Glibbertysmidgeon

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

~Benjamin Franklin, 1755

The icicles are lovely,
My steamy breath is nice
the windows look so pretty
dressed up in lace of ice

I’m saving lots of money
preserving frozen food
my houseplants are surviving
but in a rotten mood

I wake up every morning
so glad to go to work
because my cube’s so toasty
The heat’s a handy perk

but sometimes I envision
my home, a comfy den
I’m cold when I am outside
But warm when I am in

Will we be getting heat in the building anytime soon?

This is the final week of this year’s Tour de France, and it’s the only thing I have watched on TV for a month. In an email, my sister-in-law cheered for Lance Armstrong, and then asked, “Is that like cheering for Goliath?”

I confess, I do tend to cheer for the underdog, but in this case, I’m cheering for the top dog.

Lance may be the big fish among the cyclists on the road today. He probably has the best team, the best legs, and the best bike. He definitely has the fiercest mental focus and the most rigourous training routine- cycling through the winter when the other cyclists are resting, and riding all of the climbs in each years’ route in advance of the race .

But what Lance is chasing is something bigger than a victory over this particular group of cyclists. in 103 years, only five men have ever won the Tour de France five times. Two have won five consecutively, and only one has ever had the chance to win seven. In his bid for his 7th consecutive Tour de France victory, Lance is competing against the entire history of cycling. He is attempting to achieve a record that will stand, probably, for my lifetime.

In the seven years that Lance has worn the Yellow Jersey, he has exhibited a level of integrity, discipline, and sportsmanship one doesn’t often get to witness in the world of professional sports. I can enjoy watching him race without the stain of steroids, drug addiction, or ear biting that have dulled some of our other passtimes.

And as if all of that isn’t enough, one look at his life story, and you’ll realize that we are witnessing one of the greatest moments in sports history.

I’m for great moments in history. I wish we had more like this one.

Go Lance!

The heat index is 91 today. I don’t know what that means, but it’s really hot out there.

Yesterday The City set a new record for electricity usage in a single day as New Yorkers gathered around our air conditioners, leaning into the cool like pioneer families around the woodstove. At least today the humidity has let up; for the past four days a blanket of damp has laid heavily on the city. When I walked out of the office, the thick, gray air hit me like a bag of wet laundry- hot and suffocating. Everybody walks slow in this oppressive weather, trying in vain to preserve their dry clothes. I don’t need to sweat; the moisture just condenses on me like a bottle of beer. If only I could be so cold.

This summer I swing madly between manic bouts of creative energy, and absolute lethargy. In the air conditioned office, my mind skips out of my meetings into the chaos of the childrens’ story I’m working on.

“What things can a severed hand do?” I wonder, “scratch, snatch, slap, poke, pick, point, flick, grab, pinch, pry, shake, squeeze, KARATE CHOP!”

In the warmer, damper terrain of my apartment I fuss. Ideas buzz around my head like fireflies, but I can’t organize myself enought to swat them down and press them to the page. Instead kick myself later for letting them get away. I want to write, I want to go to the gym, I need to walk the dog… and find myself upgrading my blog to a new version of WordPress instead. I’m beginning to see my modern conveniences as annoying interruptions, instead of fun and useful gadgets.

I’ve lost interest in email entirely. In fact, I dread it. What I once adored- my miraculous convergence of socializing and writing- has devolved into a chore. It consumes too much time and creative energy.

My cell phone is out of favor as well. Last year I was a local fixture, walking my dog with my earbud in place, phoning home, organizing my wedding, making dinner dates. Now, you’d be well advised to send me a text message, because I can’t be bothered to check my voice mail.

I have a love/hate thing going with my laptop. I love it for writing, I hate it because that dratted Internet constantly distracts from my work. Blog updates, emails, Instant Messages, news… I’m not sure I was built to access so much communication in one location. Sometimes I pull out the network card, physically removing access to the Web, so that I can work on what really matters.

A trick I should employ right now.

Young Brennan Hawkins has been rescued from his four days lost in the wilderness. His parents are very proud of him for surviving, and for following their advice so carefully.

Brennan’s mother, Jody Hawkins, suggested that her son may have been avoiding searchers by following his father’s advice.

“He had two thoughts going through his head all the time,” she said. “Toby’s always told him that ‘If you get lost, stay on the trail.’ So he stayed on the trail. We’ve also told him don’t talk to strangers … when an ATV or horse came by he got off the trail … when they left, he got back on the trail.”

