I And Not My Wound Endure

The thing that one is struck by when visiting Ground Zero is not so much the absence of the buildings as it is the presence of space. This is lower Manhattan. There isn't a square foot here that doesn't have built upon it some tower of glass and steel. So to have this much open space in the middle of everything is eerie, unnerving.

I first visited the site last week. A friend recommended that I spend some time there alone before experiencing it amidst the tumult of bodies that would inevitably decent for the memorial service today.

I was reminded of the Scriptures when Christ violently expelled the money-changers from the temple. Everywhere I turned, vendors sold cheap trinkets and mementos. Visitors stood, posing for pictures in front of the remnants of carnage with idiot grins on their faces like they were hamming it up with Mickey Mouse.

Very few posed for such pictures this morning. Though the usual cacophonous din of voices filled the air at 8:45, they lapsed into silence at 8:46 when the bells of the city’s churches began to toll, marking the time the first plane plunged into the North Tower. Commuters and sightseers stopped what they were doing and stood, rooted, listening as the names of the thousands of dead began to be read out by their family members, streaming into the core of the sunken pit in order to pay their respects. All we could do was look on through fences and cry.

I could not help but think of a graduation ceremony as the names were read. Name after name after name. For hours it went on, with only brief interruptions.

9:03. Another moment of silence to signify the exact moment when the South Tower was struck by the second plane. The names continued.

9:59. Exactly five years ago this minute the South Tower imploded and fell in on itself. The names continued.

I began to walk, circling the massive site and trying to take it all in. The day was bright and nearly cloudless, just like that day five years ago. Monolithic flags snapped in the breeze or rippled on the sides of buildings. Uniforms of NYPD and FDNY officers were everywhere. Conspiracy theorists peddled their DVDs and pamphlets, marching in the street. Buddhist monks chanted for peace. A man was shouting that the end of the world is at hand, sinners beware. Jetliners, safe and sound on their way somewhere, roared overhead, making us all uneasy. Tourists splashed their hotel maps with tears. Mourners inserted flowers and taped photos of their loves ones to the fences, only to fall to the sidewalk in anguish. The names continued.

10:29. A final moment of silence for the collapse of the North Tower. The names continued.

Somewhere around noon, the names ended and a chorus of trumpets erupted in Taps. In eerie stillness for a gathering this large, the crowd dispersed, slowing seeking out the subways that would return them to work, to sightseeing, to a home or office of contemplation.

As usual, after class tonight around 10 p.m., someone suggested stopping at a pub for a pint or two. Usually I’d take them up on the offer, but not this night. I wanted to return to Ground Zero where, for tonight only, the “Tribute in Lights” had been resurrected.

I didn’t go alone. No one had any pints. Ten or so of us gathered at the World Trade Center, gapped at the twin, blinding shafts of light so high they seems to pierce heaven itself, and traded stories about where we found ourselves on that horrible day.

It seemed fitting that my day began and ended at the same place, awash in the same emotions.

Five years ago tonight, I stood before the Pentagon and watched it belch flames into the night’s sky. Tonight, I stood before lights of a very different kind.

It was a day of pain, it was a day of hope, it was a day in which I felt I was that much closer to realizing that, as Mayor Bloomburg said this morning, it was I and not my wound that would endure.