September 15, 2001, Saturday

A mosque -- the Stars and Striped draped on the fence out front, next to a very large red sign that says,

September 16, 2001, Sunday

A beautiful, beautiful day, which doesn't match my spirits. To spare Ned my aura decide to go out. Walking the city, compulsively, extensively and constantly, is my normal response to emotional distress.

Residue of the toxic smoke and particulate have retired my older jeans until laundry can be done. Skirts bare more flesh to the air than one wants to do since the Event. I pull out the the two pairs of size 6 Calvin Kleins that I found for $14.95 last summer and have never worn, thinking to save them until the temperatures get chillier. They fit perfectly body-hugging snug, , allowing me to bend, sit, wiggle, climb, etc. in perfect comfort.

These jeans are no longer that perfect snug fit, but rather loose. Well. So I pick the denim, not the black.

But I guess the denim still fits well enough because by the time I reach Washington Square Park several remarks have been thrown out by the guys in the street, the kinds of guys, who in Cuba we call guapos. Remarks on the order of, "Oh, Baby, thank you. Lookin' good, baby! You got it. You got it . Ooh, mama you still got it! You gonna have it when you 70! I gonna wanna jump you when you 90!"

O.K. I'm a shallow blonde bimbo.

The guapos did make me break out into a laugh, and thus lose the game.

I had to turn around, smile at the guys, and give 'em the high five.

I lost the street game because I acknowledged what they threw my way. But I won the real game because I was cool -- I laughed and signified.

God, I love the streets. That's why the thought of living where you must drive and can't walk, drives me nuts. The streets pulsate with essential data of every kind. This is why I love this city. The street keeps you honest in so many ways because it tells you the truth about so much. No matter how rich, no matter how powerful. If you look stoopid, believe me, the street will let you know in no uncertain terms. And if the street doesn't bother acknowledging you, that tells you a truth too.

The guapos are the most normal thing that's happened to me in the street since the 11th. In combo with the magnificently blue sky overhead and to the north (not to the south, where the fires still burn fiercely), the perfect temperature, the slight breeze, my sagging spirits have raised considerably.

And now I'm at the George Washington Memorial Arch in Washington Square Park.

The Arch is an altar. It's fenced around by that wire mesh, evidently put up for last night's candlelight meeting. Stars & Stripes, flowers, posters of the missing and long swathes of paper and cloth with various art and messages completely cover the fencing. There are containers of crayons and colored markers attached intermittently so you can add your own message. Many are doing so. On the ground candles and photographs and flowers and more messages on brown butcher paper. Some neighborhood mothers and their young daughters are among the candles and flowers. Making order, removing the dead stuff and burned out stuff. A large group is saying the rosary. Others are kneeling and tending to the photos of their own loved ones. I walk slowly round and round this carousel altar. Messages of love and grief predominate. There are more messages calling for measured consideration and pleas not to kill innocents than there are messages calling for vengeance, retaliation and punishment. There are also messages that are none of the above. The one that most strikes me is this one, an individual expression-reaction, carefully and clearly hand-lettered, home-made:

"New York City is the closest to Paradise that any Terrorist will ever get. Joe Randall."

I took a photo of that.

There's a crowd of sightseers who clearly are not NYers, taking photos. Several Asians ask me to take photos of them standing and smiling in front of the message fence. This is not intentionally obtuse. And like all of us Nyers, right now I'm uncharacteristically patient and indulgent with tourists. And I do it w/o comment. But I do not smile back at them. Nor do I comprehend, but no doubt I've committed acts at least as stoopid in my time here on earth. Alas.

However, as I move on to 8th St. I encounter a few U.S. young un's, disposable cameras in hand, or small point and shoots hanging on their necks, obviously heading down to the Check Points on Canal. They are wearing t-shirts that proclaim above a Stars & Stripes, "I SURVIVED THE WORLD TRADE CENTER TERRORISTS."

I hate them.

They may be U.S. citz but they are not Nyers, certainly. [Note, after this I've never seen those t-shirts again.]

I walk west on 8th street, back into the heart of the West Village. Am stopped short at a place that sells army surplus clothes and gear to certain categories of trendoids, Uncle Sam's. Another altar. Lengths of brown paper, three strips deep, cover the sidewalk in front. Candles, but no flowers here. No grieving messages here either. Vows of vengeance and retaliation and patriotism that are hard to distinguish from jingoism. I take a photo of it. Such a contrast from where I was minutes ago.

