Felicity Wright

Travels

When Hell Meets Heaven

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After spending the spring and summer of 2001 teaching a new computer system to Port Authority employees in New York City, I was briefly assigned to another client in nearby Newark for a three-day class in early September. This meant that I was 25 miles from my classroom at the World Trade Center and 200 miles from my home in Washington, D.C., when the world witnessed the event that would forever change our lives.

I return in early October to help the Port Authority staff at La Guardia Airport. Most haven’t learned the new system, and those who did take the class can’t remember diddlysquat. The documentation that my team developed has, literally, been vaporized. But bills are piling up, vendors are demanding payment, and equipment must be purchased.

I spend two days with Jane, who was in my classroom on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. She and five others escaped, but two classmates went to a different stairwell and were never seen again. Three weeks after the bombing, I see that Jane is still too traumatized to take an elevator or enter a building of more than two stories.

Her husband had been on the 74th floor. He, three colleagues, and a janitor with a lunch box and cleaning bucket, were bunched in the express elevator speeding upwards from the 44th floor, when it suddenly plunged downward about hundred feet and just as abruptly stopped. Picking themselves off the floor in the pitch-black cage, they had no idea where they were. Prying the elevator doors open, they found only a dark wall.

Smoke is seeping in through the elevator cracks. Covering their noses with handkerchiefs soaked in milk, they take turns with the metal edge of the squeegee to laboriously cut through the sheetrock. They eventually bust into a bathroom, but then have to break through ceramic tiles. Emerging on the 50th floor, they walk downstairs single-file leaving room for firemen who are running up. They see the light of day just four minutes before the building crashes. If the janitor had not had a flashlight, a squeegee, a pint of milk, and the cool to mastermind the rescue, no one would have lived to tell their adventures of the morning. Was he a guardian angel in disguise?

Several days later, I am at the agency’s temporary headquarters in Hoboken sharing an office with Diane, the training manager, a delightful middle-aged woman with whom I have spent many happy hours over lunch and in meetings. But now, she’s a different person. Once attentive to her subordinates, she has morphed into a protective mother bear; determination and deep weariness have replaced the twinkle in her eyes.

I don’t know what war is like, but I have an idea of what it’s like to “go through the wars”: it is the process by which we are forced to acknowledge our vulnerability. For most of us, war is external; its “over there,” or “back then,” and it involves others. But after 9-11, war is here and now and within. The reality of who we are is struggling with our preconceptions about ourselves. Suddenly we are fearful, and we don’t like the people that we have become.

Another reason Diane has lost her sparkle is because her commute is now 2 ½ – 3 hours each way, instead of an hour previously. This means that she leaves home just before 6:00 am and doesn’t usually get back until 9:00 pm. Twice in the last week, she was an hour late because Penn Central had been evacuated for “something” (never explained); this required her to walk almost a mile to the subway and a then several blocks to the PATH station, extending her one-way commute to nearly four hours. And some of her weariness is because the computer system is often down; what once was a simple, two-minute transaction is now a cause for major celebration.

One morning, as I am reflecting on the difference between heroes (all of the people in or anywhere near that building on September 11th) and saints (those who have devoted their lives to God and God’s people), a woman enters to drop off files. Hearing her mutter “Jesus Christ” under her breath and assuming that she has just broken a fingernail, I look up to see what is wrong. Instead of a scowl, I am greeted by a warm smile and a cheerful “Good morning, sister” from a woman I have never before seen in my life.

After brief courtesies, Victoria shares her impressions of that day. She was sitting at her desk on the 63rd floor when the plane hit. Rather than run or scream, she dropped to her knees in prayer. She had a clear vision of God “sitting on His throne” looking down on her and saying, “Look at my baby girl calling on me in the midst of this terror.” Directing some unseen angels, God told them, “Go and see about my daughter.”

When the image of God’s radiance faded, she went with waiting colleagues to the nearest stairwell. Walking down, she began reciting the 23rd psalm and singing praise songs. Others joined in, and many came up later thanking her for the calm faith she radiated in that dark, smoke-filled stairwell. Is not Victoria an angel and a saint?

The next day, Don and Raoul share memories of walking down from the 70th floor. People were orderly at first, mostly because so many had survived the 1993 bombing and trusted the structural integrity of the towers. Don and Raoul were nonplussed by burn victims and others who were actively bleeding, but they never feared for their own lives until the 20th floor, when the smoke intensified, making it hard to both breathe and see. An incredible, inexplicable, rolling, deafening roar (which they later learned was the crash of the other building) made the north tower shake intensely, cutting off the emergency lights and causing people to stumble over each other. After this, it was a superhuman effort to maintain control, and some began weeping. But still, the group kept talking to each other to stay calm, groping their way down, most of them holding hands, some sobbing, but with little screaming and no pushing – just cold, stark determination.

In the middle of this horrific retelling, Raoul blurts out, “And, you know, we were the lucky ones. We had no idea of what was going on. When the south tower fell, we knew something dreadful had happened, but our stairwell was fine and our tower still stood…. Actually, people like Diane had it worse. She was walking in from the plaza and froze, not knowing whether to rush up and help people or run away as fast as she could. A policeman ordered her to leave – which was good because this was just when debris – huge blocks of concrete and metal, enough to kill you if they landed – started falling from the sky.”

Raoul feels sorrier for Diane than he does for himself…

When employees arrive for a meeting and see someone they haven’t seen since 9/11, work abruptly ends and co-workers pour out from cubicles to chat. It is like the excitement that accompanies a woman returning from maternity leave with a new baby in tow. But unlike the gushes over the beautiful child, this is a chastening calm with unspoken but clear affection. It is both endearing and terrifying.

