september 12

Beverly Mitchell via here is new york

For the weeks leading up to yesterday, I didn't want to remember. I acknowledge the losses, grieve for the families of the dead, recognize the sacrifices of the rescue and relief workers, and hope for the continued safety of my city. Two thousand and one is a lifetime ago. For most of us, life looks completely different than it did then, and I felt the need to stay firmly rooted in the present.

Despite all of this, late yesterday morning, I felt compelled to dig up an email I had written to friends and loved ones on September 17, 2001. I spent 20 minutes trying to remember the password on a long abandoned Hotmail account. As I reread the email, it all come flooding back, and I regretted that I had opened it. But, as I thought about it, I realized that that didn't make it unimportant. It serves as a time capsule for me and though it may, now, not be one I need to revisit, it is part of my narrative and the events that followed it have surely shaped my world in the last ten years. Some of my thoughts at that time are now riddled with irony. And, ten years later (and wiser?), with two children, I can't imagine I would venture that close to Ground Zero six days later.

I had forgotten many of the sights and smells described. I had forgotten the disdain I had been feeling for New York that previous summer. I had forgotten the deep commitment I felt to my NYU students that week and in the weeks after. Many of those "kids" now have spouses and families, remarkable careers and lives.

So, here it is. A window into my 26-year-old self and the only personal encounter with terrorism I hope to ever have. If that young woman could see what life would look like ten years later, she would be baffled. Just as I am baffled at her resilience and hope during a period of time I would now rather forget.

**************

When I woke this morning, I knew I had to get out of the house, of the neighborhood, out of the "skin" I've lived in for the last 5 days. Leighton and I talked about walking uptown to the Armory where people are reporting missing loved ones. Then, maybe up to Times Square where I've heard the display of flags is impressive.

Leighton and I like to walk, and we love to walk in New York City. Leighton has explored most every nook and cranny of this city on foot and on bike and he has taught me so much about my adopted hometown over the last (nearly) two years. This summer, as we prepared for a lot of schlepping through England, we walked several miles, several times a week, down the west side of the island along a beautiful greenway the city has created along the Hudson. This walk would take us down past a large boathouse and into a park and marina near and below the World Financial Center, on into Battery Park City. Battery Park is my favorite area of the city. It has the serenity of Central Park, but the added bonus of being located on the water with a wonderful view of the Statue of Liberty and sporadic, whimsical sculpture gardens.

This morning, I pulled out some photos of my dad's trip to New York in May of 1999. There are many of the Financial District and the lower Manhattan skyline from Ellis Island and the Staten Island Ferry. I have a couple looking up the WTC towers and the entrance to #5 WTC. There's a picture of the sweeping lobby near the TKTS booth that was located in the towers. We visited the observatory, and I have photos of all the views from that place.

As we prepared to leave today, one of our tenants (who is also a student) returned from a journey downtown. He has successfully negotiated his way below Canal Street and had seen areas of the destruction. Knowing it was possible to get into the vicinity, I felt I had to go. To see what I could see. To try to wrap my head around the reality of this thing that had happened so close to my home. I loaded my camera with film, and we left.

Today was a beautiful Saturday. Fall is in the air and the sun was shining brightly. Leighton and I would have been walking today no matter what the state of the world. There are flags everywhere. The further south we moved the more you could sense the police presence. It was easy to get below Canal Street as we wove our way through Chinatown where the markets were in full swing. We walked down several more blocks. We saw people of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors wearing their 4th of July best. More flags, ribbons, banners, posters. Some celebrating our country's unity, some mourning those that have fallen, some encouraging our firemen and other rescue heroes, some defiantly cursing those that brought this nightmare upon us.

It was difficult to see much "destruction". We could smell it though. It's electrical. Like burning rubber, wires, and metal. It smells toxic and alive. It comes in wafts in other areas of the city. It permeates the air down there.

We came into a neighborhood that seemed more ashen than others. We encountered police barricades and were clearly on the "perimeter". National guardsmen are everywhere. So are their trucks and their hummers. I took a picture of a uniformed guardsman, particle mask hanging around his neck, leaning against a sign that said "New York Stock Exchange" with an arrow pointing up the block into the part of the neighborhood beneath the smoke plume.

