Random 9/11 Thoughts

I'm not going to try to write something profound here, just my small life during the time.

First I remember living in New York during the first terrorist bombing of the WTC in 1993.  It was awful, and frightening, and weirdly surreal now looking back. 

My boyfriend at the time was a dickweed privileged old-school ivy-league wealthy lawyer, father a literary agent to such authors I will not name (because that would totes give him away).  He worked mergers and acquisitions at a firm I should not mention because that would be indiscreet (Milbank Tweed) and he was SO ANNOYED about the bombing.  Interfered with a client racquetball date.

I kid you not.

Hi Jonathan, wherever you are!  And Yes I still have beautiful hands.

Then 9/11.  I was living with my parents in Texas because at the time I was wheelchair-bound, and could not manage on my own.  Could not bathe, could not walk.

Being in a wheelchair totally sucks.  If you are not ignored, the attention is either creepy curiosity or outright pity.  No one waits on you in shops, you cannot reach anything, no one looks you in the eye.  

Maybe people think cripple is contagious?

I sat in my chair that morning watching the news, wondering how the hell a pilot could not avoid one of the tallest buildings in New York.  Then a few minutes later, my mom stood at my shoulder as we both saw the second plane hit the second tower.  

A moment passed, and then we Knew.  Knew it was not an innocent, awful mistake.  

Her coffee cup slipped from her hands, bounced on the carpet and the hot coffee splashed onto my ankle.  I didn't feel it but I knew it burned me deeply.  I wanted to stand but I could not; I was sick but I could not move.

I have been beaten, and mugged, and robbed, and almost raped.  But none of those small bullshitty events - and every one of them, I fought back like hell - compared to the morning I could not fight back.  I could not fight back at all.

Watching Time

My front porch faces west, to the Olympic Peninsula.  I can see the Brothers of Hurricane Ridge and every night since I've been home I've been struck with the opal skies of the sunset.  Two nights ago there were horsetail clouds (look it up) and they were pink, gold; arching up like orcas and their little ones under them.

Summer sunsets here last hours - as I write now, at 8:30, the sky is still thick with color.

Being a bit of a fucked-up photog with a medically established lack of frontal-lobe memory ability an art director sort, I've wanted to shoot everything possible to REMEMBER IT.

But you know what?

There is little you can cling to, believing you can make today your own personal  tomorrow.  No matter how many pictures you take, thinking that will enable you to hold your world tight...well you just can't.  And trying can take away what's been right handed to you.

So.

Give, and give more.  Appreciate all the friends that put up with you (and they do - have you been an ass lately?  I know I have been).

Say Thank You for all the love and kindness offered you.

I don't care what the lyrics profess, the sun may not come out tomorrow.

But it may - and be grateful as you watch the sunset.