Journal

I need to get away for a while and wont be on the site for a couple of weeks. I am well, just need to attend to some things that will keep me pretty tied up.

Life has a way of handing you lessons all the time. I have to sort some things out and see what I am to learn.   I hope everyone will stay well and be happy.

My mom's birthday is this week. I am still having such shock that she is not here. What a time it is. So many things flying at the same time. The week has been a mixture of such whiplash for me. So much is going on in the world. 

One of my best friends in the world is getting married on Sunday, which is a high point for me. I  will fly to the wedding because he has been by my side in so many moments of highs and lows in my life. He and I are living proof that men and women can be best friends. I love him beyond words and his new wife is indescribably beautiful, inside and out. I will cry at the wedding, tears of joy and love.

Our beloved Eva has started chemo, and at 2 years old, she was a trooper and I truly know she will be ok. I spend every single day thinking of her and sending every iota of healing I can to her to her self and soul. She is a light in this world and every person she touches smiles and then laughs. She just has to beat this.

I was told that I hurt someone this week. Well, not just someone. A person I care about and want to help was hurt by something I said or didnt say. My heart is broken about it. I have pleaded to understand and yet each of us is entitled to feel what we feel and process it in our own time. One of my favorite lines of poetry say "tell me of your despair and I will tell you of mine" . I learned a valuable lesson this week that it is a delicate and important endeavor. I only wish I had the moment back. And as I believe nothing is irreperable if people want to heal, I will hope and care.

I have a young friend who is asking why he should stay in this world. I stayed up last night to truly listen to him and I want him so badly to know how much this planet needs a heart like his. He is young and does not know how much this world needs a heart that feels. He thinks he has failed and needs to leave. He cannot know how much this planet is starved for a heart that knows remorse, love and intention. I do not think I was convincing and it makes me cry.

My heart is full for someone whose heart is also full. I want so much to be able to help and do what I think I can, but  I have to let things unfold as they will.  The thing about love is that you have to give all you have and to love enough to let it be.  I do.

Life. I have to find faith again and I have to allow it all to just be. It's the hardest thing in the world for people like me who want to fix things, help people and heal any hurt.

I want my mom. I really want my mom. But she is gone.  Happy Birthday Mom, I am trying so hard to be the woman you raised. I had no idea how hard life would be and I have faltered this week. As an adult, I didnt know I would need my mom so much. I miss the foundation and the advice and the love and the knowlege that you were there.  I will do what I can to make you proud.  I have one wish; a sign from you would be so welcome. Tonight ,now, this week , whenever, I really need it.

I am writing this on purpose the day after the 7th anniversary of this terrible day. I am not from NY but have lived here for almost 14 years now. On that day I was living downtown, just 3 blocks east of the Towers. I took the subway under the WTC every morning to go to work.

It was a stunningly beautiful morning and I walked to my subway as I always did, passing by St. Paul's church which is a wonderful old old church that has a small but lovely cemetary behind it, with winding little walkways.

The day was so gorgeous and I thought I would walk through the yard and look at the headstones. Now, you may find that curious, but I am from New Orleans where we bury folks above ground because of the swamp water. The cemetaries of New Olreans are reknown and we, who grew up there, find marble works of art and mystery in them. So I walked through St. Paul's and since subways come very 7 mins or so, I knew I wouldnt be too late.

I was there, as where a few others when we heard that first crash. It shook the ground and the explosion was tremendous. I looked up and in the same cliche way that everyone talked about, it looked like maybe they were shooting a movie.  I had on a suit and heels and my briefcase and I a fellow walked up to me and said "what the F--- ?"  Then we saw the second plane line up and fly into the second tower.

From there the shock, the terror and the disbelief just made you freeze. We saw debris and what we found out later were some people who jumped fall from the building.  We watched as people were running and screaming. All of this was in such a short time, seconds, maybe less.

The picture is what I saw next. The building were collapsing. We just started running. This fellow, who I have never met and still dont know who he is, grabbed my hand and we ran. I was running in heels, my skirt was keeping me from keeping up and I was terrified. By now the dust and the clouds of debris were chasing us like a tornado in the movie. This guy said " give me your F---ing shoes!"  I did, I took them off and handed them to him and hiked up my skirt and we ran.  and ran and ran and ran, almost to 23rd st. Somewhere along the way we got seperated and I ended up running all the way to 23rd. I have a friend who lived there and I had this idea that if I could get there, I would be okay. so now my hose was shredded on my feet and I had no shoes and I walked in a trance to my friends place. The doorman let me in and I had dust and stuff in my hair. She was home already, having headed home when she heard the news. We sat on her sofa, I could not let go of my briefcase so we just sat and watched it all unfold. We cried but didnt talk, I mean, what do you say? Just oh my god, oh my god.

Then they started making announcements about anyone who lived below 14th street. They said that we dont know if the gas lines are going to blow, that there may be more attacks, that it was doom. I called the building I lived in and after almost an hour I got through and was that the National Guard and NYPD were saying that people had till sundown to get to their homes if they could and get what they could cause every indication was that the gas lines would start blowing and we would lose our homes/apartments.