We rounded another corner and saw awnings, windows, ledges, and streets covered in a thin layer of dust. How far did it reach? We wandered all over lower Manhattan tracing the perimeter. It was like looking into a movie set. I had to keep reminding myself that I had spent time in these neighborhoods, done business in these neighborhoods, been a tourist in these neighborhoods, been a citizen here. We heard the sewers surging below the sidewalks. This made Leighton nervous. At one point, we were herded off the street we were standing on. Shortly after, the smoke seemed to darken and increase. We don't know what caused this. No additional collapses have been reported on the news.

We saw vehicles that were evidently dragged out of Ground Zero and left on the streets of TriBeCa. A Cadillac, a taxi, a Con Ed truck, police and fire vehicles. All were crushed and covered in ash and dust. Crushed. I can't explain it. I have photos.

As volunteer rescue workers staggered up Broadway, after presumably working a long shift, they were cheered. We continued west to Church Street. The perimeter line was at Reade Street. We were standing on the corner yards from the theatre where I worked during the summer of 1999. My mother, grandmother, and aunt stayed in a hotel a few blocks down from here. MaryAnn's on that corner makes a great post-show margarita. From this vantage point, we saw the small remaining skeleton of one of the Towers. You've seen this on the news.

Heading west to Greenwich Street, we were a short distance from the West Side Highway, which is being used as a primary access for rescue vehicles. There was a significant increase in the presence of rescue and utility workers. We stood on Greenwich Street and watched the smoke, the media, and the National Guardsmen using a bullhorn to keep New Yorkers on the sidewalks. We watched a petite woman in a Statue of Liberty costume, watched a young man carrying a flag like a Revolutionary War soldier, clapped for the firemen, and became weary. We decided to head uptown, and as we did we crossed the street and got a completely different view down Greenwich Street than we had had from our previous perch. What we think was World Trade #7 lay crumpled at the end of the avenue. It was incredible. The building was broken like a fallen soldier. Perhaps pictures can't tell the story of this disaster.

We continued uptown and recrossed Canal Street. Security on the west side was much tighter than where we had entered lower Manhattan on the east side. People had to show ID proving residence to get below this point. What about those people? We saw people pulling luggage north all day long. Where are they going? When will they return? What do you choose to take with you when you don't know how long you'll be gone? How many cats have owners that haven't returned since Tuesday morning?

As we came up into the West Village we saw, on the sidewalk, a pile of coats, helmets and shoes belonging to, probably, a dozen firemen. They all must have stripped down before entering a restaurant to eat and relax. We went and bought more film.

As you get out of the Financial District, there are flyers with pictures of missing people on them everywhere. Phone booths, windows, doors, light posts, trees. Everywhere. We encountered these throughout the evening and I can only believe that as we lose hope for these people's lives, the city itself will become a shrine to the dead. We will be surrounded by images of those who are gone. A woman in a wedding veil. Men with their children. Old ladies with their dogs. Beautiful people, young people, old people, black people, gay people, Asians, Arabs, Americans, New Yorkers.

We went and had some Chinese food. It was a quiet neighborhood and we were quiet while we ate.

I was feeling better when we left the restaurant. As we crossed through the Village, a police car escorted a large truck uptown. As it got closer I saw the truck had a lot of graffiti on its sides and on the panel over the cab it read "Bellevue Morgue". As the truck passed, I saw that the rear door was open and the truck was empty.

From downtown, the glow of the work lights is very eerie. The city grinds on while the tip of the island glows and smolders.

Everywhere we walked today, people spoke of only one thing. At one point we were walking near a woman speaking on a cell phone. Her young teenage daughter was with her. She was speaking to someone about her husband who must be part of the civilian rescue effort downtown. She was listing the things he needed...cash, his glasses, a
razor, socks, and a medium man's T-shirt. She also indicated that she knew people who were missing and that her daughter had friends whom were never picked up from school on Tuesday.

I thank God that I am not aware of anyone I know being missing. I have students and colleagues who saw the whole thing. 1,800 NYU students live below Canal Street. Some saw people leap to their deaths. Leighton saw the first tower come down. We had a clear shot of the towers from behind our work building. Friends in Brooklyn had pristine WTC stationary land on their roofs and streets. A student of mine has an uncle that works in Tower 1. He and his wife were in the Catskills on vacation. No one from his office has been located. There's the story of the CEO that took his son to school on Tuesday and was later than usual to work. No one from his company, including his brother, has been located. My stepfather owns a business. I cannot imagine the crushing blow of losing your entire team.

