Place In History

There have been only a few “Where were you?” moments in my lifetime.

9/11.  President Obama’s inauguration.  These are the watershed moments in my lifetime, events that changed my perception of the world.  And eight years after the last one, another inauguration is poised to do that yet again.

Say hello to President Trump.

I’m going to make this as non-partisan and non-political as I can.  This is a “Where were you?” moment.  It is the end of an historic presidency with one of the most universally-beloved public figures in recent history, and the beginning of a new one, with someone who is one of the most divisive figures in recent history.  It is a history-making moment in ways that are too numerous to count.  And while I will not watch the actual ceremony, nor will I watch the ball afterwards, I will be entirely cognizant of where I am when he takes the oath of office, whether I’m taking a nap, or making a sandwich.

However, I encourage you all to be aware of where you are, because for better or worse, the world you live in is going to change.  It may not change all at once, or even in ways that are immediately noticeable, but change is most definitely imminent.  And we should all be aware of not just where we are, but what we’re doing and how we got there.

I remember when I was in high school, and I talked to someone who remembered where they were when Kennedy was assassinated.  I remember talking to people who remembered where they were when Reagan got shot.  Hell, I remember where I was when the Notorious B.I.G. was murdered.  And I’m sure we all remember the events in our lives leading up to and immediately following the first tower impact, as well as what we were doing when Barack Obama took the oath of office.

This is one more of those times.

Take stock of where you are and what you’re doing, because you’re going to want to tell your children about this.  This is going to be historic.

No one said all history we make must be good.

Wings. (Vacation, Day Three: Brooklyn, NY, Lower Manhattan, NY, and Hoboken, NJ)

A day that started in Brooklyn, went past the World Trade Center, cruised through North Jersey, and ended in Brooklyn.

Ah, it's much less dramatic than all that, but I did get a really good shot on my phone.

That is a picture of the Fulton Transit Hub with 1 WTC in the background.  Shot with a Droid Phone, only in New York.

So let's recap.

I spent the morning at breakfast with my sister and my niece, catching up over coffee and IHOP, expressing our differences of opinion regarding sugar vs. substitutes, organic food vs. non-organic and the appropriateness of singing in public.  If I'm being honest, there was no difference of opinion on that last one.  Singing in public is always a good idea.  We chatted and laughed and talked about all manner of fun things.  I realized I hadn't had the chance to catch up with these two in any real manner in months.  The last couple of days had I had focused my energies inward, and because of my schedule and the three hour time difference, I'm never able to catch them on the phone for any real length of time.  These two women are among my favorite people.  After breakfast and a long walk, my niece went to work and I went to sleep.  I've slept more in the last three days than I have in the last three months.

After my morning/afternoon nap, I arranged to meet with my longtime friend from college, Sara, who I haven't seen since my father's passing a couple of summers back.  On the way to meet her I got to take the Subway into Manhattan.  For as long as I can remember, I've always loved the New York Subway.  Not the cost of it, of course, $2.75 is railway robbery.  But it is beautifully efficient as a people mover.  I made it a point to take the train to Cortlandt Street, first time I had been at that station in more than a decade.  Cortlandt was one of the more heavily damaged stations in the aftermath of 9/11, and Hurricane Sandy a couple of years ago didn't do it any favors either.  It was shuttered for several years until the completion of the Fulton Transit Hub.  The World Trade Center was complete when I was last in town, but not open, so it was all kinds of cool to see people going in and out for work or what have you.  If I wasn't on the clock I would have ponied up the money to check out the observatory.  Oh well...

From there it was a trip on the PATH train to Hoboken.  I've never been to Hoboken.  Imagine my surprise when I stepped out of the station to find a city that seemed...

... well, a lot like Downtown Brooklyn.  Great views of the skyline.  Awesome seaside park. Vibrant, energetic, young.  It was cool.  I went to the W Hotel and hung out at the bar, engaging a couple of locals in a conversation about what's wrong with baseball while I waited for my friend to arrive.  It was entertaining.

Here's a little backstory: Sara is one of my oldest and dearest friends, having long ago earned herself a spot on the bullet list, the short list of people for whom I would take a bullet, largely because they wouldn't put me in a position to do so.  She was the first fan of my writing, which is what made me think "I can do this," instead of pushing for a more stable/prestigious/boring career in criminal justice.  She's been a stable friend throughout the three major deaths my family has dealt with.  I attended her wedding and congratulated her very loudly at the birth of each of her three children.  She has stated that my atheism is the only reason I'm not her kids' godfather, which is fine.  My Brando impersonation is terrible.  I'm guh make youa offa you can't refuse...

