gasp of wonderment, tears of sorrow

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dazzledbylight

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I had no intention of starting a 9-11 10th anniversary thread and ESP 2 days early
(I would have contributed to one as I usually do--but here I am..............

Some of you who know me know I am a native NYCer.
Others may remember that I spent some time (a year) working
IN the South Tower/73rd flr way back ( 80/81).
Still others know my minorly (vs Major) unusual where-was-I/how-did-I-find-out-about 9-11.......I did NOT KNOW at all at first ....Story.


Wel, today, this earlier through later evening I was strolling down the gorgeous re-landscaped part of green belt NY that is along the lower Hudson River between Canal ST and the Northern-most Park of the Battery City Park/ World Financial Center (west of the WTC site) & Esplanades/Parks complex...............

On the way down there was the reopening and total refurbishment also of Pier 25 just above this park ( Rockefeller Park) which I strolled through.

It was a beautiful day 82F/dry/sunny. :heart:


Then I walked further south- instead of going into
the park and down to the WFC and it's North Cove and Palm Court
I stopped at the North Eastern corner building (Big Company) to look at their memorial of the people they lost - a small pool, descriptions of the people with a incredibly carved Crystal suspended over it.

Right next to that is the stairs and escalator that leads to the North Bridge.....
....reconstructed after the original North Bridge was obliterated in the attack.

At the top with a medium space another set of stairs intersects from the north side -- there are bridge sides and roof structures etc.

For a long time you could/and still can view through the grills and poles the re-figurement and construction going on over the past ?9+ years (giving about 10+ months or so for stuff to have cleared away and stabilized etc) at the site...........

I've looked, I've taken photos.............

I had been too tired to walk over that particular way this summer but tonight I thought *AH!* I might be able to get a glimpse of part of the Memorial.

The one they chose ( I might have more to say on that tomorrow or Mon) me & my sis - it wasn't our first choice, nor was it our most unfavored..........

Over the years we've begun to warm up to it more. :)
I've come to think I'll pretty much love the double cascading waterfalls in each of the 2 Pool/Waterfalls in the 2 Foot Prints of The Towers- esp once I experience them.


I wasn't sure what I would be able to see tonight because of how close the new WTC 1 is to the stairs etc


wWll....
I caught a few of the night-lit :heart: trees in The Glades they have planted by the North-western (North Tower) pool.
But even more so I caught the north-western edge
of The lit-up Top Waterfall itself of that foot print.

OH!

oh.................

It IS beautiful........


.....and then the tears quickly blubbered up.
I put them away, later for that.


I do think this will become/be a wondrous :heart: space.
 
Awww Dazz!:hug::hug::hug:

I saw footage of the new site yesterday on tv and I started to cry. I agree that on paper it wasn't that impressive, but seeing what it has come to be...absolutely beautiful. Every year on 9/11 I think about what happened, go over all of the news articles/magazines that I have on it, and each year, as my children get older, they ask more questions, and now, my 11 year old can truly appreciate what a horrific day it was.

:sigh:
 
I didn't turn on the TV today (although that will change in 20 minutes, as True Blood is on).

I went about a normal Sunday, as that is what felt right to me. I blasted The Rising (well, most of it; sorry, Mary's Place and Let's Be Friends).

And then my choir sang the Mozart Requiem at a church, where there were also readings related to 9/11.

Music was the right way for me to do my own version of commemorating.
 
395843965.jpg


This looks photoshopped. But if it's not... WOW!

-----------

Aw man, sorry... still haven't figured out how to post twitpic and yfrog, etc.

There's a pic floating around Twitter... it's awesome. NYr photographer. You'll see it on his front website, but apparently, he took it down on his flicker. http://johndeguzman.com/ @johndeguzman

Check out the website pic.
 
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It was heartbreaking to see some of the families just clinging to that wall. :sad: Hopefully it brings some peace for them to have a place to go to remember.
 
i found this very powerful:

What We Affirm



Though we encounter it as suffering, grief is in fact an affirmation. The indifferent do not grieve, the uncommitted do not grieve, the loveless do not grieve. We mourn only the loss of what we have loved and what we have valued, and in this way mourning darkly refreshes our knowledge of the causes of our loves and the reasons for our values. Our sorrow restores us to the splendors of our connectedness to people and to principles. It is the yes of a broken heart. In our bereavement we discover how much was ruptured by death, and also how much was not ruptured. These tears lead directly to introspection.