On a brighter note, there have been vigils, candles, singing, hugs, first conversations with neighbors, benefits, and first laughs. We will survive.

In recent months I have been a bit anti-New York: ready to think about being out of the race, the pollution, the mania. At this moment, there is nowhere in the world I would rather live. I do feel safe here, and I feel more connected to a community than I have ever felt. I struggle to justify my return to work and theatre making, but am finding solace in whatever routine and purpose we have been able to reconstruct over the past couple days.

You are all in my thoughts and I so appreciate that we have been in yours. Please take care of yourselves. Be with the ones you love, and tell them often that you love them.

Yours,
Bev

native son

downtown number six train

I had the rare opportunity on Friday to spend much of the day with Auden.  It was the last day of the public schools' mid-winter break, and he spent most of the week under the weather with fever.  By Thursday, after mild complaints of ear pain, we had decided enough was enough and made a doctor's appointment for Friday morning.  As always, the phone call was the best remedy and by Thursday night he seemed mostly well.  I don't have class or clinical on Friday, so it had previously been decided we would spend the day together.

As the Mitchells are often (ok, always) 10 - 12 (ok, 20) minutes behind schedule, we headed out the door at 9:15 for a 9:30 appointment on 34th Street.  There was a steady rain all morning and while it was not blowing sideways, it was substantial.  As you may know or can imagine, getting a cab on First Avenue on a rainy Friday morning is as likely as getting a parking spot on Friday night.  We drifted up to 12th Street trying to find a corner not already occupied by someone looking longingly, or desperately, into the uptown-bound traffic.  After five minutes of waiting in vain, Auden patiently standing on the corner under his umbrella, he said,

"Mama, we should just take the bus."
"My Metrocard is dead", I replied.
"Do we have enough quarters?", he asked.

I dug through the wadded tissues, keys, and hair clips in my coat pockets and managed to scrounge nine quarters--exact change for bus fare.  Auden is just past the cusp where he should be paying train and bus fare, but we continue to feign ignorance and confidently send him under the turnstile or down the bus aisle ahead of us.  (You pay for kids based on height, and I just don't feel like I should be penalized that my kid is the tallest in his class.)

The bus stop was across the street and as we looked up we both recognized that a M15 was about to pull up to the corner.  (Making sure we had the right of way) I grabbed his hand and we bounded back across 12th Street, dodging the puddles and the oncoming pedestrians, arriving at the stop just as the bus pulled up.  An older woman with her pocketbook in the crook of her arm had been waiting there and as the bus door opened she suddenly seem to panic and said, "Oh, I dropped my change, can you please pick it up dear?"  I bent to get her dime, but Auden beat me to hit handing it back to the woman: "Here you go!".

He waited for her to get on and then climbed the bus stairs, said "hello" to the driver and found two seats near the front of the bus.  We chatted on the way to 34th Street, mainly about what a kook his brother is, that he is excited to get back to school next week, and happy he's feeling better.  At 23rd Street, we moved to the back of the bus to allow the driver to load a wheelchair passenger on.  We got off  the bus at 34th Street, I opened his umbrella and handed it to him and we jogged across First Avenue as the crossing signal was flashing.

Once we got into the doctor's office he answered all her questions and agreed with the assessment that he's probably healing on his own, but that we should get a prescription for medicine just in case he got worse over the weekend.  We left the building, back into the rain, and walked the four avenue blocks to the #6 train at 33rd and Park.  We had decided to go to the movies but had to trek to the Upper East Side to make a showtime that would jive with our schedule for the rest of the day.  When the train pulled up to the platform he waited while the exiting riders passed and then found a seat near a window, which he and Colton both prefer so they can watch the stations whiz by.  We rode to 86th Street, back into the rain, and found our way to the theater.

After the film and a potty stop we were back in the rain and on the #6 train downtown.  On this trip the trains were busier and we had to stand in a pretty dense crowd.  We were in the first car, which tends to lurch on take off, but Auden managed to find sure footing and handled it without a problem.