The following week, after anthrax poisoning has replaced hijacked planes as the terror of the day, the agency conducts daily safety drills and distributes safety glasses, nose masks, rubber gloves, and flashlights to all employees. Diane is away when a flashlight is placed on her desk; within two hours, five coworkers stop in to ensure that that the batteries are installed and her flashlight is working properly.

People look around at their ordinary colleagues with their ordinary foibles and realize that their ordinary assumptions were all wrong. They now realize that they have been working amidst heroes, including the two procurement officials who returned from the stairwell to retrieve their blind colleague from the 71st floor, the ten co-workers who carried a 250-pound, wheelchair-bound man down 69 flights of stairs, and the two marketing managers who got Tina and her motorized wheelchair down from the 68th floor. Of the Port Authority employees, only 74 of the 2,000 in the building were killed (half of them the police and firemen who – according to the people I speak with – seemed to know that they were going to their deaths). In both towers, only 2,753 people were killed in the collapse. Everyone credits the low number of casualties to the fact that mutual care trumped panic and pushiness.

Returning just before Thanksgiving to my company’s home office in Columbia, Maryland, I find myself suddenly depressed. In the midst of the hell that surrounds us, I have been graced to witness the best of the human condition. For some, self-sacrifice for others was absolute and cost them their lives; for most, it was timid and tenuous – but nonetheless transforming – if only for a time.

And I know that I too am forever changed, for good as well as ill. The trivialities of life gnaw at me. After spending six weeks in the company of saints and heroes, ordinary mortals seem frivolous and self-absorbed. With the exception of faith-filled Victoria who sang and prayed her coworkers to safety, I do not know the religious beliefs of the employees at the Port Authority. But watching people show genuine care for each other, I realize that I have just witnessed the kingdom of God on earth.

I just wish it had not come to this.

Noah Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary, and Their Message for Spirituality and Religion

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Garrison Keillor, in today’s Writer’s Almanac, reminds us that it was on April 14, 1828 that Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language was published. We at The Park Church celebrate Webster for his literary and genetic gifts: we love (or should love) his dictionary, and we love (or should love) his granddaughter, the magnificent Julia Jones Beecher, celebrated wife of Thomas K. Beecher, dear friend of Samuel Clemens (“Mark Twain”) and treasure of Elmira. (You can do a Google search or just wait for me to get around to writing about this extraordinary gift to the human condition.)

Keillor’s reflection reminded me of the connection between religion, spirituality, and the history of dictionaries. We yearn for a belief system or set of life principles that will guarantee either eternal salvation or earthly glory or both. We disagree, however, on how to read the road map or which of several different roads to take. Some of us prefer the fast route; others want the scenic one. Some of us prefer well-worn boulevards; others want to forge new walkways.

The various religions only add to our confusion. They all promise that if we follow their tenets, then we are likely to live with joy and die in peace. Some suggest it will happen in the here-and-now; others promise rewards in the afterlife. Some have rigorous life-style specifications, including what we can eat (and when), whom we can marry, how we must worship. Others emphasize self-control, charity and justice in more general terms. What are we supposed to do? What decisions must we make, what religious path should we follow, in order to live with joy and die in peace?

I believe that divining a personal theology is like creating a dictionary. Seventy-three years before Webster and a century before Oxford University began work on its great dictionary, Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary of the English Language was the most successful attempt to codify the English language. The six-year effort by the second most-quoted author after William Shakespeare is impressive not only for its breadth (43,500 words defined using 118,000 illustrative quotes) but also for its underlying philosophy. Unlike the “Forty Immortals” that have met since 1635 to create and maintain a national standard for French language and usage, Johnson believed that language, if it were to be an effective way of communicating, could be no more fixed than the changes of the season. Ideas change, needs change, knowledge changes – and so must language.

Arguing for an immutable dictionary akin to the Forty Immortals was Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, who wanted to define correct pronunciations, correct spellings, correct usage, and decide which words were or were not proper. Swift wanted a yardstick against which to codify correctness; Johnson wanted a process by which to measure common usage.

Is it not that different from comparing the Ten Commandments (that spell out the do’s and don’ts of acceptable living) with Jesus’ broader commandments to “love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself.”
Detailed rules or general guidelines: why is it that some people need well-defined creeds to codify their philosophy, while others are comfortable with more general belief statements? Is there value in creating two theological lexicons – one for the Johnsons and Websters and another for the Forty Immortals and the Swifts?

— Or can we just focus on the basics (love, peace, and justice) and ignore the details and the judgment?

Circling Excerpt 4: Part I (Soaring) — Chapter 1: Geography (Third Section)

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This is the last section in Chapter 1, about a wondrous time in my life — teaching Alaskan natives in a boarding school in Mt. Edgecumbe, Alaska.  It was eye-opening (or should I saw “heart”-opening) in more ways than one:

 

 

“In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses – and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak – there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race.”

Thirty shiny faces stare blankly at me and then each other. I do the same. Except for the occasional three- or four-letter word, I might be speaking ancient Greek or whatever it was people spoke umpteen centuries ago in Timbuktu. Hell, they don’t even know to snicker at the word “bosom” and probably haven’t heard of “boobs” either.

When I glance again at what I have just read aloud to them (the first line of George Eliot’s Silas Marner), it – despite the dashes for which I share a fondness – suddenly morphs into the worst and most incomprehensible piece of writing that the English-speaking world has ungraciously bestowed on poor ordinary mortals.

