This Moment: September 11, 2011 7:17 A.M.
I woke from a dream of Ancient Persia. I can't remember specifics, but now I am visualizing the ruins of Persepolis, the magnificent city Alexander the Great reduced to rubble as retribution. Blood lust, I remember feeling this. The Code of Hammurabi and the Old Testament's eye for an eye.I am lying on new sheets, softer than any in recent memory. A small luxury. It is silent save for the white noise of a plane overhead. I opened the French doors to let in the season's crisp air, and the quiet static of the trees which sound like ocean waves advancing and retreating the shore. Now that I am fully awake it is impossible to stay in this moment. I remember the eerie silence after the unimaginable roar of the collapse, the city covered in ash, the sky littered with paper. And later, the streets lined with people holding images of the missing, their faces a collective Greek mask of anguish, their eyes so desperate and hopeful I couldn't hold their gaze and turned away, knowing full well they were on television. The small dog scratches his chin with his hind leg, then stands and stretches, dragging his hind quarters for one, two, three steps. He pads out of my bedroom into the living room and I hear his nails on the hardwood and then the kitchen tile. He returns to join the older dog on the rug and commences grooming. I watch the occasional cars pass and wonder about the drivers and their thoughts. A train signals it's arrival with a loud blast, and now is a comforting sound of business as usual heading down the tracks to some impossible future.
Remembering 9/11
History is personal. All of us place ourselves, our stories, at the center. No matter how small, how obliquely relative. This is my story.
I didn't listen to the news on the way to work that morning. I was well into the work morning when the calls came. Because of the nature of my work, I ignored the first call, but answered the second. It was my sister, asking if I was watching television. Of course I wasn't, I was working. She told me to turn on the television, that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I couldn't understand what she was telling me.
It had been exactly one month and a day to the day that my mother had had an aneurysm and subsequent stroke, coincidentally on my wedding day, and I had been functioning under a thick sheet of ice ever since, so my sister's phone call, the hour of her call, the tone of her voice, didn't set off an alarm. I remember after hanging up I went immediately to my computer to MSNBC, which was down due to overload, then a handful of news sites, which were also inundated, so I went to a colleague's office, packed with other coworkers, and we watched the unimaginable.
I didn't feel like it was a movie or a dream or unreality. It didn't feel like anything I could place in any context at all. It didn't occur to me that anyone I knew, intimately or generally could be involved in any of this. Of course I was wrong. Their stories are theirs to tell.
The first call I placed was to the only person in my family that could possibly be in the towers or the city. My brother. So I called him. He was in California. The second call was to my sister who was at the hospital with our mother to tell her to tell the nurses not to say anything, to keep the television off. My daughter was in Phoenix staying with her best friend at her uncle's home. He called and left a message that the girls were okay and that my daughter was making crayon drawings. The three drawings she made during this time are among my favorite, especially the large-headed girl with a crow flying in the distance flanked by a large plane. The mother of my daughter's friend drove to Phoenix and brought the girls home.
I don't know if I checked the Onion News Network site that day, or during the days following the attacks, but I know reading their articles, I smiled. And laughed. The interview with Muhammed Atta in Hell was especially stress-relieving. And inexplicably an image of America with a giant red bullseye covering the entirety with the caption, Holy F...ing Shit! Humor is a curious and revealing thing in terrible times.
For many years I met with a writing group at the Sugar House Barnes and Noble. I called the group to see if we were still meeting and everyone decided to go ahead. When we all arrived, the bookstore was closed, so we headed to a local sports bar. Of course we didn't talk about our writing. We hugged and held onto each other's hands. Instead of sporting events, the burning towers and the people jumping from them was on the large screens. I couldn't watch. One particular woman from our group, a petite blond with light blue eyes, watched with a type of fascination, squinting her eyes. I remember thinking what an icy bitch. I still can't watch the people falling.
Later that night, sitting on the couch watching television with my sister at my parent's home, my father sleeping upstairs, a plane flew low over the house, enough to shake the living room chandelier. We raced outside to watch it. Hill Air Force Base is to the north of my bedroom town, and what I learned later was that the plane was flying reconnaissance to California and back.