Anyone who spends time with Auden regularly recognizes that he has undergone an enormous amount of emotional growth and maturity since his sixth birthday.  He is coming into his own, making decisions about what is important to him, and making choices about his behavior.  This is not unusual development for a boy his age, and it certainly makes life a lot easier as a parent (if only for a moment before the rush of hormones begins).  It's rare that I get time with Auden alone.  Typically when we're together we have Colton in tow, and he still requires a lot of attention and corralling.  But as we rode the train to Astor Place I was able to look at Auden, without distraction, and recognize that he is also coming into his own as a New Yorker.  His experience as a city kid is very distinct from the suburban upbringing I had and while his dad is a city kid through and though, New York is a very different town than it was "back then".  And, as most of you know, there is a special brand of finesse, muscle, and agility that negotiating the city requires.  (That said, while I can tote a loaded stroller up three flights of subway stairs, I could never successfully navigate a Target with two kids on a Saturday afternoon.  We all have our own challenges.)

It took me a long time to truly feel comfortable in New York and to know how to work with the city rather than against it.  When I first arrived, there were many days I felt as if the city had "won".  I still occasionally have those days but, mostly, the city works for me.  For Auden, this dance is innate as it is all he knows.  And while I don't love that trash on the sidewalk outside his house is a norm, I totally dig that he's unfazed by the woman in a burka on the bus.

When we arrived at Astor Place he took my hand and we walked up the stairs to the street and I appreciated that he had managed himself under an umbrella all day.  Never complaining and never whacking himself, me, or other passersby.

We walked toward home and as we crossed east on 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues, he suddenly pointed at the ground three feet in front of me and said, "Mama!  Watch out for the poop!".  Charming, I know, but that's the city equivalent of throwing your arm across your kid's chest when you have to stop too quickly while driving.  Only he did it for me.

because it's monday

I forgot it was Monday.  Technically, it's now Tuesday.  Oops.  Three-day weekends and all.

Auden has been convalescing with fever for three days, I was down with stomach funk on Sunday, we got three more inches of snow, and I'm looking down the barrel of a ton of work this week, that I had planned to spend the weekend getting ahead on....

I had a phone conversation with a friend today who has received some unsettling lab results and will require further follow-up.  I found out today that a woman I was friends with in college died two weeks ago with a condition normally attributable to a person much older than she was.  I've not been in touch with her in the fifteen years since we graduated, but have felt sadness well up nonetheless.  But, after these two discoveries, suddenly my "lost" weekend didn't seem like such a big damn deal.

We're all familiar with these perspective-offering moments that usually show up when we least expect them, but most benefit from them.  So, despite everything in that first paragraph that might have been the story I told of this weekend, let me offer you this:

My dear friend from school, Erin, took and passed her nursing board exam on Friday and is now an RN.  Colton and I spent a delightful few hours this afternoon in Brooklyn at the beautiful home of a friend who is fabulous enough to invite a bunch of winter-weary 3-year-olds (and their winter-wearier parents) for a grand afternoon playdate.  I've discovered the best remedy for my winter blues is to turn the boys loose with Photo Booth on my laptop and check out the pictures after they go to bed.

So, these are the things that got me through my Monday.

(insert smiley face emoticon here)

"I wondered if I could spend the rest of my life inventing complicated ways to depress myself..."

-Miranda July (No One Belongs Here More Than You)***

I've been kind of crabby of late, and somewhat misanthropic.  I've received several emails from people saying that my last two posts made them terribly glum.  Yeah, yeah, I get it.  

So, here's something cheery:

In the last 24 hours I've spent time with two extraordinary friends.  They are as much the same as they are different and would never be able to agree on a china pattern if their lives depended on it.  Last night, with my lady friend, I took in a show and two delightful cocktails.  With my male compadre, I brunched on waffles and coffee this morning. 

(Lush life, right?  Don't get too jealous: I'll be changing poopy old-man diapers and doing mouth care in ten days.)  

Both of these people challenge and inspire me endlessly.  I feel fortunate they're patient and interested enough to listen to all my yakkity-yak, and that they're generous enough to share their own.  They constantly remind me, and model for me, that the life I choose to lead need conform only to my own expectations, and that much in life can take shapes and forms of one's own invention.  And when I feel successful in that invention, these are people with whom I can celebrate.