But are we “ordinary”?

Oh yes, in many ways we are quite ordinary. We follow the same syllabus as tenth graders in the “lower 48” (the continental United States), so we can rest content with the happy knowledge that millions of public school sophomores are suffering the same ordinary despair that we so keenly feel. But arrayed in front of me are thirty students ranging in age from sixteen to twenty-six with otherworldly faces reminiscent of tribes wandering the steppes of central Asia many millennia previously.

When they realize I am as clueless as they, they respond with warm smiles – which is good because they outnumber me in mass, might, and experience (even if I can pronounce and understand words like “bosom,” “pallid,” and “brawny”). By contrast, their reading comprehension is between second and fifth grade, fully unprepared for George Eliot at her best – to say nothing of her worst.

So I re-read it, describing such foreign things as silk, spinning wheels, lanes, and (God help me – you know I try – “remnants of a disinherited race,” i.e., itinerant peddlers and weavers of which Silas Marner was one). I explain English country life with its classism (which they cannot grasp) likening it to racism (which they can). They respond with more blank stares – although this time with a hint of mischief or chagrin.

It is going to be a long nine weeks.

Along with three other students from Bennington College, I have entered the unhallowed halls of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Mt. Edgecumbe High School, a boarding school created on a small island adjoining Sitka for educating Alaskan natives. Except for this, only the five largest cities – Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka – sport local high schools, effectively disenfranchising those natives who live in remote areas. So the Bureau pays for two students from each village to come to Mt. Edgecumbe to finish their studies. And here they are – Eskimos from the North, Aleuts from the western archipelago, Athabascans from the interior, and Tlingits and Haidas from the south, with a few students from smaller tribes scattered throughout the state.

Bennington College’s Non-Resident Term is an exciting opportunity for the administration to save money on heating and snow plowing during the winter, for faculty to do “real stuff,” and for students to work in museums, prep schools, government agencies, and non-profit organizations in Boston, New York City and other hubs of civilizations. Very few manage to make it west of the Appalachians – to say nothing of 57 degrees latitude (further north than Moscow). But some wonderful person has worked out an arrangement with the BIA to hire four of us as teacher’s aides, and so I (a freshman) and three sophomores show up on January 2, 1966 – exactly one day after the great fire that destroyed St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the great landmark of Sitka. More to the point, however, it was on that day that one of the English teachers decided to quit – on the spot.

So, in addition to our planned assignments (orchestra and band for me), Debbie Brown and I are assigned two classes each of tenth grade English. No problem, explains the principal – here is the lesson plan – we go by the same requirements as the schools in the lower 48 – they just finished their year of American literature in which they read Moby Dick, Scarlet Letter, and Huckleberry Finn….

Now standing at the front of the classroom, I mutter under by breath: “No problem for him – perhaps it’s easier for a man to explain bosoms….”

The second paragraph of Silas Marner (arguably the worst of the “great English novels”) poses different challenges:

 “The shepherd’s dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; for what dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag? – and these pale men rarely stirred abroad without that mysterious burden. The shepherd himself, though he had good reason to believe that the bag held nothing but flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong linen spun from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weaving, indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirely without the help of the Evil One.”

I struggle to explain “aliens” and “shepherds” and “flaxen” and even “linen” to the curious faces before me. When I get to “without the help of the Evil One,” I know I am on fragile ground, for truly it must be Satan, in the guise of Silas Marner, who has come to torment me and the winsome students of Mrs.-Steinberg’s-now-Miss-Wright’s first tenth grade English class. The only thing they can understand is “early winter sunset,” for winter comes early in the far north of Alaska (September, to be exact). Here in early January in the southern archipelago area – fondly called the “banana belt,” – we enjoy about two hours of daylight, with an hour of dark twilight on either side. Each day, however, adds about twenty minutes of sun, which means that I and the other three interns can explore and fall in love with this beautiful country and its people.

Religion and education have been historically intertwined in Alaska since 1884, when Congress authorized funds for the Secretary of the Interior to provide free education to Alaskan children without regard to race. Sheldon Jackson was appointed to oversee the opening and operation of schools throughout the territory. He, a Presbyterian, encouraged his church and other denominations to open missions and schools throughout Alaska. Functionally this now means that most children of the North Slope are Presbyterian, whereas Quakers dominate the western coast, and the inland middle are Episcopalian. Scattered among them are Roman Catholics, Mormons, Baptists, and Russian Orthodox. I reflect that Alaska is a miniature of the Christian world, noting how various Protestant denominations prevail in different countries, with Roman Catholic and Orthodox influences throughout. But even with good religious training, my students glaze over at mention of “the Evil One.”  Would that I could do the same.

My father’s father (a mining engineer and world traveler) had warned me that I would never escape the charms of Sitka and its surrounding area, regaling me with stories of his work as a geologist with the National Geological Survey in 1900-1902 to map the area from Glacier Bay and Skagway south to the southernmost tip. He later studied and lived in various places throughout Europe and South America, and so I believed him when he said that Sitka was the most beautiful spot on earth. “You get glimpses of this beauty in western Scotland and parts of Italy and Greece, where steep hills crash into the ocean – but nowhere are the mountains as majestic, or the coves as tranquil, or the color as intense. And, of course, nowhere else are the people as friendly, and nowhere else will you see bald eagles as plentiful as sparrows, and whales, seals, moose, and caribou in such abundance. It is an opera for your eyes and a ballet for your heart.”