“His biggest fear, he told me, was someone would steal him,” Jody Hawkins added.

CNN

I fear that Brennon’s parents may have hammered home the wrong message. Studies show that 71% of child abductions are not perpetrated by strangers.

For generations, our fundamental messages to children have contained three basic premises.

“Don’t Take Candy From Strangers”
In at least two of three cases, the offender is not a stranger in the mind of the child. Usually, the victim and offender know each other, at least casually. Child molesters often seek legitimate access to children and then victimize them through a process similar to seduction. This reality does not make the message wrong, only grossly inadequate in providing protection for children, who need more comprehensive information about the dangers they are far more likely to face.

“Don’t be a tattletale.”
One of the most stigmatizing names that a child can be called is tattletale. From their earliest moments, we consciously and subconsciously encourage children not to communicate. Thousands of children are hidden victims, and the key to prevention and detection is communication. Children must be taught that if something is happening in their lives that they do not feel right about or that makes them feel uncomfortable, they must tell somebody they trust.

“You’re just a kid. Be respectful to adults; they know what they’re doing.”
With this final message, we face a delicate challenge. All parents want their children to be polite and respectful to adults. Our message is not that we want children to be disrespectful, but that we must empower them to realize that they have the right to say no to those who would abuse their authority as adults. As educational consultant Stephanie Meeghan aptly expresses during many of the training sessions for teachers that she has held since 1988, “We must make children aware that their safety is more important than good manners.”

America’s families need not live in fear, but parents need to be fully informed about the dangers their children face and the most effective ways to educate them and guard them from harm. The key to child safety is communication. Children should recognize that “strangers” often do not look strange, and parents should recognize that most abductions and assaults involve an offender and victim who know each other. The exaggerated fears of “stranger danger” generated by lurid tabloid headlines need to be replaced with solid facts garnered from serious research.

Keeping Children Safe: Rhetoric and Reality
Ernest E. Allen
Juvenile Justice Journal

Sure it’s healthy to be wary of strangers.
It is not healthy, however, to blow this wariness up into a phobia so strong that a child would rather brave the wilderness with no food, water, or shelter than to ask for help from a passing hiker.

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.

LA Times

Thank goodness we kicked those inspectors out and sent in our soldiers.
Now that all those nasty weapons are out of the warehouses, in the wild, doing whatever weapons of mass destruction do when they’re on the loose, I feel so much safer.

Don’t you?

My friend Tara linked to an article about the political spin that has been applied by both parties to the new Star Wars movie. In her entry, Tara was scoffing about this recent trend in politics to read too much into our fictional characters.

Reading the article, the thing I found chilling is the ending.

…a Universal Pictures marketing executive had given a lecture to his marketing class about “King Kong,” which is coming out later this year. “Is there a political overtone to it?” Mr. Sealey said. “I suspect he’s got to think that through today. The political sensitivities are so great that you have to take that calculus into consideration. Is somebody going to read into ‘King Kong’ that it’s pro-Iraq, or it’s going to get PETA upset?”

New York Times

What value is any form of storytelling if it refuses to address the most interesting and challenging issues of its time? If we can’t explore our divisions even in fiction, how will we ever resolve them?

I am really frightened by the corporate dumbing down of our music, movies, news, and literature.

When the earthquake hit Sri Lanka, I was having Christmas dinner with my family. While the news reports about the tsunamis striking 11 countries started rolling, I was asleep at my sister’s house. I first heard of the disaster when Kris called me down from her attic workroom on Monday afternoon. By the time I had descended the stairs the news update had ended, and someone had changed the channel.

“Isn’t William in Phuket?” Kris asked. I thought a minute.

“He didn’t say where he was headed, but he usually goes to Phuket when he’s in Thailand.”

We speculated on how we might find his itinerary, and I went back upstairs, hoping that he had gone to Bangkok instead.

The next morning, a friend called to ask if I’d heard from William yet. This friend believed that he had, in fact, gone to Phuket. Later in the day, I phoned William’s parents,

“Hi Paul and Maureen, this is William’s friend, Patti. I was just wondering if you’ve heard from him yet.” Suddenly, the gravity of the situation struck me, and I began to bluster, “I’m sure he’s just fine, but I was wondering if he’ll be coming home early…”

I ended the message by leaving my phone number and absurdly wishing them a happy new year.

