...the rest is silence
i have a maple-glazed doughnut that tastes like fall and reminds me of vermont (do i really want to drive three and a half, four hours for half a dozen very small doughnuts?) and my computer is absolutely choking on 2400 dpi scans that someone wants for a video presentation for one of our jobs. "the highest resolution you can get," she says. "1200, 2400...." yeah, no, not so much. not for 1.3gb per file.
six years ago i was sitting in the office by myself - kind of like today, heh - without any clue what was going on in the world until the fedex guy came by to deliver something and told me that a plane flew into the world trade center. other people can talk about cause and effect and iraq and the patriot act and why you have to take your shoes off to get through security in us airports and why you can't bring your water bottle on the plane, and what it meant to live or work in new york or dc five and six and seven years ago, and what we lost and what we miss and how we're scarred and what we've learned and what we haven't. one of my cousins worked on the fiftieth floor of the first tower that was hit, and he and his coworkers decided to leave the building - no one knew what what was going on, so they were all being told to stay in the office and not to panic - it wasn't until they got outside and looked up that they realized what had happened. he and his wife were living on the upper west side at the time, and he walked eighty or ninety city blocks to get home.
but that's not my story. that's his story to tell, if he wants to. likewise the firefighters and cops and the people who got stuck on the subway and who lived and worked and went to school near the world trade center. they have their own stories and their own memories. and yeah, i remember wondering what was all over the aol home page when i was trying to get the email that morning, and i remember standing in my living room that night watching the news until they started playing jeff buckley's hallelujah over their footage and i had to turn it off, and i remember donating money to a pet-supply place that was sending booties to the rescue teams for the search dogs, because i wanted to do something and it was all i could do. i worked in an office way down on broadway near where it crossed bleeker street for a year and a half between grad school and boston, and i considered manhattan my city even tho i never actually lived there, and i loved it. but twenty years from now, when someone mentions 9/11 this is probably what i will remember first:
when i was little and we lived in nashville we went to new york for some reason i don't remember, and we went down to the world trade center because we were tourists and that's what you did - it couldn't have been many years after the towers were built, because i was young - and i remember standing in the plaza looking up at one of the towers and trying to count the floors. it was bigger than my six- or seven-year-old vocabulary and my six- or seven-year-old experience, and i thought it was the coolest building i'd ever seen, and kind of scary, because it was so tall, what if it fell on me? because when you stood on the plaza and looked up, the clouds drifting behind the buildings made it look as if they were moving.
the twin towers were the tallest buildings in the world when they were finished, and for almost thirty years they helped make the new york city skyline one of the most recognizable skylines anywhere. it took seven years to build the world trade center and a couple of hours to reduce it to rubble, and yes, i think about the people who were killed for no other reason than they got up and got dressed and went to work in the morning - businesspeople and techies and cleaning crews and receptionists and tourists and stewardesses and government employees and firemen who died in new york and dc and a field in pennsylvania. i can mourn them - and i do - but i didn't know them. i knew the twin towers. i touched them and they made an indelible white-steel-and-blue-sky impression on a very small me.
i don't know what exactly will replace the world trade center. i hope whatever it is, it's beautiful and it's tall and it rises a thousand feet over lower manhattan and it's the first thing you see when you fly into laguardia or kennedy airports. whatever it is, i want it to last until everyone is dead who got out of its predecessor alive, and someday i want a seven-year-old kid visiting new york from somewhere else to stand outside and look up and try and fail to count all the floors, and think that it's the tallest, whitest, and most beautifully impressive building he or she has ever seen, because it will be tall and white and beautiful.
because that's what you do when something beautiful and impressive and iconic is destroyed - you build it better.
and because i do remember and mourn the people who died, say with me:
yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mey rabah, b'almah div'ra chirutey, v'yamlich malchutey, b'chayeychon uv'yomeychon uv'chayey d'chol beyt yisrael, ba'agalah uvizman kariv, v'imru amen.
y'hey sh'mey rabah m'varach l'alam ul'almey almayah.
yitbarach v'yishtabach v'yitpa'ar v'yitromam v'yitnasey, v'yit'hadar v'yit'aleh v'yit'halal sh'mey d'kudshah, b'richu, le'eylah min kol birchatah v'shiratah, tush'b'chatah v'nechematah da'amiran b'almah, v'imru amen.
y'hey sh'lamah rabah min sh'mayah, v'chayim aleynu v'al kol yisrael, v'imru amen.
oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya'aseh shalom, aleynu v'al kol yisrael, v'imru amen.
may the great name of god be exalted and sanctified, throughout the world, which he has created according to his will. may his kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the entire household of israel, swiftly and in the near future; and say, amen.
may his great name be blessed, forever and ever.
blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored, elevated, and lauded be the name of the holy one, blessed is he - above and beyond any blessings and hymns, praises and consolations which are uttered in the world; and say amen. may there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, upon us and upon all israel; and say, amen.
