September 11, 2008.
A day that we may find respite from the increasingly ridiculous political garbage, a day when maybe any of the candidates may realize WHY they want the job anyway!!! (and a day where there are many scrambling to avoid the natural disaster of Ike who may not have the time to ponder old ills because of the new and very real ones heading their way…good luck to you)
The following is an essay I wrote back in 2002. At the bottom of this essay there will be a link to some of my photos of the day, and my first-person account of the day. I don’t need to keep saying more. This should be enough.
How will the NEXT year be measured? RENT closed the other day. One more thing from then, gone. But before it left, it had become an anachronism.Seeing it last month, I couldn’t help but note later to my cousin that the world of RENT had become a period piece…
“Seasons of Love” ( From the musical RENT, by Jonathon Larson)
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure – measure a year?…
In daylights – in sunsets
In midnights – in cups of coffee
In inches – in miles
In laughter – in strife…
How about love?…
Measure in love…
Seasons of love…
…Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan…
…How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?…
…In truths that she learned
Or in times that he cried
In the bridges he burned
Or the way that she died…
…It’s time now – to sing out
Tho’ the story never ends
Let’s celebrate….
…Remember the love…
Measure in love…
These words came to me, as I was driving, and they helped themselves to my quilt. So, how do I honor this past year? There were so many changes in my life…my brother moving in with us, my marriage, the graduation of my daughter, her moving away to college, my moving away from New York, changing jobs…and all of these, tinged with the memory of a year past… …and of the sights and sounds of horror as we stood and watched the buildings fall; and the tears shed on my brothers shoulder, and the tears Arlie cried on mine; the cold wet ground stealing up through my shoes as the bag-pipes played at Mike Fiore’s funeral; of the endless processions of sadness that lined Staten Island roads for months as family after family came to the sad realization that their loved one was gone.
I wanted a way to honor this.I decided that around the border of this quilt, I embroidered the initials of some lost that day.In the blocks are folk-art styled symbols of the events. I was fortunate enough to know few. But step outside the line, just one step from my door, and there are many people I know who lost friends and family. I would like to use their initials on my quilt as well.
“There is no good memorial for them but remembering.”
September 11, 2002
( I had to remove a broken link — because of this, it is republishing itself and I have no idea how to not have it email out…. sorry)
More Notes From the Refrigerator Door 