Η επιθυμία ενός φίλου
Ένας φίλος απ’ τη Νέα Υόρκη μου ζήτησε να αναρτήσω κάπου τις σκέψεις του για τη χθεσινή επέτειο, και φυσικά δε μπορούσα να του το αρνηθώ…
Forgive. Forget?
A meander of thoughts on the second worst 9/11 my city has ever had.
By Yellow Dog, 9/11, 2008
Like every other 9/11 spent on American soil I feel compelled to pay my yearly respects on Ground Zero. Just as last year, I pick up a small flag from a vast bunch that spring from a bottle atop my kitchen table and head for the flower shop.
The florist on 31 st Street and I are the kind of acquaintances that are never sure when and where they first met but always smile at each other when they casually meet in the neighborhood. She sees me walking into her store, head sunken between my shoulders, little flag held in one hand and in her booming voice she says:
"It’s that day of the year again, huh?"
"It is…" I reply and we both sigh in sync.
I pay for my small bouquet with three crumbled singles, she rings them in the register and we bid each other farewell with the only valediction that seems appropriate for today: "God Bless".
My car on the Manhattan-bound W-Train to City Hall is quiet. Crowded as always, mind you, but quiet. Some are holding a few flowers, some hold flags, some others hold both, while everyone holds a somber look in their eyes, all of us exchanging nods when those eyes meet.
" I know…" a set of pretty, Asian-slanted eyes silently tells those green ones of the red- haired man across the car.
" It still hurts…" narrate the elderly eyes of a Hassidic Jew beside me to those of the young punk with the ‘Investigate 9/11 NOW!’ shirt.
" What is happening…?" question all around the eyes of a child too young to remember where she was that day but perceptive enough to know that today is not like every other day. But the rest of us remember clearly. "None will ever forget where they were when they heard the dreadful news seven years ago to the day no matter how far they lived from here," I once heard and I never questioned that.
City Hall. That’s my stop. I slowly go up the exit stairs and make for Church Street and when I get there I head south. I see the crowds from the distance. I encounter a pair of NYPD cops walking their beat. I pucker my lips and nod to them and get a lip-pucker and a nod back from both. I feel somewhat better than this day last year and I’m convinced I’m not going to break down in tears as soon as I step on Ground Zero like I did then but hearing the Fire Department’s Emerald Society bagpipers and drummers playing an old Gaelic mourning from afar proves me wrong. By the time I get there, I try to find an entry point, an opening free from wires and fences. There is nothing. The little improvised shrine we citizens made last year is no longer there, of course, but neither is its very location accessible any more…
Το υπόλοιπο εδώ.
ΥΓ: Χρωστάω post και multimedia για την επίσκεψη στις Βρυξέλλες· θα επανορθώσω το συντομότερο, αλλά αυτό επείγονταν.
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- 12η Σεπτεμβρίου (NLC, 12/9/07)
