly closure, and that is a good thing. The site has moved on. And so, much to my own surprise, can I.

Maybe someday I’ll have a better, clearer, wiser perspective about the experience of 9/11 and how it fits into the rest of the world. That hasn’t happened yet. But I’ve decided not to cling to it anymore.

Today

So… today was about remembering, not reliving. That was a good start. Phil and I overslept, but I wasn’t worried about that because I had a strong sense that trying to get anywhere near the site while all the official events were still going on was going to be both impossible and misery-inducing. So we went later. And that was fine.

Things did not start completely smoothly. When we left our hotel, we made a stop at Starbucks (excruciatingly slow, for some reason, but I’d had no access to coffee at all, so this was not optional) and then had a long, difficult time on the subway to get downtown. We got off at West 4^th Street, where my train got stopped on 9/11, and walked down, as I did then, to Tribeca and my old place of business from there.

I have to admit that, although the first moments of coming up out of the subway and seeing the Towers is burned into my memory, and although a few other moments from the trip are also clear and unforgettable, I don’t really remember most of it at all. I did remember the blocks south of Canal, but not from 9/11 itself. Those are the streets I walked for some days and weeks after, when the subway didn’t run any farther and we had to show ID and other paperwork to get through the checkpoints at Canal. In those days, that southern tip of Manhattan was spooky, like a post-apocalypse movie. There was no traffic on the streets except for the occasional emergency vehicle, and many of the buildings were empty. Businesses were closed and lots of the residents had evacuated.

Today there were plenty of people, mostly in groups and couples, as you’d imagine. And when we got down to Duane Street, where I worked, things began to feel more meaningful. I stood on the corner of Duane and Greenwich and took pictures. This is where I stood and watched the first tower fall. On following days, this is also where every news organization in the world would set up and broadcast their reports. Remember all those talking heads with the smoking site and seven-story pile of debris looming behind them? They were all shot on Greenwich Street, three doors down from my place of business, Real Pilates.

Things today went downhill after that. At first, we couldn’t get within three blocks of the site, and when some of the barricades eventually came down, we still couldn’t see much. For all the organization that was in evidence — police with wands manning barricades and checkpoints, paths and wayfinding for the families and others who’d been invited to the morning’s ceremonies — there was also remarkable chaos. The police didn’t seem to know what was happening, and nowhere was there any information about what places were accessible, how to get anywhere, or what would happen later.

And then, of course, there were the protest groups, which I go off about in a different post. Heavy sigh there.

The thing that was missing today was any sense of community. There’s more to say about that, but, again, it must wait for a longer post or no one will ever read this one. I’m glad we went, and I want to go again and try to see something of the actual plaza that’s at least partly there now. Those are the positive takeaways of today. But I also feel pretty completely excluded from the proceedings, which is what I’ve felt at most of the significant moments of the redesign and rebuilding process ever since 2001. That’s the more negative takeaway. But it does make me think that perhaps I need to let go of this place and this event to a greater extent, as it’s clearly let go of me. Sad, but perhaps, in the end, a happier choice. Stay tuned for updates.

The Great Bird of Disaster

The day is, as they say, fast approaching. In fact, it’s tomorrow. The weather’s not quite as good as it was in September ten years ago, but it’s good enough; this year, however, there are cops and military all over, watching for signs that someone might want to commemorate the 9/11 anniversary by destroying even more lives.

Phil and I saw a police barricade outside Times Square last night. I told him about the news I’d seen that two “credible informants” had passed word that terrorist organizations, including, possibly, al Queda, would be attempting an attack on Sunday. Law enforcement groups had zeroed in on two rental vans and were trying to find them all across the country. They suspected the vans might get packed with explosives and used as car bombs.

I made some flippant remark that coming to New York for this anniversary could get us blown up. But Phil pointed out we could get blown up anywhere, at any time. Or killed in an earthquake in our own deeply unstable city. Or suffer any of innumerable other terrible fates. He wasn’t being negative when he said this. He was just stating the simple truth, that life is not safe or predictable. It never has been, and, given our ‘round-the-clock drama fixation on CNN, MSNBC, and all the others, any belief that any of us is constitutionally exempt from such fates has become culpably naïve.

In a sense, this statement hearkens back to my own “we’ll never feel safe again,” moment as I watched the smoke and flames billow from the Towers. That was the death of my own innocence, I guess. But it does not indicate that doom and gloom are inescapable. Recognizing that there’s no ultimate safety is not the same as saying that tragedy is right around the corner.

You might think horror was inevitable, judging from what we see on the news and in our violence-loving entertainment. You might assume that nearly all of us will meet violent ends and that tragedy stalks every life. It doesn’t, and the fact that we could be the victims of some kind of horror doesn’t mean it’s likely that we will be. The world is a big place, and you and I are very small individuals. And the number of horrors that happen in any given lifetime is limited. There is no reason to think that something bad is going to happen to Phil and me, even here in New York on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. And there is every reason not to give in to fear.

I’ll be keeping my eyes open tomorrow morning, just as I do in every public place, when traveling, or anywhere I go. But I’ll still go where I want to go and do what I want to do, within reason. If the Great Bird of Disaster swoops down, well, I guess I’ll deal with that then, hoping to stay clearheaded and smart about how I do it. It’s worked so far.