We ate lunch, ran an errand, and then headed back down to Seattle, where we had dinner plans with two of Kris’ brothers. During the drive we began phoning friends to arrange times when we might visit with them.

“…How ‘bout coffee in the morning? We’re going to the aquarium with Jason and Presley tomorrow…William will be home on Friday, and we were going to spend some time on New Year’s Eve with him. How’s your schedule on Thursday?”

“…We have to give William’s car back on Friday, so whoever hangs out with us on Saturday has to be our chauffer…”

As we were passing through Everett, I suggested we check on William’s house. He’d left us the keys, but we hadn’t yet taken advantage of his offer to stay there.

“We should check the mail and stuff.”

There wasn’t any mail- he must have notified the Post Office to hold it. There wasn’t any note for us, either. Or any itinerary lying on the coffee table. Without William, the house seemed lonely, and much too quiet. We paced around the cold house, picking up pictures of William- with his daughter, with his sister, with a friend. I put a note on the refrigerator, and Kris and I sat down on the couch and looked at one another.

“You want to go over to Jason’s house?”

When we arrived at Jason’s, a news story was playing footage of the tsunami- the first we’d seen. We were stunned by the images of the destruction, and the death toll. We’d had no idea of the magnitude of this disaster.

Now, as I dress for dinner, I think back on that fumbled message to William’s parents with regret. I hope he really is in Bangkok, sipping a whiskey sour and watching the whole thing on television.

UPDATE: William was not on Phuket, and is home safe.

The optometrist said it’s only a slight astigmatism, that he’d probably only notice it when reading, or using the computer, or when he’s especially tired. We went to pick out glasses the same day, because Kris stares at his computer a lot.

“Maybe I’ll read as fast as you now.” He joked.

When the glasses were ready he sped into the city to pick them up while I finished packing for our Christmas trip home. On the ride out to the airport, I kept looking at him. He ignored my stares and thought his own thoughts. Since I was driving I could not stick my nose in his ear and exhale loudly, lick his face, or do any of the other petty annoyances that usually win his attention; I just kept peeking. I was surprised by how much I liked them. And by another reaction that I couldn’t quite place.

We’d chosen super light frames, with small, rimless lenses. The glasses are nearly invisible. And yet.

At the airport food court we ate teriyaki while a jazz trio riffed on White Christmas, and I watched him from every angle. He finished eating and sat quietly, eyebrows slightly raised, lost in his own thoughts.

And there it was.
He looked exactly right, sitting there daydreaming in his subtle eyewear. Somehow, the glasses complemented his thoughtful expression. Wearing them, he looked intelligent, gentle, and dreamy.

His look suddenly a perfect reflection of his nature.

If you’ve been through it as many times as I have, you can feel it coming.

There’s a certain slowdown, a growing loss of momentum. Management is distracted. There’s talk about the long term direction of the team, but there isn’t any work for you to do today. Or there is work, but nobody is asking when you’ll have it done. Maybe the others don’t realize it, but they respond to the mood. There’s time for talk at the water cooler. You’re not the only one who doesn’t have a deadline.

It was a relief today when my boss took me into her cube and asked, “Do you want to know what’s going on?”

December is the killing season. In the last 7 years, I’ve been laid off at Christmas 4 times. I’ve come to look forward to the holiday with equal parts anticipation and dread. Can I buy him that warm coat, or should I be trimming The List instead of the tree?

This year, the news was surprisingly good.
The company has asked all consultants to take a hiatus until the end of the year, starting Monday. We can come back to our jobs in January.

Even better, the hiatus coincides with my trip home for the holidays. The company has simply extended a planned vacation for three extra days. Sadly, some of us weren’t so lucky. 25 consultants packed their things today and said goodbye for good.

Two of them are people I know.

After they left I sat at my desk, editing a document. I was glad to have a hard deadline. But as I sat there, feeling amazed and grateful to have survived another Christmas at my good job, I couldn’t help thinking back on those two goodbye hugs.

They came to work like any other day. By lunchtime they had walked out into the cold with their scarves around their noses, and their futures as open as the windswept streets.

“I dreamed that rotten food from the top shelf dripped on the pies and wreaked them!” Kris confessed on Wednesday morning. I can’t blame him for having pie disaster dreams. We spent 3 hours on Tuesday night juicing lemons, separating eggs, stirring cornstarch paste, and whipping meringue. It was our first lemon meringue pie experience, and it gave me a deeper respect for my grandmother, who made them regularly when I was young`.

