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"we come on the ship they call the mayflower, we come on the ship that sailed the moon.
we come at the age's most uncertain hours, and sing an american tune." --paul simon

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sunday, september 16, 2001

all this week acres of clouds rolling across the interior, vast empty lands blasted by wind. and along the perimeter, images of disaster, the sky crackling with transmissions of fire, flying steel, falling giants. that which was carefully built, reduced to dust and blown toward heaven. and in the basement studios, under the flickering glare of the tv sets, we sent our own signals into the sky.

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here in sunny santa monica, everything looks normal, but for myself, this week of September 11, i have my own personal disaster ripping the seams out of my life, an overwhelming loss, of another human being's warm, dear energy--which really is just a continuation of a larger loss in my past. forcing calm behind the microphone and feeling the much larger horror puts this loss in perspective. but still, in my own life, i'm rocked again by the echoes of a long-ago tragedy. i know this feeling----the shock of September 11, of those who lost loved ones, who walked the streets with posters bearing photos of those they hoped to find ---alive--- it all reminds me.

when i was nine years old, my mother died, suddenly. and, at her funeral, as i kissed her goodbye, i watched her beautiful sleeping face and divided myself into two parts: that which understood, and that which felt. and the latter was hurled into a world with no possible description, no landmarks or boundaries. the membrane between the physical part of the world, and the other in which i live since then, is just beyond perception....so that every day, since that day long ago, i walk that line between the real world, the sunny everyday world, and some other. i believe anyone who's lost someone, suddenly, knows this other world...and how thin is the line between.

so this week's slash in the fabric of the universe is bone-shakingly familiar. i know this underworld swirling with ghosts, i know these mountains of rubble. searchers are taking blowtorches to the ruins while the air is still choked with dust, the fallout of the physical breach between two worlds. that other world was always there, right alongside this one, but invisible. in some other dimension, it was always here, along the busy streets, among the lights on the hills, in the air at noisy dinner parties with friends who've had too much wine, in the darkness during fevered lovemaking. everything collapses upon itself in this other world, gives way to antimatter. and so making love is even more precious, the lights on the hill more dear, to those of us who know those lights can be extinguished without notice.

9/11. a frantic day. we tore through the newswires. we scanned the news channels and the internet, and murmured into the microphone by way of announcing a sudden news conference or development. signals crossed and recrossed the globe through the wires, through the air; we intercepted them, assembled them, and gave them back to the sky over the l.a. basin. everyone is tuned to these images, these electronic pulses connecting us across neighborhoods, continents, oceans. several days ago that other world merged with this one, with a resounding, booming silence that moved from horizon to horizon, across the earth. and nothing is the same. we just listen to the voices and watch the flickering images, all day.

once in a while someone comes into the control room, sits and watches the television sets for a while, never saying a word, then leaves. for the first time, here and all over the country, the endless chatter has died. there is a tone in peoples' voices i've never heard before; here and everywhere, in the grocery store, at the post office, September 11th is like a presence. America's brash, cheery confidence is gone, the talking heads on TV are no longer abrasive and unquestioning, but respectful, and hurting. oddly enough, in this lower level of sound, there is less distance between us. between everyone.

people are more polite. the knowledge is in everyone's eyes, in every casual greeting. We are connected by this. for once, we don't know everything. if this can happen, anything can happen. for the first time, distant concepts like nuclear holocaust and mass destruction have become real, and in the face of this, we are different. we have all changed.

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so there are these facts. things too devastating to fully encompass. we continue on, day after day, because life has to be lived on other levels. the blank spots loom, the emptiness waits just on the periphery of consciousness. and in the meantime we light candles and sit on porches, and talk on the telephone, and look out the window into the darkness. and we try to understand that this other world, the shadow side of great forces, of life and love, has burst through, bringing death and darkness. too big to understand: too terrible to look directly at: my eyes are half-closed, both inside, and toward the outside world. and in the half-light of a half-seen world, the summer blazes on toward its end, with cheerful blue skies.

last night kate and i stood out on the street, leaning against her car; we listened to the crackle of electricity in the wires above. the power lines are poorly insulated, and electrons continually spill out, making a noise that sounds like fourth-of-july sparklers. we talked about the algerian terrorists on trial for trying to bomb l.a.x., we talked about dropping the a-bomb on japan, we talked about taking for granted things that can disappear in an instant. and, once, looked up and saw the lights of a jet plane in the sky.

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and i dreamed i was dying /and i dreamed that my soul rose, unexpectedly, and looking back down at me, smiled reassuringly. /and i dreamed i was flying. /and high up above, my eyes could clearly see /the statue of liberty, sailing away to sea. /and i dreamed i was flying.

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