But this weighs on my heart. So at Ave. of the Americas I walk north some more to 14th St. and then east, to the East Village.

I realize I'm reclaiming my walking neighborhoods, the neighborhoods that make up my most immediate NYC daily life. Washington Square Park and 8th St. are among my usual routes to the Jefferson Market Library, the branch library I have chosen to be my delivery branch for books I request from all over the marvelous, extended, public, multi-borough library branch system. All the library branches down here have been closed and are still closed [and stayed closed for more than a week after the rest of the system's branches re-opened ­ all you writers will identify with this aspect of my distress].

I walk east along 14th to Union Square Park, which is also one of the major destination and transfer subway stations. Along 14th St. the usual merchandise is displayed. With Stars & Stripes and posters in support of what we must be in support of, displaying our support of our nation (this is a major strip for immigrant, legal and illegal, shopping and employment). Though there is a lot of pedestrian traffic here, not as much as usual. And none of it is going inside the stores. The storefront discounted/knock-off/cheap merchandise is being looked at but not being bought. The photograph I don't take and immediately kick myself for not doing so is a pyramid of cell phones, offered free.

If the altar at the Washington Memorial Arch stopped me in my tracks, this, this, this, knocks me, clobbers me.

Union Square has been for generations from the later 19th c, into the 20th c 60's a public place for 'leftist' points of view.

Then it was taken over by the scum from everywhere, whether petty criminals, druggies, scammers, derelicts or all of the above. It and the streets around it have been under construction for all the time I've lived here, and now that's more than 2 decades. No matter how much rebuilding, renovation, upscaling, traffic always screws up here. Though now the Green Market and the B&N and the Virgin Megastore and Union Square Cineplex and all the rest have evicted the scum factor.

But this. The entire park is a series of altars and a series of various spiritual approaches to comforting the bereaved first, and then the city as a whole. I think again of how much support we are getting from the other parts of the city and from the country and the world.

There was a major gathering here last night as well as in Washington Square Park. I knew well these were taking place. But I am what I am, and mass gatherings I have all my life instinctively avoided. I will admit though, I have often been among mass gatherings where all are dancing and singing along to a Cuban band or something, but that's something else.

First you encounter upon the cross-town 14th Street the candles and melted wax upon the contruction berms and blockades. Fluttering posters and messages. Flowers.

Within, the centerpiece of Union Square is the magnificent bronze statue of the mounted George Washington. (Anyone who has forgotten ­ George Washington is my hero. Just about the only hero I've got.)

The statue is enveloped with posters and photos and messages. These are all messages of love and remembrance.

The Hari Krishnas are chanting. Rosaries are being said. Hymns are being sung. Blessings are being sifted upon you from every possible spiritual direction except mine own of santería, and from other paganists.

Sandwiches and sodas and water are being pushed upon us all. I finally take a sandwich and water, because I realize how much it matters to all these providers. For I too want to feed people in a crisis. And also, I realize again, Ned's and mine own economic outlook is quite desperate, so maybe eating when I can is a good idea? Or, I could save the sandwich in my freezer for when my appetite returns?

But thoughts of the lost and missing that so many mourned here last night are uppermost, followed by thoughts of George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Continental Armies of our Revolution, and how desperate things were for him all the time. And how desperate his thoughts were for this city for all of that War. And that Nyers have been here before. We came through. Especially economically. That's what this town's about, and has always been.

I move down into the heart of the East Village. Three hours on my feet. My back is starting to object, my spinal column with its two damaged cervical vertabrae and one damaged lumbar vertabra. My feet are starting to tear up too, as I'd not expected to walk this much when I went out and thus am not wearing the appropriate foot gear. But most of all, the damage to my spinal column, no matter how much I've recovered my physical abilities, doesn't allow for more time on foot without pain. But I keep going, thinking to stop at the right place when it appears and drink some coffee. I end up on Ave. B, criss-cross Tompkins Square Park. Stop into the Kiev on 2nd Ave., but after 10 minutes when my coffee still hasn't arrived, in a place nearly empty, I leave again. End up on 4th St. and walk down from street level to the bar of Cucina Di Pesce, a glossy spot that I've never been in. It's empty, other than a couple indulging in brunch at the place's street level outdoor table.