As I left my friend today, I said to him:

"But, I'm just exhausted from all it."  

And he said:

"Well, yes, being imaginative is exhausting."

So I went home and took a thirty minute nap.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

***P.S. - I'm rereading this collection of Miranda July short stories right now and have (again) completely fallen in love with her.  This little bitty volume is stuffed full of word combinations (what one might call "sentences") that just bust my chest wide open.  No matter what your story, the words find their target with this kind of magical, spooky, uncanny GPS.  So, you're going to be seeing a bits and pieces of Miranda hanging around here.  (And check out this project she did from 2002 - 2009.)

silent disaster

The East Village is under nine more inches of snow today.  Colton is home from pre-school, completely upending my day.  I have recycling bags outside that include Christmas wrapping paper because it's been that long since they picked up recycling.  To add insult to injury, our oil burner is down and the building has no heat or hot water.

New York really freaked out after our December blizzard.  Yes, there were people trying to get on airplanes.  Yes, there were people trying to get to work in an effort to keep the economy (both their own and the larger one) running.  Yes, there were people who died because of the inability to access emergency medical care.  All these reasons to cry out to city leaders are absolutely legitimate and, in these ways, the response was inexcusable.  Then there were many who were simply annoyed, inconvenienced, and looking for one more thing to be pissed off about.  I'm one of those people.  The storm delayed my ability to get the rest of my family out of town so I could enjoy a couple days of much-needed solace at home.  For those of us for whom the storm did not endanger our lives or our checkbooks (it was the two days after Christmas, schools were closed anyway, many of us don't even own cars, I saved money by missing the after-Christmas sales), I can't put my finger on what the big deal was.  Lack of control?  Lack of expected access to resources?  An outlet for holiday agita?  For me the answers are: yes, yes, and yes.

A friend of mine, who is fantastically poetic and tends to have a much more positive outlook than I do, reflected on the storm as a "silent, but beautiful disaster".  For those of us who did have the ability, that we may not have taken, to sit back with a cup of tea and enjoy the show, an opportunity lost.  (I will also say that this friend somehow rode her bicycle across the Williamsburg Bridge the day after the storm, which demonstrates that she has a much heartier constitution than I do.)

City officials seem to have responded much more efficiently to last night's storm after the city council conducted a hearing on the shortfalls of last month's storm recovery and enacted a new emergency declaration policy.  Public school is on today and very few transit delays are being reported.  Mayor Bloomberg is facing public criticism for the fact he may have been in Bermuda while the first storm loomed, returning to New York late in the day of the 26th.

Meanwhile, today is the one year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti.  How much have you kept up with the situation there since the media and fundraising fervor died down?  I've only followed the broad strokes which I've largely been fed by the media and NGO's I follow on Facebook: rescue efforts, housing, cholera, political strife.  I've held a particular interest in the plight of HIV patients and their inability to receive their drugs, or even access condoms.  Natural disasters do not cease a person's basic need for sex.

It does seem we always feel this guilt of not keeping up with the long-term aftermath of human disaster: the tsunami, New Orleans, were there real changes to mining safety policies in West Virginia and Chile?  I don't know how to answer for my ignorance, personally.  I'm busy to the point of being crazed most of the time.  The human disasters in my immediate community require my focus and attention.  Suffering is relative.  I mean, did I mention they haven't picked up my recycling in three weeks?!

So, today, check out this interactive feature on the NY Times website, which does a brilliant job of presenting images from Haiti and giving a consolidated overview of what has happened and what is happening now.  It's not pretty, and it's not terribly hopeful.  I bet you knew that.

catharsis, part one

From my Facebook Wall:

Another morning at the 14th St Y....
Her: Sweetheart, you run on that treadmill like something's chasing you.
Me: Well, maybe something is.
Her: Like what?
Me: Well (smirk), today it's Annie Lennox.
Her: Oh, she does it for me, too.
Me: How old are you? (nursing school makes you fearless about otherwise inappropriate questions)
Her: 82 in August.
Me: And you're into Annie Lennox?
Her: I prefer Joan Jett.
Me: Awesome.

