The Light of Memory

Naturally, there could be only one thing on the minds of every New Yorker yesterday. On that day five years ago, the nation underwent what was undoubtedly the biggest shock it had ever received, and New York City took the brunt of the damage. We all remember where we were. I was in bed, trying to enjoy my last two days of sleep before my first trip to New York in my entire life. I was supposed to be starting school at Word of Life in Schroon Lake on the 14th. Of course, my plane did not leave on the 13th. I was fortunate to get out on the 14th. It was so strange for my introduction to the state to happen when it was so shell-shocked. I don't think September 11th can be fully credited for my conversion to a full-fledged I Heart NY-er, but it played an integral part, because I don't know that I would have felt such a visceral connection to it if not for the brokenness I saw everywhere.

My first trip to the city occurred on October 23rd, six weeks after the disaster. In the air was the smell of substances that were never meant to catch fire burning. Ground Zero was all twisted steel and smoke, still a mess even so many weeks later. The thing I remember most is the receptivity of people. It was a brand new New York, one that didn't exactly last, but one that for a time was actually open to someone else's ideas, instead of padlocked inside an isolation booth with its own. I guess something inside me knew that maybe they would never be this outwardly vulnerable again, so I was being given the gift of sight into what was normally carefully covered up. I've never been the same.

Some say that New York, and America, has created a sort of "grief culture" around September 11th. It's the best explanation for why Ground Zero remains a construction site five years after the fact. We love our grief, splash around in it, throw it up onto the walls in angry colors and gut-wrenching words. We want the world to know just how wounded and scarred we are. In a sense, this is probably the most pathetic, narcissistic reaction we could have to a tragedy like this. For one thing, the toll taken by Hurricane Katrina last August was only slightly less traumatic. Fewer deaths, but becuase of that, far more people who are still homeless now. For another thing, attacks like this one happen in less powerful, less visible countries all the time. People in the Middle East almost expect to hear of a bombing when they go to work each day. The reason why September 11th was such a jolt for us is because we thought we were invincible. We thought no one could touch us, and finding out we were wrong gave this event a great deal more impact than it would have otherwise.

Don't get me wrong. I was affected more than almost anyone around me by the event, mostly because of my time in New York, and the fact that I couldn't get it out of my heart years later no matter what else I tried to convince myself I was supposed to do with my life. So I'm not knocking the reaction. I'm simply trying to put it in perspective.

It's hard to say whether New York is eternally changed. In a sense, we all live in a little bit more fear than we did on September 10th, 2001. In another sense, when I returned in April of '02, most of what I saw was business as usual. Tom Wolfe takes a tongue-in-cheek jab at the irresistible sameness of New York City: "[If 9/11 hadn't happened, t]he New York real estate market would have become so hot, hot, hot that by now developers would be converting grand old hotels such as the Westbury, the Stanhope, the Mayfair, perhaps even the Plaza, into condominium apartments selling for $10 million and up. By now a socialite would be any young woman who has appeared in three or more party pictures taken by Patrick McMullan for any of a dozen or so fat party-picture magazines. A local music genre called hip-hop, created by black homeboys in the South Bronx, would have swept the country, topping the charts and creating a hip-hop look featuring baggy jeans with the crotch hanging down the knees that would have spread far and wide among white teenagers - awed, stunned, as they were, by the hip-hop musicians' new form of competition - assassinating each other periodically. How cool would that have been? Two historic pillars of the New York economy - shipping and garment manufacturing - would have vanished by now. There would be 40 empty piers on the Hudson River, and the only shipping would be an intrepid but decrepit air craft carrier welded to a dock and turned into a museum. Meanwhile, a little known Asian country called Bangladesh would be manufacturing more clothes for the American market than Manhattan's West Twenties, West Thirties, and Chinatown put together. Latins today would make up 40 percent of the city's public school population, easily outnumbering black students (35 percent), while the white component would have declined still further (15 percent). The big news, however, would be the surge in the number of Asian students, which might have rocketed upward by as much as 10 percent a year. The city would have had two Republican mayors in a row for the first time in modern history. There are no silver linings in 9/11, and it is no consolation to say that at least we didn't wind up with a senseless, baffling, flotsam city like that."

