connecting*the*dots

not too strange, originally uploaded by * tathei *.

Salon
What They Went Through
by Garrison Keillor

It was painful to hear the woman in anguish on the 83rd floor of the World Trade Center, crying, “I’m going to die, aren’t I? I’m going to die.” Melissa Doi was 32, beautiful, with laughing eyes and black hair. She was lying on the floor of her office at IQ Financial, overwhelmed by smoke and heat, calling for help. And then there was Kevin Cosgrove on the 105th floor, moments before it collapsed, gasping for breath, saying, “We’re young men, we’re not ready to die.” And then he screamed, “Oh my God” as the building started to collapse. It’s in their voices, what they went through.

[…]

This is an amazing column by Keillor and something that I personally needed to read (thank you, David).

For hours upon hours after the towers went down, I watched my neighbors leaping to their death on TV and on that day, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t turn away. I studied every moment. I did so because I inherently recognized that for every detail I could make out of their silhouetted images dropping through space and time towards their moment of blackness, I felt as if I was with them… and they weren’t alone.

In those fleeting seconds, their humanity was my humanity and mine — as much as I could will — was hopefully theirs.

As the moments and hours turned into days, which quickly turned into weeks and months, and life resumed to some form of normality in NYC, I began to lose such perspective.

Every day for the next 18 months, I commuted directly past the remains of the WTC on foot. I watched street vendors sell Ground Zero t-shirts and hats to tourists, while photographers — amateur and professional alike — lined up to document their moment in the aftermath of tragedy. Over time, as I walked past the classic NYC particle board, blue construction walls that lined my path to Jersey City on the south side of the mass graveyard, I watched them gather with graffiti expressing the raw emotions of New Yorkers concerning 9/11, the victims and the impending wars. Ten months in, they were all painted over by the city, just to be thought “vandalized” once again.

Somewhere within that surreal period of time, I stopped looking at images of that day and lost track as to why that person leaping from the tower meant so much to me, and much more importantly, why my attention hopefully meant something to him or her in those fleeting moments heading towards eternity.

I needed to say that out loud.

I should have never put up that picture in that recent post.

Traffic was flying until I hit Quantico, VA… and then it stopped. Dead. So I pulled off the road to gas up — figuring that my quarter tank wasn’t going to get me through the stop and go — when I figured that I might as well have dinner as well and pray for the traffic to recede.

I looked for a restaurant that might have an available outlet for recharging my phone, and pulled into the Padrino’s II parking lot. After finding a table with an outlet, I plugged in, ordered dinner and digged in to get through another chapter of Hegemony or Survival.

In front of my table sat a woman in her late thirties with her two very young daughters. As I read, I couldn’t but help overhear her conversation with her eight year-old, as she described — very accurately and simply — how the internet was a bunch of decentralized networks, some open, some closed. As her daughter dug into her spaghetti and meatballs, she asked her Mom something (I couldn’t hear) to which her Mom responded, “you can’t believe everything you read in books.”

I looked up from my read and grinned, saying “I know what you mean… I mean, I’m reading Chomsky” (showing her the book cover)

Funny moment.

With that, our conversation for the next few minutes went something along the lines of this:

Her: Oh, wow. So what do you think of the book?
Me: I don’t know yet…(pausing carefully) How much background do you have with Chomsky?
Her: Oh, I’ve read… enough (pausing carefully). Many people have a hard time with his ideas. I liked the book enough.
Me: Yeah, this is my fourth book of his so far.
Her: It’s amazing how accurate the man is with how little information he has access to.
Me: Well, the man has a ridiculous grasp on history from numerous POV’s and is a master linguist. With that combonation, I guess semantic-deductive reasoning can fill in the gaps.
Her: Well, I can’t say where I work, but he does know an awful lot more than seems possible.
Me: (uncomfortable pause)
Daughter: (says something I couldn’t hear)
Her: (Laughing) She asked me if you were a Democrat. (smiling) I said either that or unafilliated.
Me: The latter.
Her: (Smiling) We talk a lot of politics over the dinner table.
Me: (remembering the podcast I just listened to driving down and the message I left on my friend’s phone) You know, you just might be interested in the Echo Chamber Project.
Her: Yeah? I heard you talking about that a minute ago. Thanks.

No, thank you. And if you’ve found this blog, good luck with your daughters. They’re going to change the world.

If only the 9 hour trip from Jersey to Greensboro were so quick…

This is only the second time I’ve been back to the NJ/NYC area since I moved in September, and it’s the first time I’ve commuted in over three years. Stepping onto the NJTransit Bloomfield Station this morning immediately brought me back to the days of running to the Union Street Station with dripping wet hair and bagel in mouth trying to catch the N&R.

It’s strange how you notice the little things around you when you’re not a part of the scene, such as watching an entire car full of people reading their NYTimes (almost exclusively) by folding the paper into columns. Or how a triple seater gets claimed by two people, with one placing a large bag in the middle signifying “Go ask someone else to move. I need this space.”

No, I don’t miss spending an hour each morning struggling with the rest of humanity for a seat and a two-second head start out the door into Manhattan. But I have to admit, it is nice to be around people again.

UPDATE: Okay, I’m finishing this post at the office I’m working from this week. Let me take back everything I said about being around people. After I got off the train, I walked through at least five different scents of piss. My home office (sans piss smell) is looking good right about now.

rolling over the lump of bed that was once you
i wipe my eyes and set up the groove
kick on the slips
hit the head
jump in the shower thinking about my bed
scrub a dub dub
moving on through the morn
it’s the norm
how else do you move on from a dream to reality?
how else do you find a new cup of tea?

stepping down the stairs to the platform below
moving through the morning crowd
the world is passing on by
rumbling and loud
silent and strong
the distance is so long
between where i am and where i once was
or is that just my perception
lost in the reflection of her eyes
the woman sitting in front of the rail map
the woman reading yoga 101: stretch or feel like crap
the woman yapping about her dog’s flee’s
the woman looking back straight through me…
i don’t know anymore
i admit i’m a bit lost
i’m afraid i think too much to keep my sanity at any cost
what i do know is that this is my stop
so i have to get off