Renewal
Well heck, I've been meaning to write about this for quite some time and not just something for my perpetual draft file. And this is only a blog and you're not paying me for this so here it goes.

I'm a Californian. I've lived here for five years and when Sept. 11 happened, my apartment was two miles directly north on Greenwich Street. By a fluke of my grandmother's poor health, I was in Bakersfield, Calif. on the morning the bad things happened and I spent a part of the next week on a series of cold Greyhound buses trying to get back home. I know people who died that day and for a week thought other friends had - including a firefighter who happened to have not been able to get back in time to die with the rest of his house.

Everytime I get off at Chambers, I still remember how it smelled for months afterward. It happened even today. I blew my post-9/11 tax refund on a fabulous purse at a store downtown that has since gone out of business. For the rest of my life, when I hear bagpipes, I'll remember that random morning its noise came into my fifth-floor window and I knew what they were for. I still intentionally go out of my way to shop downtown because they need it. When I go into a certain market on 7th Ave., I think of the woman who broke down in tears in the produce section a month after it happened and everyone just knew why. I turn off any radio or TV that thinks it's OK to casually mention the raw emotion of that morning.

I've been in Brooklyn for a year, but I still think of myself as a downtown girl. That's where I go when I need things. When I need to feel things about this city. And I go there a lot. And the thing I need to tell you is that it's changing. The mood has just changed - and in a very affirmative way. I only noticed it last week. But there is finally a sense of renewal. The morbid sadness is finally being replaced by a feeling of respectful remembrance.

I'm writing this now because I spent part of my morning watching the eight finalists for the WTC memorial competition. And the guy presenting the thing said something about how the process itself is part of the healing. And he's so right. There were two of the proposals I liked most (the one with the candles and the one with the individual glass monuments with the life history of each person amid the trees) but I also really liked the way the Japanese guy talked about his plan. I didn't like his physical project as much - but I liked the way he talked about the concepts of healing and spiritual renewal. And I realized the German presenter was right - this is about the process. It's not just which one gets chosen, but the idea of all of us going through the process together.

And later today, WNYC had a story about one group that gave all eight finalists an "F" because none of the plans included the specific element they wanted. And I felt sad for them that they didn't understand the process of the healing and wondered if their support group was more about re-enforcing whichever early stage of the grieving process they all felt comfort in.

The monument, of course, will never please everyone because too many people feel it as solely a private grief rather than a public - let alone national or international - grief. But I find it amazing to see and feel the changes that have gone on down there and in the surrounding downtown area recently. It is hopeful, finally. But respectful.

Only last week the fire station re-opened across the street from the site and in just a few days the PATH station to Jersey will re-open. The old WTC farmer's market has re-opened kitty-corner from the site with many of its old vendors. There's probably something clever for me to say about the circle of life and renewal, but this is only a draft.
- posted by Amy @ 11/20/2003 12:36:00 AM