{"id":626,"date":"2006-09-11T14:29:48","date_gmt":"2006-09-11T20:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/11\/5-years-ago\/"},"modified":"2006-09-14T21:21:05","modified_gmt":"2006-09-15T03:21:05","slug":"5-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/?p=626","title":{"rendered":"5 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb_share_1\" style=\"clear:left; float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-top:10px;;width: 55px;\" name=\"fb_share\"><div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#appId=125029517579627&amp;xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/?p=626\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"55\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>On this date in 2001 I woke up early to ride in a van from New Jersey to the Apollo Theater on 125th Street in New York. It was the release date of an album by Babyface and he was doing a showcase there. I was changing drumheads in the alley and one of the stagehands ran out of the load in door and was talking rapidly into a cell phone. It turned out his girlfriend had a job interview at the World Trade Center that morning. This is how I found out something was going on.<\/p>\n<p>    We were almost 10 miles from Ground Zero but as it was clear as a bell, the guys who climbed up to the theatre roof saw the second plane go in.<\/p>\n<p>   It took over a month for me to gather my words again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10\/12\/01<br \/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; DFW-LAX<\/p>\n<p>What I Didn&apos;t See<\/p>\n<p>And how it has rested on my mind now<br \/>For thirty days now<br \/>To be so close and what I didn&apos;t see<br \/>The compulsion to seek refuge<br \/>Paid for by someone else, complaining<\/p>\n<p>When I could have had to leave it all behind<br \/>Escaped on foot in this year&apos;s shoes<br \/>Without injury or even a light dusting<\/p>\n<p>Or bloody, not able to walk<br \/>Caked in concrete and burnt paper<\/p>\n<p>Or dropped in a hole with countless others<br \/>Separated from self to the extreme<\/p>\n<p>Just ten miles away and attached to it<br \/>By a small portable TV as if&#8230;<br \/>As if that could protect me from the proximity<br \/>Or the fear and disbelief.<\/p>\n<p>I tried to work through it and simply<br \/>Became unable to complete thoughts<br \/>Or see the importance in what I was doing&#8230;<br \/>It goes back to what I didn&apos;t see<br \/>Head down, following orders, <br \/>Not about to abandon my post, my riser<br \/>The day was the first time I had ever stepped foot<br \/>     on 126th St. in Harlem, first time at the Apollo Theater,<br \/>    first time I was glad to let some of the stage hands go before<br \/>    the job was done, first time that New York felt like an inescapable trap and <br \/>    New Jersey could be the gateway<br \/>    to the promised land&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You could look at any face, especially strangers<br \/>And know what they were thinking<\/p>\n<p>I looked out on the empty school yard<br \/>Across the street, hearing the intercom blaring<br \/>East-West view, no clear shot of the south from the middle of the block<br \/>No children, no play, no fun or laughter&#8230;<br \/>Just an announcement letting people know<br \/>Where the children were<br \/>I couldn&apos;t see them<br \/>Or the billowing head of the fire<br \/>And we waited&#8230;<br \/>And I got out of the stationary van<br \/>And went to the corner<br \/>To buy some water for the ride ahead<br \/>In those hours New York has never been<br \/>So congenial<br \/>Sitting in traffic mere blocks from the one lane out, upper deck<br \/>Of the GWB<br \/>Hours in New York traffic with no horns!!!<br \/>The van overly full with people, luggage and fear<br \/>My bladder full, no room and no where to go<br \/>Two blocks in two hours and then it was closed again&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Going east to get west<br \/>A bit of Boston in the Bronx<br \/>Behind us, the clouds from the fires<br \/>And still it&apos;s about what we didn&apos;t see<br \/>Fifteen, twenty miles away, still not far enough<br \/>The outrageousness of New York being closed!<br \/>The traffic backed up for miles and miles<br \/>Fire trucks still rolling towards the bridges<br \/>Let them through, let them through<br \/>People walking up and down the Cross Bronx at rush hour<br \/>Talking, no where to go, no way in or out&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The van picking up speed, as if it were trying <br \/>To leave earth&apos;s orbit or at least New York&apos;s<br \/>Finally upon the Tappan Zee, before Sundown<br \/>The monstrous plumes visible all the way<br \/>Down the river nearly thirty miles away<br \/>And it was still about what we didn&apos;t see<\/p>\n<p>The other fires in my life, the forests of the west.<br \/>Malibu, T.O. or rural Portugal<br \/>Some fought, some forgotten<br \/>Racing helicopters in a tour bus on Interstate 5,<br \/>Dropping  water along the fireline<br \/>Or the surreal feeling of waking from<br \/>A pizza oven sized bunk on an English bus<br \/>With the smell of burnt wood in my nose<br \/>To pry the curtain open and find the landscape<br \/>Smoldering, forests, businesses, no one there<br \/>The roads blocked by a farmers tractors,<br \/>Another political fire&#8230;<br \/>Here is the story of a person, a people<br \/>With control issues, never stopped by poverty<br \/>Or politics or religion or race<br \/>The lack of money, an illusion created<br \/>By how well we have it<br \/>Realizing that I currently make 200 times more a week<br \/>Than a large part of the world<br \/>And feeling as if I don&apos;t have the freedom<br \/>Financially to do what&apos;s next<\/p>\n<p>This is about control and what I felt that day<br \/>It was the illusion of control stripped away<br \/>The illusion of freakishly blessed safety collapsed<br \/>That we can be touched<\/p>\n<p>It&apos;s still about what I didn&apos;t see<br \/>I will always struggle to describe the weight of the air<br \/>In Manhattan that day<br \/>I won&apos;t get dramatic about psychic cries<br \/>Or anything else poetic that I didn&apos;t actually experience<br \/>But I did feel<br \/>-An unending sense of disbelief<br \/>    married to the second shoe drop of &#8220;What&apos;s next?&#8221;<br \/>-A complete misplacement of the tools of coping<br \/>    and understanding<br \/>-and a ball kicking reminder that the vaccination of being<br \/>    a white middle class US citizen from the horrors of<br \/>    life is a hoax.<\/p>\n<p>What I did see was <br \/>Another day;<br \/>And my family and friends.<br \/>In time, hope and courage<br \/>A new perspective and the blessings<br \/>Of a loving God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On this date in 2001 I woke up early to ride in a van from New Jersey to the Apollo Theater on 125th Street in New York. It was the release date of an album by Babyface and he was doing a showcase there. I was changing drumheads in the alley and one of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[19,7],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peNcU-a6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}