Grandaddy is right – about both the terrain and the people. If there is one word that describes everyone we meet – student, teacher, shopkeeper – it is friendly. Sour, surly and standoffish are foreign concepts here. Everyone is nice; everyone seems happy that we are here.

But this only makes the imaginary-but-keenly-felt presence of Silas Marner, a.k.a. Satan, all the more disquieting. The students grasp neither the Victorian culture nor the overwrought language. Forcing this horrific tale on these friendly innocents feels like stuffing them with raw rice followed by gallons of water; I am torturing both them and me. (The sudden departure of the previous teacher begins to make sense.)

Something’s gotta give, but what? The principal gives me carte blanche to devise a better approach while also reminding me that Silas Marner is the approved curriculum and that other teachers have used it without complaints.

What am I to do? From tutoring for several years in the inner city, I know that education needs to be both challenging and playful; it must respect students as they are while also encouraging them to stretch their limits. Here in Alaska, tests and contests would fail, for the students are non-competitive and unwilling (or unable) to show off. Whatever plan I devise must respect a culture in which individual superiority is scorned, and humility and community are celebrated.

At some point, seemingly out-of-the-blue, Divine Inspiration or the Muses of Literature and Education come up with a solution: I tell them to read as much of the novel as they can stomach, giving them a one-page summary in simple English and swearing them to secrecy. Then they can honestly state that they “read” Silas Marner.

For the next two months, they work in pairs as each writes a simple “how-to” instruction. “How to prepare whale blubber, how to sew a sealskin parka, how to construct an “umiak” (Eskimo boat), how to roast a duck or make caribou stew – or whatever – try to be as thorough as you can – write it for someone like me who is totally ignorant [I make a stupid face and they laugh] – and use simple, clear English.”

After writing, they exchange with their partners and discuss both “essays.” They can rewrite as many times as they wish, and when their partner understands what they have written, they each get an “A.”

We spend the first half of each session writing and discussing the essays. Some are overly spare: “Take boteandspeer [boat and spear] anfindawale [and find a whale] killitantakehoam [kill it and take home]. Missing are punctuation marks and spaces between words – to say nothing of detail. Others are challenging in opposite ways, e.g., a run-on sentence that lasts three pages. And some are quite wonderful, worthy of Hemingway at his best. For the second half of the class, I put samples of their writing on the chalkboard, explaining basic spelling, syntax, and grammar. I find examples of both good and unclear writing, always keeping the authors anonymous. Not as charming as my father, nor as steely as my mother, my “can-do” style is birthed in a military high school in Germany and a Native American one in Alaska.

Or would it be more accurate to say smug and solipsistic? Despite the respect I had for the gentle demeanor and communal culture of the students, I am equally impressed by my own Yankee ingenuity – with its full measure of attendant arrogance. Would I ever learn? Would the heady joys of being helpful and successful in a land filled with beauty and kindness ever reap their rewards?

Looking back many years later, I realize that I shared both Dad’s innocence and Mom’s toughness. (Sadly, I mastered neither Dad’s easy charm nor Mom’s brilliant manipulative skills.) Until I was thirty, I approached life like Dad, presuming that if I were friendly and moderately responsible, nothing unpleasant would happen to me.

My head and my heart were constantly dueling, and yet I presumed a happy outcome where both parts would win.

I had so much to learn.

 

 

Observations and Memories from 9-11-11 at the World Trade Center

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I’m taking a break from “Circling” to revisit the first days and months after 9-11.  It was life-changing.  I was part of a large corporate training team working at the Port Authority in the summer of 2001.  I would have been there on 9/11, but I was one of the few who knew the “old system” of SAP and was reassigned for two weeks to Dow in Newark, NY.

Then I was asked to return to Port Authority in October, and I witnessed the kingdom of God up close and personal…  Here’s what I wrote at the time.  We deplore the horror AND celebrate the courage of the American people.

 

Felicity Wright:  Notes from working at Port Authority just after 9/11:

Although I had been assigned to a different project for the first two weeks of September 2001, I had spent the previous summer working at the Port Authority in the north tower of the World Trade Center (the first one hit and the last one to fall).  After the bombing, I was honored to be one of three people (out of an original group of nearly forty) that were asked to help the agency regroup.  Here were my observations at the time:

 

Week 1:  October 8 – 12, 2001:

I spent last week helping people at La Guardia airport manage their way through the new computer system.   All of the documentation and training materials for the system (which we had developed over the summer) had been available on the internal web site, but the servers were destroyed in the WTC bombing.  So most of the airport folks had not yet gone to class on the new system, and the training materials and procedures were non-existent.  Those who had gone through training had no brain cells left after 9/11 and couldn’t remember a thing of what they were supposed to do.  But bills were beginning to pile up, vendors needed to be paid, and equipment (including new security scanners) needed to be purchased.  So I was asked to help mentor them.  Here’s what I found:

The Manhattan skyline from Queens looks very bland — like most of the people I’ve met.  Even those who were nowhere close to WTC are still in shock, and the stories from the survivors are truly mind-numbing.  I spent two days with one woman who had been working in the WTC when it was bombed 7 years ago.  She got a promotion and was transferred several months ago to La Guardia, but she had gone back for training on the 78th floor of WTC1 (the same room where I had been teaching all summer).  She made it out, along with three others from La Guardia, but two others in the class went to a different stairwell and haven’t been seen since.  (Of course, this fact gave me considerable pause, since if I had been teaching in that room on 9/11 as I had been throughout the months of July and August, the odds would have been pretty good that I would not be here writing this…)

But now, a month later, “Jane” (not her real name) is still too scared to take an elevator.  When we went to the main terminal for lunch, she decided not to mail a letter in the airport post office for fear the airport would be bombed and the letter wouldn’t make it to her friend.