For the next few months, my fear was that the local base would be a target. I couldn't stop myself from thinking of something my father told me of a childhood waking dream. He's a tangible man, he must touch something to believe it, so after all these years he is still trying to make sense of what he and his brother saw. He and his brother were on top of the chicken coop when they saw a bright light break and catch fire to the north. He said they saw fences and metal posts melt like wax, trees burst like struck matches. And then they saw the scorched remains. Both swear they saw this, although at the time the base was nothing more than farmland.
I've spent the weekend watchting the memorials, from Paul McCartney's tribute to Time Magazine's. I am filled with hope for a better world.
I didn't listen to the news on the way to work that morning. I was well into the work morning when the calls came. Because of the nature of my work, I ignored the first call, but answered the second. It was my sister, asking if I was watching television. Of course I wasn't, I was working. She told me to turn on the television, that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I couldn't understand what she was telling me.
It had been exactly one month and a day to the day that my mother had had an aneurysm and subsequent stroke, coincidentally on my wedding day, and I had been functioning under a thick sheet of ice ever since, so my sister's phone call, the hour of her call, the tone of her voice, didn't set off an alarm. I remember after hanging up I went immediately to my computer to MSNBC, which was down due to overload, then a handful of news sites, which were also inundated, so I went to a colleague's office, packed with other coworkers, and we watched the unimaginable.
I didn't feel like it was a movie or a dream or unreality. It didn't feel like anything I could place in any context at all. It didn't occur to me that anyone I knew, intimately or generally could be involved in any of this. Of course I was wrong. Their stories are theirs to tell.
The first call I placed was to the only person in my family that could possibly be in the towers or the city. My brother. So I called him. He was in California. The second call was to my sister who was at the hospital with our mother to tell her to tell the nurses not to say anything, to keep the television off. My daughter was in Phoenix staying with her best friend at her uncle's home. He called and left a message that the girls were okay and that my daughter was making crayon drawings. The three drawings she made during this time are among my favorite, especially the large-headed girl with a crow flying in the distance flanked by a large plane. The mother of my daughter's friend drove to Phoenix and brought the girls home.
I don't know if I checked the Onion News Network site that day, or during the days following the attacks, but I know reading their articles, I smiled. And laughed. The interview with Muhammed Atta in Hell was especially stress-relieving. And inexplicably an image of America with a giant red bullseye covering the entirety with the caption, Holy F...ing Shit! Humor is a curious and revealing thing in terrible times.
For many years I met with a writing group at the Sugar House Barnes and Noble. I called the group to see if we were still meeting and everyone decided to go ahead. When we all arrived, the bookstore was closed, so we headed to a local sports bar. Of course we didn't talk about our writing. We hugged and held onto each other's hands. Instead of sporting events, the burning towers and the people jumping from them was on the large screens. I couldn't watch. One particular woman from our group, a petite blond with light blue eyes, watched with a type of fascination, squinting her eyes. I remember thinking what an icy bitch. I still can't watch the people falling.
Later that night, sitting on the couch watching television with my sister at my parent's home, my father sleeping upstairs, a plane flew low over the house, enough to shake the living room chandelier. We raced outside to watch it. Hill Air Force Base is to the north of my bedroom town, and what I learned later was that the plane was flying reconnaissance to California and back.
For the next few months, my fear was that the local base would be a target. I couldn't stop myself from thinking of something my father told me of a childhood waking dream. He's a tangible man, he must touch something to believe it, so after all these years he is still trying to make sense of what he and his brother saw. He and his brother were on top of the chicken coop when they saw a bright light break and catch fire to the north. He said they saw fences and metal posts melt like wax, trees burst like struck matches. And then they saw the scorched remains. Both swear they saw this, although at the time the base was nothing more than farmland.
I've spent the weekend watchting the memorials, from Paul McCartney's tribute to Time Magazine's. I am filled with hope for a better world.
