flux

on monday morning, we listened silently to a detailed recap of our visiting family visiting the new freedom tower, and the various monuments to the world trade center.  later that day, we were watching the news coming out of boston.

i don't know many new yorkers who want to talk about that day.  at least, i think i don't-- perhaps it's because i don't want to talk about that day.  we were here, and to be honest i was asleep until ruggy raced home and woke me (i was keeping late night working hours at the time, and still feel like a heel for being asleep).  a few days ago, when asked what i did, i said i went to find a blood donor site, and the memory of there being no blood needed made me, in the same breath i started it, wave my story away and clamp my mouth shut.  the moment anyone begins to re-live that day, i see them falling over and over again, i remember my parents calling and being so thankful to hear our voices, remember feeling like a child that just wanted to cross the closed bridges, remember wanting to vomit when the constant stream of news flashed a fireman walking slowly amidst running throngs, throwing his helmet down, in disgusted defiance.  his defiance looked like defeat.  he went there to save lives, there were no lives to save.

and then there's an asshole in every walmart waiting to buy an assault rifle, and look: i've fired guns, it's fun, i like them, but not at the cost they bring, that frivilous banal entertainment is not worth it, and then there's a bomb, and then there's the next assault, from here there or everywhere, and it could be a lone jackass or it could be a war, and then you're in a shooting of an altogether different kind, on a movie set, mincing around personalities, and watching your words, and truly?  screw all that noise.  there are wrecked families unable to fathom how to move into the next minute, and these families are not only in boston, or new york, or columbine, or newton, or oklahoma, THEY ARE ALL OVER THE WORLD, and while you're hoping you made a good impression at your job, they're hoping they can get through the night.  and you're really hoping the subway car hurling you to your job doesn't explode.

i took these pictures on set today.  we're shooting at an abandoned facility, the site is strange and crumbly and beautiful, and most of us (me included) were probably way too worried about trivial things.  but years ago, when these grounds were filled with life, those people worried too, about a whole different set of huge, and tiny, issues.   they survived it, in whatever way.  even if that survival was just time moving on without them.

on the radio to work, a DJ said i don't think everyone should get debbie downer about this.  this from a station that used to be the great 92.3 k rock.  it is apparently now a "positive energy" station.   it struck me as the most assinine, thoughtless statement i'd ever heard.  is this sort of tragedy becoming normal to us now?

but i will feel better about it tomorrow, or maybe even tonight, because you have to.   does that mean it becomes trivial?  or worse, normal?  so i'm mentioning it here, in my very small way, in order to remember: it's not either of those things.  it is a part of our lives, for some undiscernable reason.  but i look at ruggy and think about all the cogs that had to fall into place for us to meet, and i believe there is a reason for everything.   which is harsh and lovely and entirely impossible to comprehend.