May 19, 2010 at 2:01pm ·  ·  · Comment


That was Mary.  Sweet and sticky, soft and edgy--all at the same time.  Mary, and her husband Charlie, were regular morning visitors to the 14th Street Y until Mary died right before Halloween.  I had not seen Charlie through the holidays--I was hardly a regular at the Y during that period--but found myself on a treadmill next to him right after 2010 became 2011. I was definitely friendlier with Mary than Charlie, and the relationship with her was not much more than acquaintances.  But, Charlie has a demeanor that is unmistakably that of a man who has spent his life caring for other people.  It turns out those people include four daughters, a career full of ophthalmology patients, and Mary, who lingered for several days after suffering a massive stroke.  


When I stepped onto the treadmill next to his, we briefly met eyes in the mirrors that face the machines and smiled weakly at each other.  I had not had an opportunity to properly extend my condolences, and hoped the short, wordless exchange would message my compassion.  We walked side-by-side on the human hamster wheels, each with iPods on.  I go to the gym to achieve a mental clarity that arrives following a dense fog of thoughts, words and images as I rapidly process the events of recent days.  It often feels like a waking dream.  


I was in the moment just before things begin to fall into focus when I instinctively glanced over at Charlie to see that tears were streaming down his cheeks.  This has happened to me before--I sometimes find when my emotions have pushed me to the edge of my ability to manage them, physical exertion creates a tipping point and much of the excess energy comes spilling out of my face.  But, I'm an over-stressed, neurotic mother of two living in a city where they may as well hand out vouchers for therapy sessions on every corner.  This was an 85-year-old man who had a grown family, a successful medical practice now run by one of his daughters, a rent-stabilized apartment on Second Avenue, and three fantastic Nike tracksuits.  It's not that I don't acknowledge Charlie's need and right to grieve.  I have much personal experience and training in the area of grief and know that he is at the very beginning of a very long journey to integrate the loss of his wife of sixty years into his new reality.  Despite all this, it still somehow felt uncomfortable to watch him there on the treadmill (given Mary's tastes in music, I couldn't help but wonder what he was listening to) crying. Very simply, and silently, crying.  Looking into the mirror at his own eyes, crying.


I wasn't certain what to do.  He seemed completely in control of his body and not looking beyond his own space for assistance.  I continued my own workout, acutely aware of him, but trying only to provide the support possible by aiming my own positive energy in his direction.  Eventually he stopped crying and continued his walk for another ten minutes.  I watched in the mirror as he dismounted the machine and headed to the stretching area to do his push-ups, sit-ups, and bicep curls.  Shortly after he left me, I joined him--on the pretense of continuing my own workout.


We were the only two people in the small corner and sat, separated by several feet, on our mats.  When we both came to a moment of rest I looked to him and said, "Charlie, I'm so sorry for your loss.  How are you today?"
"I'm well", he replied.  "You saw me crying over there."
"I did.  Are you sure you're alright?"
"I didn't come here for a long time after she was gone.  This was the one thing we did together every day.  After we left here we would each go about doing what ever we did until we met for dinner at some restaurant or other."  He paused.  "I've found that coming here is where I most feel her presence.  Maybe I just can't allow myself to feel her in the apartment yet.  But here, I still expect to turn around and see her."
"That must be very difficult."  I stifled my desire to say more.
"I think it's good.  I have to feel her.  I have to do this part. I have to know that I can continue without her so that, at some point, I can let her be in the room again without losing myself."
"That sounds really smart.  And really brave", I responded.
"I don't feel very brave.  I just miss her."
"I can understand", I said finally.
"You have a good day, sweetheart", he said, lifting himself off the floor.  He made his predictable exit into the locker room, from which I knew he would emerge in twenty minutes, showered, wearing jeans, a button down shirt, and a blazer, his white hair combed neatly back to one side.  He's a very handsome man, and I've little doubt he could attract a female companion, if he wants to.


I put my ipod back on and blasted Annie Lennox while I lifted heavy things until I couldn't feel my arms anymore.  I wondered about the possibility of safe spaces to grieve and the need to grieve in the places where our ghosts exist.  And what to do when our ghosts are all around us because they are still living people, but gone from our lives?  Or because they are still very much in our lives, but gone nonetheless.