Her husband was on the 74th floor.  He and five others got out, thanks to a janitor with a small metal window squeegee and a knowledge of building construction.  They were on the express elevator that runs from the 44th floor cafeteria to floors 69-74, when it suddenly plunged downward, and then, just as abruptly, stopped.  (This was the same elevator bank that I used when I wasn’t training, for our offices were on the 71st floor.)  Trapped, they had no idea where they were.  They were able to force the doors open, but saw only a dark wall.

As smoke was seeping in through the elevator cracks, they shared handkerchiefs soaked in milk (which the janitor had just bought from the cafeteria) to breathe, while they spelled each other using the metal edge of the squeegee to laboriously cut through the sheetrock.  They eventually broke through into a bathroom, and then had to break through ceramic bathroom tiles.  Somehow, they emerged on the 50th floor, and walked single-file down the stairs leaving room for the many firemen who were running up.  When they made it to the 15th floor, they felt another huge jolt and thunderous roar – the crash of the south building. They managed to make it out to the street just 4 minutes before the north tower crashed.  If the elevator had stopped at the 55th or 60th floors, instead of the 50th, they would not have made it.  If the janitor (a guardian angel in disguise?) had not had the squeegee, the pint of milk, the experience, and the cool to mastermind the rescue, no one would be alive to retell their adventures of the morning.  It’s a truly unbelievable story that made it into the NY Times, and is now making the route of some of the TV news shows.  His wife kept shaking as she retold the story.  They did not know that each other was safe until late in the afternoon, for both had managed – finally, since telephone service was mostly non-existent for the whole area for most of the day – to get through to their son, who is in college.  It was in the early hours of the morning that both were finally home and reunited.  (I still get teary as I relate her story.)  Of course, all those firemen running UP the stairs have disappeared…

I’ve heard tales of numerous (and I mean LOTS) of Port Authority police and NY Fire Department folks who were off that day, but drove to the WTC immediately to help — and have never been heard of again.  Since all were coming in from the outside, it is pretty clear that they knew what they were getting into.  The survivors who were coming down the steps all say that the looks on the faces of the firemen and police going up the steps was such that they must have known that they were going to their deaths.  There were also several “ordinary” office workers who called loved ones from the plaza or elsewhere to let them know that they were safe, and then decided to go back into the buildings to help rescue others… and then disappeared…  (I’ve captured a few of these at the end, but there are many more.)

Many of us working on the 71st floor remember Omar, the blind man, with his wonderful dog Salty.  Two colleagues in the office went back to make sure he got out.  The four of them – two friends, Omar, and Salty — were among the last to make it out.  Then they really started running for their lives.  In describing that day, he focuses on the strange and constant crackling sounds (later understood to be the death rattles of the steel girders), the acrid smoke, and the smell of jet fuel – all of which will live with him for the rest of his life.  It seems like a terrifying equivalent of how the smell of Madeleine cookies brought back memories from Proust’s early childhood that then resulted in The Remembrance of Things Past…

In any case, of the 50+ people I’ve spoken with this week, not one of them has gone back to view “ground zero” – or plans to…

They’re all heroes in my book, even the “ordinary folks” who were there, like the six RWD staffers and the 30+ Port Authority people with whom I had spent the summer.  To stay calm, if only on the outside, to be humane, to make way for the injured and fearful, not to stampede each other — these are incredible stories. Of the Port Authority folks, only 74 were killed (half of them the police and firemen who knew that they were going to their deaths) out of the 2,000 or so who were in the building.   Another interesting statistic that speaks volumes: less than 5,000 people were killed in the collapse of the two centers, compared with 25,000 who were safely evacuated.

Next week, I will go to a temporary office to work with the information systems folks to try to reconstruct the written procedures and training materials – a whole summer’s worth of work – that was lost.  I expect that it will be a good deal more difficult than being out at La Guardia, where only a few were directly affected.  I will be working with the people who were on the 70th and 71st floors, many of whom lost friends and colleagues.

I remember being in severe shock during three different times in my life – the kind of truly dysfunctional, mind-numbing, panic-attack-type-shock that makes getting out of bed an act of incredible stupidity or superhuman courage.  But then it was just one person (me), and there were plenty of others around to help me stay functional.  So how do people manage when EVERYONE they know is also in shock?  (And this is shock, not post-traumatic stress disorder – that will come months or years from now.)

I will also be a short ferry ride away from “ground zero.”  I haven’t decided yet whether I will visit or not.  I will be at the same hotel in Jersey City where I spent the summer.  My room looked out over the twin towers, and I always kept the curtains open at night because the lights from the city cast a gentle glow – much like a night light.  The highlight of my day was the ferry ride across the Hudson.  A couple of times, I chose to stay on the ferry for an additional trip, lying on the upper deck and enjoying the richness of the life around me.  In addition to the incredible variety of people, there were boats of every kind – the huge Staten Island ferry, smaller ferries from WTC and Hoboken and Liberty Plaza, towering cruise ships, lanky barges, squat fireboats, coast guard and Navy ships, resolute tugboats, three-masted schooners, 20-30-foot sailboats of all varieties, an occasional cabin cruiser, and even the lonely kayaker that skirted around the Jersey piers at 6:45 – 7:00 every other morning.  In the air were the helicopters, single- and twin-prop planes, the jumbo jets, a rare blimp, the massive cranes that were pummeling pylons into the river making foundations for future condos and office buildings, and even the parasailing fool who got trapped on the Statue of Liberty.  And of course the birds – gulls, ducks, geese, cormorants, and even (I think) one great blue heron cruising close to the water far in the distance.  The mouth of the Hudson – so rich, so varied, so ALIVE – will it ever be the same again?