The joke is, of course, that we did wind up with that city, and if none of the above resonated with you because you've never lived here or been here, trust me, it's all true. So who's to say? The politicians, the economists, the pulpit-pounders, and clearly even the literary have an opinion on whether New York is at all the same or different from what it was five years and two days ago. Not being a big believer in hypotheticals myself, all I can say is that one thing would probably be different - I doubt that I would be here. In addition to that, I can only add the following pair of anecdotes - yesterday while on the train, a woman holding a baby was trying to sit down when the train lurched. She stumbled and another woman held her arm out to steady the first. The woman with the baby thanked her and commented, "It takes a village." I felt proud to be part of the village that is New York City. Then, while on the Brooklyn Bridge, I was walking on the yellow line that separates the foot path from the bike path. People insist on walking about six wide everywhere you go in New York, so I wasn't really able to move over any further. Some guy came tearing by on his bike (I mean, it was a bridge, not a track) and yelled "Get out of the bike lane!" I took back some of those prideful feelings. And so maybe that's New York - every bit as full of hidden heroes and self-absorbed egotists as always. Love it or leave it, it's pretty much here to stay.

As such, I thought it necessary to pay my respects yesterday. I actually thought about it less during the day than I normally do because I'm so busy when I'm at school. But after school, I took a trip to the site. Visiting Ground Zero yesterday was no different from visiting it any other day. It is, like I said, a construction site. New York is actually getting kind of ticked off by that fact. I think there was a memorial there yesterday morning with the victims' families, but of course I couldn't be there. There's really nothing to see, and it's kind of funny/strange/depressing to see a thousand people crowded around the fences peering into a pit of cement. Supposedly we're supposed to have our long-awaited memorial - a gorgeous-looking (but slightly pretentious) and purportedly "terrorist safe" glass structure called the Freedom Tower and topping out at 1776 feet (not by accident) - in 2010. I think I can speak for the city when I say, I'll believe it when I see it.

Far more poignant was the Tribute in Light, the two giant blue searchlights projected into the sky near Ground Zero yesterday. This tribute is a holdover from the early memorial efforts back in the spring of '02. It's pretty spectacular from almost any angle, and I saw it from all those angles. I took the train into Brooklyn and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, which gives the most amazing view of the skyline on any night. It was even more incredible with the lights behind the buildings. Then I rode the Staten Island Ferry, which is a great way to view Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. The lights were so tall that it wasn't until we were almost docked in St. George that I could see where they vanished into the sky. Then I got home and realized that I could actually see the lights from my apartment. Since we're on the fifth floor and the building behind us is slightly shorter, the horizon is pretty distant. Not distant enough to see any buildings past, say, 125th, but I could see the tip-top of those lights reflecting off the clouds. It's pretty incredible to think that five years ago I barely knew anything about the city, and now I'm living in an apartment that has a view of the lights memorializing the towers that fell, bringing me here, however indirectly.

I still can't guess exactly why I'm here, but I think I'm supposed to stop trying. It's enough to be here, to breathe the air of this city that is more inside my bones than ever. I don't know if I would love it so much without September 11th, but that's really immaterial. The bottom line is that being a part of it now is the greatest privilege I can imagine, and I'd much rather have to get up at 5:30 on September 12th knowing that I have to go to work because I'm an actual tax-paying voting citizen of the city now, rather than buy the Times and sit in my apartment in the south, wishing I was.

Song In My Head: "New York" - The Kry

New York
My heart's been breaking for you
Since the day your towers all came tumbling down
And now the wind is blowing cold like in the winter
But I want you to know you're not alone

New York
My soul is praying for your sons and your daughters
Aching for the ones they love
And now the night is getting darker
And it seems that hope is gone
But hope is not gone

Lift up your eyes to the heavens
That's where your help comes from
Open your hearts to the Maker
He wants to make your heart His home

And when He makes His home in you
He'll chase away the tears you knew
He knows your name
He knows your pain
And with His hands He'll carry you
After all is said and done
You'll shine much brighter than the sun
So lift your eyes up to the skies
For God has shed His grace on you

New York
New York
New York
New York

New York
The world is grieving with you
And on that day it's like we became one of you
And from afar it was so painful just to see
We confess we're short of words

(I started to think, and I started praying and I said, "Lord, I come before You and I pray for those who are hurting, those who are crying, those who are grieving, who do not understand what is going. Lord, bring healing to this nation. Bring healing to New York, to every individual, Lord. We pray and we claim this victory in Your name, Jesus.")

New York
I know tomorrow may seem bleak
But God will show that His tender mercies never cease
Through the years He wants to lead you to believe
That He still cares
New York

So lift up your eyes to heavens
That's where your help comes from
Open your hearts to the Maker
He wants to make your heart His home

When He makes His home in you
He'll chase away the fears you knew
He knows your name
He knows your pain
And with His hands He'll carry you
After all is said and done
You'll shine much brighter than the sun
So lift your eyes up to the skies
For God has shed His grace on you

New York
New York
New York
New York

New York
The world is grieving with you