Three hours of stirring, sniffing, starching, zesting and stressing- and we used store bought crusts!

But it was all worth it when these two beauties came out of the oven. The Meringue was tall and golden. We watched them cool in something like awe, licking tart filling from the wooden spoon and red rubber scraper. Kris’ eyes were nearly as round as the pies.

“I want to eat them now.”

I like that about Kris. He’s like the kid on Christmas morning. I like to savor the anticipation. I like that Christmas Eve feeling, when the house is lit up, the presents are stacked, and the whole world is holding it’s breath until morning. Watching him lick his lips over those pies only made the anticipation better.

That was two days before Thanksgiving, and we had to keep our mitts off the pies ‘till then.

We spent those two days making sweet potatoes, au gratin potatoes, spinach & feta quiche, homemade cranberries, and mulled wine. We ordered a deep fried turkey from Jive Turkey, down the street. Otto was bringing the perniel, Mel was bringing the pumpkin pies, green bean salad, mashed potatoes, and butternut squash soup with homemade cheesy croutons. To die for.

When the big day arrived things were going smoothly. The quiches were cooling on the stove, the sweet potatoes cooking in the oven. The wine was warming in the crock pot, and we were scurrying around tidying the house. At 2:30 Kris left to pick up the turkey, and Mel, Pam, and Mary arrived with their arms full of food. At 3:13, Otto and Kika arrived bearing ham, and at 3:30 Kris called to say there wasn’t going to be a turkey.

Jive Turkey had made a grave miscalculation, and people were lined up around the block. One woman threatened to sue. About the same time we decided to forgo the bird, I phoned Kathie to see when she and her family would arrive. As it turned out, nobody told them when to come for dinner. What is Thanksgiving without a little chaos?

Of course, there was plenty of food. There were also plenty of crusty dishes, sticky floors, and gummy counters. On Sunday, when we’d finally gotten the apartment straightened up, eaten most of the leftovers, and collapsed in the living room for a break, I thought again about grandma baking those pies.

My dad used to tell me stories about the days when Grams baked 14 loaves of bread every Tuesday, in a woodstove. Dad and his brothers used to pick blackberries so that Grams would bake pies in the morning, and feed them to Grandpa and the kids in the evening. On one level, it makes me want to kiss the Kitchen Aid stand mixer I got as a wedding gift. On another, it kind of makes me sad to know that there is no possible way I could accomplish the things my grandmother did. A wood stove?

I’m thankful that Aunt Eunice taught me how to make a good homemade pie crust, but I’m also thankful for the modern luxury of a store bought pie crust on Thanksgiving Day.

Mostly, I’m thankful that there’s another piece of lemon pie in the fridge right now, because all this writing about food has made me hungry.

When I was a girl I dreamed of war. The dream war went on and on, and that it took away my daddy, my brother, my husband and my cousins. In my dream, I knew I would never be happy again.

Today, that never-be-happy feeling is back.
Sometimes I can beat it back- shove it down while I enjoy a movie, or let is slide to the side while I walk the dog, breathing deeply the earthy leaf smell of fall. But it is always there. Like movement in my peripheral vision, like a foggy goblin lurking. The whole world feels like that darkened bedroom where I bunched my blankets up on the bed so the alligators couldn’t use the trailing edges to pull themselves up. The whole world feels like the yawning emptiness of my dream, where the holes left by my dead let the cold in. Where the holes left by my dead left me naked.

I don’t like my bedroom tonight. It feels cold and dusty, like the room my sister and I once shared on Uncle David’s farm. That room was small, with two shuddering windows, but tall. The ceiling was so far away it seemed anything could happen in the space between the scratchy warmth of our quilt and that faraway wood. The door to the room was tall, too, and it had a metal doorknob with bumpy carvings that felt rusty on my small hand. Below the doorknob was keyhole. When my cousin, Maria, watched television in the common room outside our door, the light came through the keyhole, projecting an upside-down copy of the show on our flaking wallpaper. I tried to watch these shows when they were on because it took my mind off the skittering sounds in the ceiling and the drafty cold breath of monsters breathing softly on my cheeks. But upside-down black and white television characters stretching tall and misshapen on that high, high wall were almost as scary as the monsters I couldn’t see.