 

Week 2:  October 15 – 19, 2001:

Upon arriving at my hotel room in Jersey City, I went immediately to the window to check the New York skyline.  The room faced too far north to see the remains of the World Trade Center, but I had a wonderful view of mid-Manhattan.  On this night, it was an exquisite sight:  layers of cloud meandered through the night sky in such a way that the emerald-green crown of the Empire State Building was hazy and luminous while the lower part was so clear that one could almost count the windows.  It was intensely beautiful, I thought.

After unpacking, I went to get a soda and ice and looked out the rear hallway window to the remains of the WTC.  Even three-quarters away, I was not prepared for what I saw:  despite the darkness of the clear night sky, the smoke bellowing forth from the hole in the ground was plainly visible.  It reminded me of large institutions with underground steam heat.  But whereas, in such institutions, one can see steam rising from well-placed vents of inches, or (at most) four feet wide, here it was rising a hole that was several city blocks in diameter.  It was pale enough to be identifiable as mostly steam, rather than smoke.  Almost a month to the date from the bombing, and no sign that the end was near; it felt like a part of my heart had caved in, much as the ground had.

Upon returning to my room, I looked more carefully at the emerald beacon on the Empire State Building and the source of the cloud that made it shimmer so.  Sadly, it was true: that opalescent haze was not cloud, but smog from ground zero.  I then opened the window to bring in some fresh air for sleeping, but the faintly acrid smell made me close it immediately thereafter.  It was at this point that I had no choice but to cry.

It was good to see my Port Authority friends on Monday.  In particular, I was pleased to be sharing an office with Diane Amici (not her real name), a senior manager for the agency.  Diane is known for her drive and for the long hours she puts in; she seems impelled by a maternal dedication to her staff.  From our standpoint as the consultants, this meant that she demands high-quality documentation and training material and will tolerate nothing less.

By the evening of Wednesday, September 12, the day after the bombing, I had learned that Diane and all of the other folks in the procurement group were safe – most of them having walked down from the 70th and 71st floors.  But “safe” and “okay” are not synonyms.  Thus, I was relieved to see that Diane was pretty normal.  Despite her years (mid-late thirties), she still had her cute way of giggling (rather like a new bride) when she was pleased with someone or something.

But the eyes were different.  They didn’t twinkle anymore.  I also noticed that she used rubber gloves to open mail.  But mostly, she was no longer driven to the extent that she had been; the passion, the energy, the drive – they were dormant.  They will come back, I thought, but probably not with the same intensity as before.  And perhaps that’s good; I don’t know.  But it made me think about Galen (my teenage son) and his friends, and how this has shaken them in ways they have no idea of yet.  Just about to leave the nest and explore the wide wonderful world – when suddenly, that world has changed.  The world is not a safe place anymore.  Suddenly, people are aware of their fragility in the face of evil.

I don’t know what war itself is like, but I do feel have an idea of what it’s like to “go through the wars.”  It is the process by which one is forced to acknowledge one’s vulnerability.  For most of us, war is external; its “over there,” and “back then,” and it involves others.  Now the war is here and now and within.  The reality of ourselves is at war with the preconceptions about ourselves.  Suddenly we are afraid, and we’re not happy with the people that we’ve become.

Certainly part of the reason that Diane has lost some of her intensity is because her commute is now 2 ½ – 3 hours each way, instead of the mere 90 minutes it had been.  Also, the new Port Authority servers are not yet set up for remote access, so she can’t work nights and weekends on the computer, as she did before.  And twice, she was an  hour late because Penn Central had been evacuated for “something” (never explained); this meant that she had to walk 6 blocks to a subway and then a different PATH station.  So she leaves home before 6:00 am and doesn’t make it into the office until 9:00 or 10:00.

…Or perhaps her emotional weariness stems from the fact that the computer system has been fussy ever since so many servers were destroyed.  What once was a simple, two-minute transaction is now a cause for celebration.  For example, it kept going down Monday morning, when Diane was trying to enter a requisition for anthrax test kits.  (This was a requisition she wanted to enter herself, so as to hide its purchase from the rest of her staff.)

As it turned out, she was just a small step ahead of the game on the anthrax business. After secretly showing me the requisition, she left for lunch.  But while she was out of the building, a man in another large bank of offices across the hall returned from lunch to find a white powder covering his desk.  (Suddenly the rubber gloves that Diane used for opening mail weren’t so ludicrous…)  Within seconds, all doors in the building were closed, and the HVAC system was turned off.  We were quarantined to our offices, unable even to go into the hallways to the bathrooms.  About 20 minutes later, an entourage of security experts arrived.  Fortunately, the doors to the hallways were glass, so we could watch – in fascination and terror – as two of the men went through the laborious process of suiting up into “moon suits.”  Shades of Jimmy Carter and Three-Mile Island, I thought, but this time it was only 20 feet down the hall.

The comments in our corridor spoke to the general fear of the country.  Because the building was secure, it was evident that putting anthrax powder on this man’s desk was an inside job, either by a prankster or…a terrorist…here?  There was unanimous agreement that, if it were a prank, then the culprit should be fined and put in jail…  After the 10-minute ordeal of suiting up, they walked into the other bank of offices, and, with nothing left to gawk at, the rest of us went back to work.

