When We Were No Longer Afraid of the Beautiful

I found myself in New York on 9/11 this year and was caught by how much that moved me. I was in SoHo, and so pretty close to the tribute lights and I came upon many people just stopped in their tracks, remembering. It was some contrast to the political craziness. I am sad a lot lately over the awful, uncivilized way we are treating each other and how impossible it seems to have an honest respectful discourse about just about anything. This 9/11 made me remember how for a brief, brief moment that year we found a more common place to be. I wrote this short bit that October in 2011 when I missed it already as something we couldn't hold onto.

When We Were No Longer Afraid of the Beautiful / October 2001

After the day the unimagined played out like a movie we had forgotten to write, we said to each other that everything had changed. We held our breaths. We held the door open for each other and thanked the CTA worker for the free ride.

We felt ashamed, our irony exposed for fraud. All that pretending we were above it all when really we had no idea what we were talking about. Blindfolded dancers along the volcano.

What a relief. To stop and smell the flowers, even. To be cliché. To salute a hero, say the pledge, sing the hymn, unburdened of that ironic distance. Weary with the effort of holding everything at arm’s length, our arms suddenly so very tired. We let them drop. Let it hit us. Damn. Who knew?

I want to hold on to this awareness. Already, I sense it slipping, our impatience again returning. Yellow ribbons suspended at the ready, but we aren’t good at waiting. Quick and big. Wholehearted and no holds barred—our charm, our beauty, our flaw.

Tired of waiting for the drama to pick up again, we turn surly. But still we see. The way fall turns on us, first stunning and benign, then nasty and undressed. Exposing what was there all along underneath the haughty green.