Tonight when I go into my adult bedroom, made messy by a weekend of closet cleaning, I wish for Maria’s quiet TV outside my door. The cold night air gusts the gauze curtains, and I hear a woman on the sidewalk yelling at her dog. Two dusty closet doors are spread eagle on the floor beside fat trash bags bursting with clothes for the Salvation Army. This room feels abandoned, and I don’t want to sleep here.

I return to the living room and curl up on the couch. My husband taps quietly on the keyboard, and I don’t need a keyhole to see the familiar pictures on his computer monitor. He may not chase away the boogeyman with a magic sword, but he always makes time to tuck me into bed, and he stays until I fall asleep if I ask him to.

I always wondered why the press keeps referring to the torture in Abu Ghriab prison as “prisoner mistreatment”.

If attaching electrodes to my private parts and turning on the juice is just mistreatment, then what is torture?

Now I see that the press must have been using the new definition of torture, created by his eminence, Alberto R. Gonzales:

Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or sufferingto amount to torture under Section 2340, it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g. lasting for months or even years.

Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales
Council to the President
August 1, 2002

It seems a bit extreme to me. Honestly, all they’d have to do to me is pull out my fingernails, or put me in a meat locker for a few hours, and I’d confess to crucifying Christ, organizing the attacks of September 11th, and playing Christmas music before Halloween.

And no one lies as much as the indignant do.

~Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

It seems like a good day to think about what being a combat veteran really means. This essay says a lot:

“NPR : A Day in the Life of the ‘Bravo Company’”

Today Sophie and I were rerouted on our walk due to noisy road construction. Our detour took us past PS 56, also known as our polling place.

I felt a pang in my stomach much like the one you get when you see the old boyfriend at the mall buying a pretzel.

The West Side Highway is eight lanes of blacktop that traces the Western edge of Manhattan along the Hudson River. It is divided down the center by a wide median dressed up with shrubs and spots of grass, punctuated by streetlights leaning over the road at regular intervals. Since the attack on the World Trade Center, it has also been the lifeline to Ground Zero. The southbound lanes are closed somewhere north of 15th St, and the only cars allowed to pass belong to residents of the area and recovery workers. The majority of traffic traveling north is coming directly out of the site.

An ad hoc sort of volunteer effort has been going on in the median of the West Side Highway, where it intersects with Christopher Street some ten blocks South of my office. Every day since the disaster, crowds of people have gathered on that spot to cheer for the recovery workers as they pass to and from the scene, waving flags and holding signs bearing messages of support and gratitude.

Today, on our lunch break, a group of people from the office decided to grab a burger and walk down to Christopher Street. When we arrived, I was surprised how few people there were. In the early days the street was lined, but today there were only ten or twelve determined well-wishers, shifting back and forth across the median, ebbing and flowing with the traffic in either direction. A woman in her fifties was passing out cups of water and salt-water taffy during the breaks in traffic.

We picked through a stack of hand made signs in different shapes and colors. Sifted through cardboard and plastic, laminated construction paper, posterboard and wood to find the sign that suited each of us. The handwriting on each was different, but the sentiment was the same.

Liz looked somber, holding a long piece of cardboard that read “Stay Strong”. Carrie raised a white piece of posterboard with the message “We Love our Heroes”. The “O” in Heroes was shaped like a heart. Julie waved “Honk for USA”, and I traded my “Gracia” in for a piece of blue construction paper, covered in clear tape, that simply read “Thanks”.

The passing traffic responded with cheers of their own. Badged and undercover police cars of every make and model whooped short quips from their sirens, or chorused an assortment of R2D2 style blips and hoots, some briefly flipped on their lights. Taxis and vans, service trucks from the phone companies, recycling services, and welding outfits honked their horns and waved back. Oversized dump trucks traveling north gave us the thumbs up as they passed, the smell of ashy dust and asbestos breezing by in their wake.

Each volunteer had a distinctive cheering style. One woman arrived wearing shorts, sunglasses, and a white shortie tee shirt with the American Flag across the chest. Plucking out a small piece of white laminated paper with which read “God Bless America”, she moved out to the curb and began enthusiastically cheering, waving, and screaming “THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!”. Many gave the ‘thumbs up’ while waving a sign or flag, others yelled their thanks into the open windows of the passing cars. Michael put down his sign and stood at the curb, composed as the Statue of Liberty, simply clapping.