he who makes peace in his high holy places, may he bring peace upon us, and upon all israel; and say amen.
six years ago i was sitting in the office by myself - kind of like today, heh - without any clue what was going on in the world until the fedex guy came by to deliver something and told me that a plane flew into the world trade center. other people can talk about cause and effect and iraq and the patriot act and why you have to take your shoes off to get through security in us airports and why you can't bring your water bottle on the plane, and what it meant to live or work in new york or dc five and six and seven years ago, and what we lost and what we miss and how we're scarred and what we've learned and what we haven't. one of my cousins worked on the fiftieth floor of the first tower that was hit, and he and his coworkers decided to leave the building - no one knew what what was going on, so they were all being told to stay in the office and not to panic - it wasn't until they got outside and looked up that they realized what had happened. he and his wife were living on the upper west side at the time, and he walked eighty or ninety city blocks to get home.
but that's not my story. that's his story to tell, if he wants to. likewise the firefighters and cops and the people who got stuck on the subway and who lived and worked and went to school near the world trade center. they have their own stories and their own memories. and yeah, i remember wondering what was all over the aol home page when i was trying to get the email that morning, and i remember standing in my living room that night watching the news until they started playing jeff buckley's hallelujah over their footage and i had to turn it off, and i remember donating money to a pet-supply place that was sending booties to the rescue teams for the search dogs, because i wanted to do something and it was all i could do. i worked in an office way down on broadway near where it crossed bleeker street for a year and a half between grad school and boston, and i considered manhattan my city even tho i never actually lived there, and i loved it. but twenty years from now, when someone mentions 9/11 this is probably what i will remember first:
when i was little and we lived in nashville we went to new york for some reason i don't remember, and we went down to the world trade center because we were tourists and that's what you did - it couldn't have been many years after the towers were built, because i was young - and i remember standing in the plaza looking up at one of the towers and trying to count the floors. it was bigger than my six- or seven-year-old vocabulary and my six- or seven-year-old experience, and i thought it was the coolest building i'd ever seen, and kind of scary, because it was so tall, what if it fell on me? because when you stood on the plaza and looked up, the clouds drifting behind the buildings made it look as if they were moving.
the twin towers were the tallest buildings in the world when they were finished, and for almost thirty years they helped make the new york city skyline one of the most recognizable skylines anywhere. it took seven years to build the world trade center and a couple of hours to reduce it to rubble, and yes, i think about the people who were killed for no other reason than they got up and got dressed and went to work in the morning - businesspeople and techies and cleaning crews and receptionists and tourists and stewardesses and government employees and firemen who died in new york and dc and a field in pennsylvania. i can mourn them - and i do - but i didn't know them. i knew the twin towers. i touched them and they made an indelible white-steel-and-blue-sky impression on a very small me.
i don't know what exactly will replace the world trade center. i hope whatever it is, it's beautiful and it's tall and it rises a thousand feet over lower manhattan and it's the first thing you see when you fly into laguardia or kennedy airports. whatever it is, i want it to last until everyone is dead who got out of its predecessor alive, and someday i want a seven-year-old kid visiting new york from somewhere else to stand outside and look up and try and fail to count all the floors, and think that it's the tallest, whitest, and most beautifully impressive building he or she has ever seen, because it will be tall and white and beautiful.
because that's what you do when something beautiful and impressive and iconic is destroyed - you build it better.
and because i do remember and mourn the people who died, say with me:
yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mey rabah, b'almah div'ra chirutey, v'yamlich malchutey, b'chayeychon uv'yomeychon uv'chayey d'chol beyt yisrael, ba'agalah uvizman kariv, v'imru amen.
y'hey sh'mey rabah m'varach l'alam ul'almey almayah.
yitbarach v'yishtabach v'yitpa'ar v'yitromam v'yitnasey, v'yit'hadar v'yit'aleh v'yit'halal sh'mey d'kudshah, b'richu, le'eylah min kol birchatah v'shiratah, tush'b'chatah v'nechematah da'amiran b'almah, v'imru amen.
y'hey sh'lamah rabah min sh'mayah, v'chayim aleynu v'al kol yisrael, v'imru amen.
oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya'aseh shalom, aleynu v'al kol yisrael, v'imru amen.
may the great name of god be exalted and sanctified, throughout the world, which he has created according to his will. may his kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the entire household of israel, swiftly and in the near future; and say, amen.
may his great name be blessed, forever and ever.
blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored, elevated, and lauded be the name of the holy one, blessed is he - above and beyond any blessings and hymns, praises and consolations which are uttered in the world; and say amen. may there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, upon us and upon all israel; and say, amen.
he who makes peace in his high holy places, may he bring peace upon us, and upon all israel; and say amen.