I ask if it's o.k. to sit at the bar and just have coffee? The street to basement floor windows of the bar are open to the magnificent afternoon. Looks a good place to sit and re-group. The very young, attractive bartender says, "Certainly!" I ask if it's o.k. to leave my stuff at the bar while going to the powder room. "Certainly!" I come back and find the young bartender waiting. "What will you have?" he asks. "Coffee," I say. He shakes his head. He says, "You need a martini. It's on me. Do you prefer olives or onions? Do you prefer gin or vodka?"

I drink alchohol so seldom due to my back pain and thus injesting ibuprofen and Tylenol P.M. But wothehell. "A Kettle martini," I say. "With olives."

"How are you?" I ask.

The bartender's 22. He's a Muslim, Albanian, Macedonian refugee, who fled across Europe, all alone, when 17, in hope of reaching the U.S., and the U.S. uncle-citizen who got him the money through a network series of contacts the U.S. suburban white middle class can't begin to imagine, that has been in place for centuries, just like the funds transfer system that the terrorists use, has been in place for centuries and depends not at all upon banks. The Chinese, I think, got one of those in place first, even before the "West" "discovered" the "East." Nevermind, I say to him. I get sidetracked easily. He smiles. He's not sure anymore which years those were that he escaped, 95? 96? ( trauma!) all alone across Europe, without English or any other language but that of his farm community. We talk farming for a while. Neverbefore has he talked to a woman -- or a man -- here, who knows about by-hand laundry, how to kill animals and birds for food, and all that farm stuff that is universal around the world. He is not surprised at all that we can discuss Islam, and that for a non-believer I know a great deal. That's what it's like over here in the East Village. People know a lot about a lot of things all over the world. He learned that working in this bar owned by his uncle, to pay back what's owed his uncle for his escape.

The East Village has always been the entry point to NYC and the U.S. of immigrants fleeing economic and military and political repression. That's why the East Village, of all the parts of the city, feels the most normal to me. So many of the people here, even the young demo bulge, know what terrorism is.

He has beautiful big brown eyes, with wonderfully long lashes. Talking farming perks him right up.

When Bush comes on the television to address us, he pours me another maritini and then leaves me, to watch, listen and write in my notebook.

When the address is over, when I feel the need to move on, he gives me his card and refuses to allow me to pay for the martinis. I'm buzzed. I never did get any coffee.

I head west again. My home. Back to the Hudson River and the Promenade or River Walk as I call it. No. I am still not allowed to the pier, or any of it, even though a resident here. My backyard is gone for the foreseeable or unforeseeable future.

I go down again, stopping in at the Ear Inn, where I receive no joy, unlike the way it was the 12th when one of the owners was there, to Canal Street along Greenwich, which is densely packed with people who are not those who have lost or are missing someone. These are gawkers, save me from saying that but I do and I cannot help it. I am doing reconaissance ­ I have checked out every subway station along the way, trying to determine what is running where, for, after all, I have to start looking for work, hopefully will be working, will need to get around the city and to Brooklyn ­ which I love almost as much as the part of Manhattan where I live. But these are people who want to just SEE. Well, after all, I cannot blame them. But still, knowing from the very first hours of this that our economic situation is not going to rebound resiliantly from this set-back ­ sometimes it's hard to be generous.

Nor can I cry. Except when I spot overlooked WTC postcards.

Except when I'm as close to my River Walk Promenade as I can get and I see a Monarch butterfly following its evolutionary dictated migratory path. The brilliant black and orange wings are in vivid relief against the Cloud, which today has taken on the an Ivory Snow White facade, like the largest of a Gulf of Mexico cumulous billow.

I blow a kiss to this brave Monarch fluttering in solitary migration. "Successful navigation to your kind's traditional Mexico winter grounds," I wish for the butterfly.

It's not possible to photograph it.

And this day, if it hadn't all Changed, I'd dropped yellow flowers into the Hudson in remembrance of my baby sister, Kris.

Newfolk :: NDiF :: Archive :: Issue 5:: Page 1 :: Page 2 :: Page 3