I held my sign high with one arm, waving enthusiastically with the other. I wanted to call out “Thank you!” with the rest of the volunteers, but I couldn’t get past the lump in my throat. With every honk and wave from the passing cars, my smile grew wider, and my throat tighter. And so I just waved and smiled, while the tears collected in the rim of my sunglasses.

Today the world smells dark, the way it did on another uncertain day many years ago, when my cousins and I set the hayfield around grandma’s farm on fire. But this smoke comes with an even more disturbing leaden, chemical aspect. It comes smelling of doom and dark doings.

Walking around the city, I swallow gritty sediment at the back of my throat, imagining that it tastes oily, like jet fuel. I think about burning asbestos coloring my lungs. The rescue workers must be swallowing this air in great, clotting clumps. I take a deeper breath, gulping down my fair share. On the news, the nation watches heroic rescue workers walking like astronauts through a blizzard of ash. Outside Ground Zero, we are in the gray zone. Neither rescuers nor victims, insiders nor outsiders, we look for our place.

Our homes are intact, our beds are fluffy, and our grocery stores are open for business. We accept our mild inconveniences. The Starbucks stores are closed. We cannot walk through Dag Hammerskjold plaza because it’s too close to the UN. Good citizens, we remember to be thankful for the sand filled dump trucks blocking the roads, and the busloads of fresh-faced national guardsmen keeping us safe. I am somewhat awed by the growl of our protective F16 fighter, circling faithfully overhead.

But I am restless. Like the repentant child who once played with matches, I want to make restitution. I want to take my spanking and go to bed without supper, so that I can wake up tomorrow to pancakes, maple syrup, and a world that’s going to be okay. I need to give something back, in payment for the gift of having survived.

And so today I organized an outing. Four friends met on 49th Street and walked to the blood center to make our contribution. When we got there, a tired looking man with dark hair falling into his face was handing out an 800 number. “The blood centers are at their capacities. Please call this number after Friday to make an appointment to donate.”

Other restless New Yorkers had pre-empted my effort. Turning out in droves to donate blood, they lined up around the block to bare their arms for the needle. I was grateful for this bright infusion of hope, but I was also disappointed. I needed to roll up my sleeves somehow, and help. The volunteer centers, also, were overwhelmed with unskilled hands. They had no use for me.

Later in the day I passed by The Chelsea Piers. There was a caravan of help plodding into the crisis center. People wheeling, packing and carrying a stream of blankets and Baggies, paper towels and bottled water. Donations for the rescue effort. I made a mental note to yard out those extra blankets and bring them down.

This evening I am sitting in a small café with red walls, eating chicken cacciatore and watching a brand new television, shouldered among the designer teas and hand painted coffee mugs on a wire shelf. All of the local businesses are showing the news. This morning I watched Mayor Giuliani speak from the new TV in the lobby of the doggie gym. I stir my iced tea, and the tinkling sound startles two men sitting in front of me.

“Sorry,” one shrugs, “Guess I’m still a little jumpy.”

“It’s okay,” I reply. “we all are.”

The strangers invite me to join them at their table, where they have a better view of the news. It’s like that around here now. The subways wait for the latecomer sprinting down the stairs before closing the doors. Bartenders pour our drinks extra strong. We are living in a kinder, gentler New York, where people walk more slowly and meet the eyes of strangers on the street. Smiling at strangers is less about feeling happy, and more about moral support. “I’m glad you’re alive” my smiles say to people I’ve never met. They smile back.

When I see a firefighter or a police officer I am overcome with love and gratitude. I want to hug the ambulance driver, and the tired woman in scrubs sipping her coffee and watching the news. I want to kiss those rescue dogs, and slip cookies into the pockets of the Red Cross volunteers. I want to bring a cup of coffee to every single person who is working to keep us safe, and to bring our missing loved ones out to safety.

In a city where, for seven months, I have felt like a stranger, I’ve suddenly become part of the family.

On the corner of Avenue A and 14th street, a graffiti artist called Chico has done his penance. On the side of a dry cleaner’s building is the familiar image of the two skyscrapers billowing smoke amidst a peaceful city skyline. In tidy script, the piece is titled, “In Memory of Friends and Family.” I paused to watch people carefully arranging flowers and candles at the base of the wall.

My young cousins and I couldn’t bring back that year’s lost crop of hay. We couldn’t make our world back into the place it was before we dropped the match. And so I have tried to become a person who deserved the love and forgiveness my family gave me all those years ago. I tried to grow up right. Sometimes that’s all you can do.