This Moment - September 10, 2011
A train sounds as if it is drunk and staggering along the rails this morning. My ankle's small twinges announce a coming storm. Suddenly, the dogs are up and in battle mode, barking warnings at a passing truck. The small dog perches on my lower legs, his hind leg kicking the comforter. From the side windows I see the peach tree bowed under the weight of it's fruit. Roses and geraniums hold the last blooms on their stems, and yet the tomatoes still are green-hued. The small dog smells like a dog. Even so, I bring my face to his and allow him his morning ritual. Soon, he will bring me his pink bear to throw and once he has tired of the game he will whine to be let out to chase doves off the lawn and into the trees. The older dog's rituals are hers and from what I can decipher, involve discovering the nature of trespassers that crossed territory during the night. She only asks I open the door, then returns when she is finished to nose my calves as we walk back into the house. Both wait for me to complete my waking rituals, and for me to grab their leashes and head for the door again. For now I am back on the bed. Cars roll by. Leaves are just beginning to fall. Very soon the lawn will be covered. But not yet. My eyes are turned backwards, holding to what was, what might have been. I know that very soon I will have to let it all go, and like the trees, wait for new growth.
Artist of the Day: National September 11 Memorial - Michael Arad
Poem Therapy September 9, 2011, 2:24 P.M. : Photograph from September 11 - Wislawa Szymborska
September 11, 2001.Photograph from September 11
Wislawa Szymborska
They jumped from the burning floors--
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.
The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.
Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.
There's enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.
They're still within the air's reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.
I can do only two things for them--
describe this flight
and not add a last line.
A colleague used the German word weltschmerz when the the anniversary of September 11 came up over lunch. She said it means world grief or world sorrow. Answers.com defined weltschmerz as sadness over the evils of the world, especially as an expression of romantic pessimism.
I can't say I have the words to express the terror and outrage and grief of the day, the aftershock, the new reality, nor the consequences thereof for the last decade.
I have my own small memories.
And, I am grateful the poet did not add a last line.
Artist of the Day: Dream of Water and Sky - Tricia McKellar
Dream of Water and Sky,No. 6527. Tricia McKellar eyeful.etsy.com blog at http://triciamckellar.com/note99 - photograph of Bogue Inlet at the North Carolina outer banks. Original photograph with digital painting.
This photograph reminded me of the I finished reading last night, Monique Truoung's Bitter in the Mouth. The setting is Boiling Springs, North Carolina, and one of the character's, Baby Harpo, is never without his camera, constantly documenting his family and community. The book is brilliant. McKellar's photograph captures what I was feeling while I was reading it.
Artist bio:
I’m Tricia McKellar, an artist & photographer in North Carolina, USA. I carry my camera with me almost everywhere. My dreamy photographs combine original photographs with digital painting. Wanderlust & the Southern landscape inspire many of my works
This Moment: Salem, Oregon - August 9, 2011 9:56 P.M.
I am lying on the bottom bunk of my nephew's bunk bed with my left foot propped on a burnt sienna- colored pillow. A magnet is taped to my ankle and a large ice-filled ziploc bag is wedged against the joint. Earlier at the Mt. Angel monastery I found a hawk feather on the outer edges of the cemetery, bent to claim it, then called to my nephew, waving the feather. This is where I fell and twisted my ankle. I sat level with the stone crosses, the neat rows of graves beneath. I cursed to relieve the pain. I remember two hawks perched on the water tower lifting into the air and floating in slow spirals. I yelled, leave me alone, like a child to everyone calling to me in concern. I wanted to be left alone with the pain. The swelling is going down. The house is filled with muffled conversations and laughter vibrating through the walls. Silence now. I return to the stone grotto with it's white Madonna behind glass, standing on the world, arms at her side, palms open. I wanted to climb to her, clasp her hands and listen to the sound of my own heart. Perhaps I am falling so that I will listen, so that I will kneel. There is a quiet knocking in the house, as if someone is rocking, like a heart beating.
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