Thirty minutes later, one of my colleagues came back chuckling.  The “white powder” was innocent enough – it was particles of ceiling tile and dust, apparently loosened by some construction.  Had this happened 6 weeks ago, the man returning from lunch would have looked up and asked a few questions, and probably figured out the cause without effectively shutting down the offices for two hours.

Toward the end of the week, Tom (catty-corner from my office) had a similar episode, but it was only a small amount of dust.  However, work was disrupted for about an hour while we awaited the security experts (along with a doctor, who took nasal swab samples from Tom and tried to reassure him that, if it is anthrax – which will be confirmed in 3 days time – it is easily treatable with drugs.  (Of course, I wrote this before the sudden deaths of the DC postal workers have given us a whole new respect for the power of bio-terrorism, but Tom, fortunately, was fine.)

I’ve been thinking about All Saints’ Day and the sermon that I need to give in class.  In a wonderful book of daily meditations called All Saints, author Robert Ellsberg defines a saint as “someone whose life doesn’t make sense without God.”   This allows him to honor the awesome humanity of true sainthood by including such godly non-Christians as Chief Seattle of the Snohimish nation, Gandhi, the ancient Hebrew prophets, and numerous others in his list.  Expanding on that idea, I once described saints as those people who can transform the gospel from historical artifact to living truth.  So I’ve been pondering the difference between heroes (all of the people in or anywhere near that building on September 11), and saints.

As Victoria Lockhart walked into our office with a stack of files, I heard her muttering “Jesus Christ” under her breath.  Assuming that she was cursing, I looked up from the computer to see what was wrong.  (I guessed that she had forgotten something or broken a fingernail.)  Instead of a scowl, I saw a warm smile followed by a cheerful “Good morning, sister” from a woman whom I had never before seen in my life.

We soon got talking, and she was happy to share her impressions of that day.   She was sitting at her desk on the 63rd floor when the plane hit.  Rather than run or scream, she dropped to her knees and started praying.  Although no one knew exactly what had happened, everyone realized that this was much, much worse than the bombing of ’93.

Praying on her knees, she had a clear vision of God “sitting on his throne” and looking down on her and saying, “Look at my baby girl calling on me in the midst of this terror.”  Directing some unseen angels, God told them, “Go and see about my daughter.”

She was also reminded of a previous epiphany when God had promised various things that had not yet come to pass.  And, instantly, Numbers 23:19 came to her mind: “God is not a human being that would lie.” Thus, in her heart, she knew that this day was not going to be her end and that she would calmly deal with whatever might befall her.

When the vision of God’s radiance faded, she stood up and went with waiting colleagues to the nearest stairwell.  Walking down, she began singing praise and worship songs, as well as reciting the 23rd psalm.  Others joined in, if they knew the words, and many came up to her later, thanking her for the courage and faith that she radiated in that dark, smoke-filled stairwell.  In an e-mail that she shared with me later, she wrote:  “I love the Lord, he heard my cry and pitied every groan; as long as I live, may trouble rise…I hasten to his throne…. This is my testimony, and I will continue to spread God’s word; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

As others wake up shaking at their reliving of the sounds, smells, and sights of that dreadful day, Victoria says that she begins the day with “profuse tears of gratitude at God’s salvation.

Yes, I would define Victoria as “someone whose life doesn’t make sense without God.”

 

Week 3:  October 22 – 26, 2001:

Sounds are a huge source of trauma for people.  Every alarm, grinding sound, scream from the outdoors, squealing of breaks – they all bring a brief moment of terror before people settle down.  Once they do, someone comes up with a joke and everyone laughs off their anxiety.  (Although there are no jokes about bombs, airplanes, or anthrax, there is an overabundance of other types of humor.)

On Monday and Tuesday, the agency conducted detailed fire drills (3 separate egresses and 2 regrouping points outside of the building).  This was followed, on Wednesday, with the distribution of flashlights, elaborate dust masks, and hard hats.

I’m especially enjoying the gentle, respectful way that they talk about one another regarding that horrible day.  Joe and Kamar were sharing their stories about walking down from the 70th floor.  Things were pretty calm until the 20th floor, since many people had been through the previous bombing and everyone trusted the structural integrity of the towers.  Certainly, they were nonplussed by the burn victims coming down the stairs, along with quite a number that were actively bleeding, but they never feared for their own lives until about the 20th floor, when the smoke became increasingly intense, making it hard to both breathe and see.  An incredible, inexplicable, rolling, deafening roar (which they later learned was the crash of WTC2) made the north tower shake intensely, cutting off the emergency lights and causing people to stumble over each other.  After this, it was an almost super-human effort to maintain calm, and some began to scream.  But still, the group kept talking to each other to stay calm, groping their way down, many of them holding hands, some whimpering, but with little apparent complaining – just cold, stark determination.

In the middle of this horrific retelling of events, Joe blurts out, “And, you know, we were the lucky ones.  We had no idea of what was going on.  When the second tower fell, we knew something horrible had happened, but our stairwell was still fine and our tower still stood…  Actually, it’s the people like Diane that really have it hard.  She was just walking in from the plaza and saw it all.  She froze, absolutely froze – not knowing whether to rush up and help her people or run away as fast as she could.  Fortunately, a policeman coming by ordered her to leave – and it was a good thing because this is when debris – huge debris, enough to kill you if it landed on you – started falling from the sky.”

I was moved by the fact that Joe felt sorrier for Diane than he did for himself.  It was no surprise therefore that, since she was out of the office when the flashlights were distributed, he installed the batteries in her flashlight and made sure it was working properly.

