Moments of reflection...redux

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have.

Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”

- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

The temperature had warmed to 32 degrees (0C) on that cold winter's day in New York City.  Ten degrees (-12C) the night before, we prepared to layer clothing as much as we could – we didn't need as much as we had anticipated.

The journey began with a shuttle to Newark Airport, then the Number 62 bus to Penn Station where we picked up the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) train for our destination on Manhattan Island.  The trip took nearly an hour and a half with the time passing quickly, filled with small talk to cover an undercurrent of somber anticipation.

At the end of the line, we exited the station riding a long escalator from the underground train, embracing the cold winter’s air. Out the exit and to our left, we walked around the extremely tall building coming to the place for which we had made this journey:

Ground Zero of the World Trade Center.

“Ground Zero,” a term used to describe a point on the earth’s surface closest to the detonation of an explosion.  On this day, as it turned out, it was both geographic and soulful – the physical site and our hearts…

In Memoriam…

The memorial fountains – one for each of the destroyed towers – and subterranean museum sites were framed on three sides by Vesey, Liberty, and Church streets…the West Side Highway ‘closed the box'…

As we approached the first of the two deeply set fountains, an eerie feeling seeped through my skin…a feeling not easy to describe, a ‘presence' really…a ‘knowing'…a disconcerting sensation, communicating the inexpressible magnitude this place had played in our lives and our history.

It wasn’t the first time an awareness of ‘other presence’ had pressed on my spirit. It happened at Dealy Plaza, in the West End District of Dallas where a young American President was assassinated….Auschwitz-Birkenau where the showers of death and work camps of the ‘living dead’ still resonate in the air…

There is no way to equate these events; it was simply the common denominator of holy sobriety covering my soul that I found so unsettling.

Here, once again the cloak of discomfort and the overwhelming sense of loss oozed through my clothing, both fabric, and spiritual, unbalancing the chemistry in my mind.

We gazed into the pit of the fountains around which names of those lost in the North Tower were engraved, the water at the bottom of this dark cube fell into a smaller and darker cube in its center…lives lost…slipping out of sight…into the abyss…

Hold your mind…do not slip too far into a bottomless pit of thought. I told myself.

The Museum…

We had the time and so purchased tickets for the museum…the intimate memorial…the place in which threads of the end of the lives of real people who had breathed and loved and struggled and failed and succeeded – everyday lives – were woven into an experiential tapestry that will no doubt echo and reverberate and resound in the coming months and years until my breath, like theirs, is finished.

Photo after photo of folks with expressions of disbelief and shock lined the entryway just inside the entrance. A diverse, yet common look amongst the faces of every race and creed – hands over mouths or on foreheads, trying to make sense of the paper and debris floating through the air to the street below like celebratory confetti. There was no celebration here.

People had simply been going on about their days with the freedom this country provides.

The event was unthinkable!

To the deep...

The long escalator into the cavernous main museum lay beside a set of stairs used by some who escaped the unfolding apocalypse – that physically "…escaped the unfolding apocalypse."  For of little doubt they did not escape leviathan who buried his fearfully long and poisonous talons deeply into their minds that fateful day.

There were so many things in this tomb of memories…fire trucks and ambulances that had been mangled and bent…enormous girders warped and twisted like pieces of taffy…parts of cars and bicycles and shoes worn.

Along the walls of commemoration were video clips chronicling the unbelievable series of events…television programs and newscasts interrupted,

“In New York City Today, we are getting reports that an

airplane has just crashed into one of the Twin Towers.”

“Wait just a minute General, we have actual footage of

the airplane crashing into the North Tower!” Cut to video…

“Alice, this is John,” the unknown voice said.  “An airplane

has just crashed into the other tower.  It’s…it’s…well, it’s

just horrible. We’re okay in this tower, I’ll call you later, bye.”

Of course, John was not okay and the return call to Alice never came.

On the walls were quotes from those who had lost loved ones. The most poignant to me:

“I wished the day would never end, because that day began

with Alan alive, and I wanted to stay in the day he had life.”

So much to see…

Animated flight patterns and timelines of the hijackings appeared on walls mesmerizing those watching. There were the histories and flight patterns of the dozen or more flights the hijacker’s had taken as they studied the habits of flight attendants and pilots. Months of practice runs had gone into the preparation…all of which was chilling.

In the days following the attack and collapse of the towers, hand made pictures were posted all over the city with variances of these messages - hoping against hope:

“Has anyone seen this man (woman)?  If so, please contact___”

“William ____, my father did not come home.  If you know

anything about him, please call ______”

That day while people ran from those buildings, police and firefighters ran into them. They did everything in their power to help people escape the ever increasing inferno above.  More than four hundred of these public servants, heroes really, died helping others as the buildings collapsed on top of them.

What can be said, really?

This place struck reverence into my heart. It is in moments like this, that one’s vocabulary fails to provide anything meaningful to express the magnitude of sobriety and feelings.

There are so many things that are still unfolding in my mind, I am uncertain what to say.

Perhaps I can say this.

Every week, I GET to write whatever I like as I carry on my life, and put it up for public view. Whatever the reader feels about the things I say, I am secure that the ‘thought police' will not knock on my door to take me away.

I am grateful for this, because I understand I only have this moment to think about things I would like to say… this moment to write these thoughts…this moment to appreciate that the unexpected future rushing toward me at light speed, may bring with it...the unknown…the unthinkab….

- ted