Chris Bickford

This past September 11 marked the 7th anniversary of, well, September 11. I happened to be in New York with not too much to do on that day, so I made a visit to ground zero to pay my respects to the dead. I almost wish I hadn’t. The site was still barricaded, fenced off, surrounded by police officers. There was little fanfare to memorialize the day, other than some people singing Jesus songs and passing out fliers saying “Prayer works miracles”…a hip looking couple was slouched on the wall of the church across the street, lazily holding up an “Investigate 9/11″ sign…tourists were gawking through the fences to get a glimpse of the rubble, craning their necks and climbing up the steel mesh to get a better look…and various kooks paraded through the crowd carrying signs ranging from “The End is Near” to “Write-in Paris Hilton for President”.

It was, I suppose, an apt representation of the mood of our country in these times: desperation leading to a triumvirate of sad reactions: religious extremism, paranoia, and smug apathetic absurdism…Seven years later, and we are still uncertain as to how to move on in the wake of that tragic day…

As night fell, however, a different mood began to infuse the city, no doubt inspired by the re-igniting of the “Tribute in Light” installed to honor those who lost their lives in the attack. Suddenly, from everywhere in the city, you could see the twin towers of light piercing the sky, and suddenly, we were all in it together. Somehow there was hope, a sense that, though it may be taking longer than any of us may have anticipated, we are rising from the ashes of that day. The light of our collective hopes and dreams seemed to be represented by those two towers of light, piercing through the solid rock of the city and into the heavens. It was a magical night, a perfect fall evening, with a cloud cover that stopped the two rays of light in mid-air, as if they were indeed ghosts of the departed towers. In a small park by the river’s edge in Williamsburg, a quiet group sat watching the Tribute in collective awe and reflection. None of us said anything to each other beyond simple pleasantries, but we all felt the power of this communal act we were involved in, the act of watching, remembering, and dreaming of a better future.

As I walked through the night to the source of the lights, from Brooklyn across the Williamsburg bridge, through Chinatown and the Financial District, past Ground Zero to the Battery Park garage, that ghostly feeling became even stronger. Thousands of particles of the ever-present New York dust that hovers and floats above the city without our ever noticing were illuminated by the Towers, turning rubble and waste into a flock of angels, dancing heavenwards towards that hole in the sky.

For some, it still feels like yesterday. For all of us, I think, time seems to have taken on a different character since 9/11, as if some portion of every day since then is still the day after. It may always be like this, at least until our generation passes and the catastrophic events of that day live on only in video, photographs, family histories, and apocyrpha. But out of every tragedy arises hope and new beginnings, and the future of our country may depend on how, when we are through with our grieving, we move on. We can choose to move on in fear, paranoia, extremism, or apathy…or we can move on with hope and vision, and honor the dead by creating a better world for the living.