Everywhere and always, when people stop in for a meeting and see someone that they haven’t seen since that day, work abruptly ends and people come out from their cubicles to check out the scene.  It’s rather like the excitement of a woman coming back from being on maternity leave with her new baby in tow – except that it’s very, very quiet – a chastening calm, totally unlike the gushes over the beautiful baby – and the unspoken affection is truly palpable.

I left New York on Wednesday afternoon and spent that evening and Thursday at Wesley.  On Friday, I returned to my office in Columbia, Md., for meetings and paperwork, and, quite late in the afternoon, I found myself, quite suddenly, very depressed.  I realized that I had once been graced to witness the realm of God in action, however strange and strained it might have been, but that powerful vision was quickly vaporizing into a fleeting glance.  For some, their self-sacrifice for the well-being of others was absolute and cost them their lives; for most, it was timid and tenuous – but nonetheless transforming…if only for a time.  And I knew that I too was forever changed, for good as well as ill.  The trivialities of my life gnawed at me: having spent three weeks in the company of saints, heroes, and people who were not ashamed to show that they genuinely cared for one another, ordinary mortals seemed so frivolous and self-absorbed.

 

Circling Excerpt 3: Part I (Soaring) — Chapter 1: Geography (Second Section)

By

The ingenuous sophistication of high school and overseas travel continues through college. Unlike many other students at Bennington College, I have little money and thus avoid standard forms of trouble (wild partying, profligate sex, and dangerous driving). Further, I hail from a public high school in the dull hinterlands of Washington, D.C. rather than from a fancy prep school in New England. Fortunately, the year abroad has given me confidence to hold my own.

My education is helped by the fact that I can’t handle marijuana. As with most people, there is no effect whatsoever the first time I try it. The second time is a different story. A dear friend once called me “half Victorian spinster and half flower child.” Weed proves him right.

I am sitting with friends passing a joint around when suddenly my right knee rises up in time with the music. This isn’t part of the plan, so I hold the leg down. But then, my left knee starts twitching. So I restrain it with the other hand. A mistake. My arms are now engaged, which makes them decide to flap like a bird. A duck, to be exact. As this is happening many years before I realize that I want to return in my next life as a great blue heron, I am quite perturbed. Watching me quacking with hands on hips, elbows flapping, and knees bouncing up and down, my friends start chuckling.

It is funny and I am laughing too, but I am also upset at myself for wanting to fly like a bird, so I alternate the guffaws with statements chiding myself and scolding my friends for aiding and abetting my outrageous behavior. “Stop it, Felicity. Put your arms down right this minute. You are not a duck. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. But I am really very funny, aren’t I? I really haven’t ever been this funny before, have I? Felicity, shame on you, you’re making such a fool of yourself. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Now don’t laugh at her – I mean me – you’re just leading her on – I mean me…”

One episode is no big deal, but it gets a little scary to morph into a schizophrenic duck every time you smoke dope. Eventually, I surmise that all of the marijuana in New England is laced with heroin or some such thing, and opt not to smoke again. Free spirit though I yearn to be, I’m not totally stupid.

 

Bennington’s great gift is that people take each other seriously. My graduating class includes about a dozen famous writers, artists, and dancers – a surprising number for a college with fewer than 350 students. People are attracted to the college because of its small classes and dedicated professors. But I wonder if there would be such a large proportion of successful people without the gift of their being valued during a time of their lives when they most need it.

This becomes clear to me in the first month when Rush Welter, a professor of American history, returns my first paper considerably thicker than the five double-spaced pages he received a week earlier. I see suggestive comments like “bah,” “ugh,” and “NO!!!” in the margins, followed by eight pages of his handwritten notes; I am both disturbed and impressed. He asks me to come to his office to discuss the expectations of college work and “to develop a way of thinking about the material you are reading.”

I do, the next day. We spend over an hour, in which he queries me about my irregular preparatory education. He also shows me how to approach a writing project – to highlight the key issues, then examine the supporting data for possible explanations, then develop a conclusion, and finally to write a paper in which one clearly states the arguments and uses the data to make a case. It sounds good; I am beginning to get the idea.

He is called away for a telephone call, and I stand up to examine his books and gaze out the window to the pastoral scene a mile from campus. Upon returning, he asks whether I can identify the statue that rises up from a distant ridge along with the obvious spire of the Congregational church. It is clear that he loves the community and is happy to introduce its delights to newcomers.

“Oh yes,” I answer. “It’s Old Bennington – that’s the monument to Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys.” I had walked around there a week or so earlier, and recognize the 300-foot obelisk surrounded by a one-story colonnade.

I watch him ponder, expecting him to quiz me on Ethan Allen’s dates or battles or some such thing. After all, he is a professor of American history and I am a student in his class.

He chews for a moment on his bottom lip, clearly wondering whether he should or shouldn’t. Will she be offended? Will she understand its meaning? Is she so dumb that she will just be embarrassed? Then he blurts out, “Yes, and we also call it the Bennington phallic symbol.”

I laugh out loud and – for the first and last time in my life – come up with the perfect riposte at the right time. “Well, I come from Washington, D.C., and our phallic symbol is bigger than your phallic symbol.”

He roars with delight and then apparently gives me another chance in the is-she-worth-spending-my-time-with department. I continue with his course and then take two more from him, gaining confidence each time. I learn more from him than any other professor there. I enter as an uneducated rube and leave with the assurance that I know how to think – thanks to a dirty mind and an affection for architectural phallic symbols.