We had a drink and caught each other up on the events of our lives.  She was happy for me and my relationship, I made googley noises at pictures of her soon-to-be one-year old.  She asked about my mom, my grandma, and my family, I asked about hers.  She was supposed to be planning her kid's birthday party but her husband let her off the hook to hang out with me.  I said he should have got his ass out here too.  We laughed and talked and enjoyed company like we did 20 years ago in school.  Then we realized how old we both were.  20 years.  We are nothing like the kids we were back then.
We laughed loudly and reminisced wildly, recalling some of the misadventures we had as teenagers and young adults.  Her son Noel accelerated her maturation into a grown-up, whereas I'm just now getting my feet wet in the adulthood arena.  After a couple of hours and a brief tour of Hoboken (birthplace of Frank Sinatra, apparently), we parted company, and I headed back to my city.

Back in NYC, and eager to erase the Jersey funk off me (sorry, Jersey is still Jersey), I walked a couple of blocks around the World Trade Center area to find the one thing I had been searching for the last six years I've been in Washington... a good slice of pizza.  My vacation goals are easily attained, aren't they?  Pizza is supposed to be cheese and sauce and perhaps some form of cow, pig, or chicken product. The dough is to be made with mineral-heavy New York tap water (otherwise known as wau-tuh.  My New York tongue returns!), not whatever it is they put on it or in it on the West Coast.  It's not supposed to have anything artisanal or soy or low-fat.  Dough, sauce, cheese, meat.  In that order.  The pizza place I went to, whose name I can't remember but is right next to the New York Dolls Gentlemen's Club, had two sausage slices that I claimed as my own (I was willing to do it Ariana Grande-style by licking the damn thing).  Three long but well-spent minutes in the oven later, and I was snarfing down hot pizza while making sounds like I was really enjoying a lap dance.  I even took the long way back, so I could enjoy my slices in pizza... I mean peace.

Wow, that was a baaaaad joke.

This week, I'm learning something about being home.  It's not so much the place I miss.  Don't get me wrong, the place is awesome, and I definitely miss it some.  No, it's the people I miss.  People I associate with these places.

Tomorrow is the last full day before I take off to London. Maybe I'll finally make it to Coney Island.

Remember, Remember

I haven't forgotten.

Usually on September 11, I'll post my favorite picture of Lower Manhattan post terrorist attack, one taken from Jersey and depicting the Tribute in Light, where high-intensity lamps are shone skyward from the footprints of the World Trade Center.  The lamps are aimed and positioned in such a way that it looks like two towers of light standing watch over the city, a haunting afterimage of what was once there.  The picture I have of that has the lights hitting cloud cover and stopping.  It's quite pretty.

I didn't do that this year.

Every year on September 11, I wax poetic about the loss of life we endured that day, about how my city came together and for a few weeks.  The city was more humane, more human.

I didn't do that either.

It's not because I forgot.  I could never forget.  Neither could anyone who was cognitively alive that day.  Or anyone who has any kind of documentary channel.  I remember the before, and that memory pains me for the after.  I didn't do my usual thing because somewhere along the line thirteen years later, as I relocated 3,000 miles away, September 11 became just another day.

I don't mean that to disrespect the families who lost loved ones in that attack, as this will never be just another day for them.  However these days I'm living in an area where, beyond a passing mention about the terror attack, it's been just business as usual.  They didn't show on TV or play on the radio the reading of the names of the lost.  September 11 birthdays aren't some tragic cosmic joke.  The people I know here only ask me about it when they find out I'm from New York.  And in the course of day-to-day interaction without the shawl of grief and mourning, it's just another day.

The site has been built over.  One World Trade is now complete.  The 9/11 museum immortalizes the event and the aftermath.  Lower Manhattan looks like this now:

And the world keeps spinning.

Another Year...

Another 9/11 has arrived.

Yet another day of remembering where we were and what we were doing at a watershed event for this generation.  I don't know that I have the energy for it this year; after all, one can only stare at the pre-9/11 skyline of New York City for so long before you realize that you will never forget, no matter what you do to try.  How long can I do that before I stop being the wistful transplant, feeling sorrow and horror and sadness?  When do I become the doddering old man who is solemnly depressed because his childhood home was torn down?

I'm not saying it's time to move on.  Time has a way of doing that whether or not we're on board for it.  I am saying mourner beware.  We should never forget, we should have a place in our hearts for the buildings and the tragedy of loss of life, and the irreparable harm done to my city and my country alike.  I am saying that living in the past is a sure way to miss the future.  Time waits for no one.  A new tower rises from the ashes and steel of the old one.  Entire middle schools are now populated with kids who never saw the buildings up close, who have only known this to be reality.

So while we wrap ourselves with a blanket of sadness, my friends, it is time we begin to look to the future.  Rather than focus on what this has done to us eleven years on, it's time to shift that to who we've become in the aftermath.  That is a far more interesting conversation.