I told my friend that I would walk back and try to get some things and be back. She protested and then when she knew I was serious she tried to come with me. But they were checking ID and wouldnt let anyone without ID from below 14th street in. I walked in my barefeet to my apartment. There were so many people sitting on John St in front of our building.

It was horrifying, the wreckage, the smoke and dust was not settled. We coughed and it was so scary. Finally they asked us to get in groups of floor numbers. I was on the 22nd floor and so was among the first group they let in. The deal was that you had to RUN up the stairs (no elctricity anywhere, so no elevators, no lights etc) with the Nat'l Guard and follow their instructions. We did that. To this day I do not knwo how I got up 22 floors that fast. He yelled at us that we had 15 mins to get what we were going to get and then they would take us down under arrest if need be. I couldnt think. I changed to jeans and a tshirt. I pulled a pillowcase off a pillow and just ran aroound my apt grabbing my family photos. I got some medications, some underwear , and I put a few things under my mattress thinking that if it all blew up , maybe something would survive. I grabbed a handful of t-shirts and my laptop and ran out to be run DOWN the stairs. It was dark, and dusty and incredibly scary. He was yelling at us to "go go go".  We were running but you couldnt see and has stuff in your arms and stuff. I dropped my laptop and leaned over to get it. The guy had a rifle and when I stood up, he accidentally hit me in my mouth with the butt of his rifle and knocked one of my teeth out.

But it was so scary I didnt feel anything, I was just running. Down on the street, it was getting dark and they were yelling in bullhorns to "get off the street". What? we all yelled, go where?  THEN they tell us that they have shut down access above 14th street, so we are all walking around like refugees in that wreckage, people crying, firemen everywhere. I walked toward the Seaport thinking at least it would be a bit less crowded. A girl that lived in my building was like me, she has a small tote with some things in it and was crying. We had only seen each other in the elevators so we introduced our selves and started talking about where to go for the night.

And then, we heard a voice that said , "this way". Down by the Seaport, is the Seaman's Church Institute and the minister that runs it was grabbing people to stay at the Institute for the night.  We went over there and it was all so dusty and crowded, exactlky as you would imagine a refugee camp.

My new friend and I were told that we could sleep "with the women" in what was called the "Woolen Room". The nice ladies of the Seamans Church Institue knit hats and scarves for seamen who port in NY.

We couldnt sleep. It was terrifying. No electricity, no news, screaming, crying.

We decided to go see what we could do. The minister told me that in addition to a shelter for us refugees, it was a place where the firemen could come and rest for a few mins between shifts of digging through the rubble. The minister handed me a candle and told me to go stand in a room he showed me. I was in such shock that it was weeks later that I realized that I spent the night 7 years ago, holding a candle to illuminate the urinal so the guys could see to pee.

I seriously do not recall anything except wiping their faces with towels and being grateful to hear news on their remote controls clipped to their shoulders.

Ahe and I ended up sleeping in the Woolen Room, but there was no sleep. But we tried, we used some poor seamen's woolens to put under our heads and we held hands, like little girls.

In the morning after no sleep but holding hands with a stranger through the night.

We went outside and knew we needed to get above 14th street. The Institute was now getting more people coming by from downtown restaurants and one guy from a seafood place had ice that he delivered as they would not obviously have any patrons for a while. So this ice guy delivered his ice and as he was commercial was going to be allowed above 14th street.

My new friend and I begged him to let us go with him and he took us, to exactly the other side of 14th street.

The rest is everything you have heard and read and seen on TV about it all. What I remember was those firemen in the night, resting for 5 minutes before they went to try to find their friends. I remember that I didnt realize for almost a week that my tooth was knocked out. I remember the Woolen Room and my friend whom I write every year on Sept 11.

I remember the incredible humanity that arose in the most cynical city for months afterward. I remember being at a diner almost 3 weeks later and a fireman walked in and people stood up spontaneously to clap and cry. I also remember SOME people above 14th street in their gorgeous clothes enjoying dinner at expensive restaurants.

I learned that life has all kinds of facets. I am alive because I am a New Orleanian and find solace in cemetaries; that irony is NOT lost on me. 

And what I did yesterday is talk to the man I love, I cried a lot and I am astounded that losing my mom was worse than all of what I just wrote.

And yet, here I am. And this city stands and we all stand.  Those two blue lights that shine into the sky are lovely but they really do not tell the story of what so many went through. There needs to be a memorial built YESTERDAY for these poor families who got a 4 inch bone to bury.

See, mine is the grateful, happily ever after version of 9/11. Because I am a New Orleanian and am not afraid of cemetaries, I was saved. Did you know that it was almost untouched there? It stood and was not damaged.

I am blessed and must find a way to repay the universe, through my grief. I am searching for my way. But I spent yesterday in gratitude for all that I have and in grief for the 6 people I personally knew who died that day.

I love my country and the thing I want most today is for all of us, no matter what your party affiliation, to VOTE.  And vote having done your homework and vote for what you believe in. Forget the media and the hype. sit quietly and think about what you want for our country and vote for the person you belive WILL get us there.

And to my Woolen Room friend-thank you for being there and for holding my hand on the 2nd most terrifying night of my life.

Caroline