Here is what we affirmed by our mourning on September 11, 2001, and by the introspection of its aftermath:

that we wish to be known, to ourselves and to the world, by the liberty that we offer, axiomatically, as a matter of right, to the individuals and the groups with whom we live;

that the ordinary lives of ordinary people on an ordinary day of work and play can truthfully exemplify that liberty, and fully represent what we stand for;

that we will defend ourselves, resolutely and even ferociously, because self-defense is also an ethical responsibility, and that our debates about the proper use of our power in our own defense should not be construed as an infirmity in our will;

that the multiplicity of cultures and traditions that we contain peaceably in our society is one of our highest accomplishments, because we are not afraid of difference, and because we do not confuse openness with emptiness, or unity with conformity;

that a country as vast and as various as ours may still be experienced as a community;

that none of our worldviews, with God or without God, should ever become the worldview of the state, and that no sanctity ever attaches to violence;

that the materialism and the self-absorption of the way we live has not extinguished our awareness of a larger purpose, even if sometimes they have obscured it;

that we believe in progress, at home and abroad, in social progress, in moral progress, even when it is fitful and contested and difficult;

that just as we have enemies in the world we have friends, and that our friends are the individuals and the movements and the societies that aspire, often in circumstances of great adversity, to democracy and to decency.


It has been a wounding decade. Our country is frayed, uncertain, inflamed. There is hardship and dread in the land. In significant ways we are a people in need of renovation. But what rouses the mourner from his sorrow is his sense of possibility, his confidence in the intactness of the spirit, his recognition that there is work to be done. What we loved and what we valued has survived the disaster, but it needs to be secured and bettered, and in that secure and better condition transmitted to our children. Our dream of greatness must be accompanied by an understanding of what is required for the maintenance of greatness. The obscenities of September 11, 2001 exposed the difference between builders and destroyers. We are builders. Let us agree, on this anniversary, that it is an honor to be an American and it is an honor to be free.

Leon Wieseltier is the literary editor of The New Republic.

Leon Wieseltier’s Remarks At ‘9/11: An Evening Of Remembrance And Reflection’ | The New Republic
 
thank you for posting in my 9-11 thread :heart:

thank you for all the vids, and photos.....

omg the one of the man at his son's name!
As somesaid -it's like at the Vietnam War Memorial in DC
where you can make a rubbing of your family /or friend's name(s).
I hope it brings them a bit of peace at last to have that sacred place.

And oh Paul Simon singing "Sounds of Silence" !

Irving, thank you for that speech text: very poetic.
The first paragraph, wow, yes very interesting way of drescibing grief.
ANd the high-lighteds stuff etc, agree with a lot of it.

sole- thanks for that link to the Twers of Light photo !

Yes -- well by the time my sis and I got to that area where you could
see the TOL up close... maybe the floating paper debris had settled down etc.
But other-wise they do look just like that!

In fact the previous 2-3 years we said to each other...
"does it seem to you ilke there's more sparkling in the beams ?!"
So those years the beams did look just like that!
I can look at them for hours.

I was a bit dissapointed only b/c I now had a new upgraded camea that
had a 12 optocal zoom vs my 4 optical zoom of last several years..
...ah...wellwhat I photographed still looks amazing/wonderous.

We thought last night that the haziness of the cloud and more humdity might have dampened down alot of the debris.
I did look closely at my zoomed in pics laer lst night at home
and I do seem to see a very little bit of stuff in there but I think b/c....

of the more humdity the background color bewtween the beams (at that closeness) wasn't as contrasty. That also affected what ever debris was still up there.

Cori, I haven't forgotten YOU.

I told my sis yeasterday as we were heading down for a 9-11
lecture/photodisplay (before going to Lower Manhattan) that
one of my Interland friends had said way back they were gooing to
be singing in a choir group to comemorate the day. Thank you for that.:hug:

cori/ Mrs Springsteen ah! The Rising (single) and the whole album...
what an album tht was/is....so perfect in so many ways. Definately have balsted someof those songs in 9-11 continuing process of dealing with it over the years.
 
From Brett Easton Ellis's twitter feed:

Remember that September
after dinner in Tribeca
walking past the barricades at midnight
and standing there thinking how small it all looked.

10 Sep via web

Twitter
 
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