I don't want to remember or pay tribute to anything about 9/11. That may sound harsh or callous, but it was awful and remembering doesn't make it any better. It is not out of any disrespect to the dead or their families or loved ones. It is incredibly painful and it just sucks. I don't want to wax on how my day, THE day went. It's all anecdotal. Yes, we should never forget, sure. There are amazing stories, mostly tragic. It was terrible. For the last 10 years it has sucked. Not for me personally so much. Shifts, changes, some sad, some not, some fun, some involving death, heartbreak, disappointment, joy, gains of wisdom by the spoonful; the usual fare of life. But the world has gotten worse. It is more fearful/hysterical: endless war, lack of common decency, two-fisted greed, bald faced lying in government, in our economic system, dug in anger and unrealistic bias.
Or is it just that I am 10 years older and that much more jaded?
One good thing, that happened to me personally almost a month after THE day. My body: so stiff and sore from all the adrenaline pumping through it for weeks (the smell, the sirens, the TV, the fear, confusion, the numb horror and sadness, no laughter) I knew I needed to do something to calm down, stretch out, exhale. I began an Ashtanga Yoga practice. A practice that became personal. It has been a steady in my life. Perhaps an external parallel could be how I use to walk out my front door, look south and see the twin towers. This yoga stuff works on the internal landscape, which could make it stronger than buildings or as fragile as a thought. It is the regular practice where I have learned to breathe in and out, repeating day after day the same series of demanding movements and postures while my thoughts run, sometimes amok. Through the doubts, hysteria, obsessions, whatever voices in my head that are claiming the mic, continuing to inhale and exhale. Doing my best to stay present or accepting that I sometimes am unable to do that. Slowly, it can seem imperceptible, but the range of going from one cliff edge to another swings less wildly. I can stay in a calmer, less drama driven bandwidth. The power to observe my thoughts and make friends with my own mean nasty ones and my difficult (and painful) feelings has helped my life get richer, more experienced, lived.
Perhaps that is what is asked of us from all this. Not false hope, or looking towards the future with optimism. It is about giving ourselves space within ourselves to be present. Be here now, (to quote from Ram Das), to still be here now. With all the distractions, all the screens, the shiny objects to desire, people to envy or loathe, so much yelling, it's hard times to muddle through... Can we take a breath and wonder at being here at all? The what-ness of it: Sadness? Humor? Frustration? Beauty? Tedium? Sweetness? It's all here now. It was all there now, 10 years ago, even 11 years ago or 111 years ago. It's always. Here. Now.
PS The photo is a picture of graffiti on a wall in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
I took it this past April.
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