9/11 and the Angels
September 11th, seven years later...
On a somber day such as this, it doesn't feel quite right to review a book that has as its roots the destruction of New York -- even while it is literary and well-researched, and even while it is about the books, movies, and art that have targeted Manhattan for hundreds of years. At the same time, when I received Max Page's THE CITY'S END: TWO CENTURIES OF FANTASIES, FEARS, AND PREMONITIONS OF NEW YORK'S DESTRUCTION a few days ago, it brought back childhood memories.
My grandmother, an RN in the ER at Lenox Hill Hospital for decades, lived on the Upper West Side from the time she was twenty-something until she passed nearly seventy-years later. I lived with her until I turned school-age, and my mother transplanted our little family to the Jersey suburbs. It took just twenty minutes to get back into the city to visit my grandmother.
I remember when the Empire State Building was the tallest on the Manhattan skyline, and when there was talk of building something taller. I vividly remember discussion that the towers would be too tall, that they couldn't possibly be structurally sound, that they wouldn't last. Nevertheless, I saw the space in the NY skyline fill in with the towers, and they were gorgeous. But I kept the sense that the towers were as permanent as the lights today that ceremonially fill in the space where the twin towers once stood before 9/11 . When I looked at the newly-constructed towers, I saw, instead the space.
A couple of years before 9/11, my two sons, and then-husband and I visited NY -- a homecoming for me after more than a decade. A first time for my sons. We took elevators and stairs and stood at the very top of the World Trade Center, our hair blowing in the wind, a magnificent 360-view of the city. We were charged with amazement and power and vertigo.
Even with this, the sense that the towers would vanish remained. I can't explain it -- childlike stubbornness? A prescience? Comics, some of which are beautifully depicted in Page's historical book?
The morning of 9/11, I walked into the gym just after 5:30am Pacific time. 8:30 Eastern. I got on the treadmill, started it rolling at a comfortably fast walking pace.
Moments later, like everyone else in the room, I was stunned as I looked up at the bank of televisions, all showing the same bright blue NY sky and billowing clouds, flames, terror. The same shot of the destruction and devastation wrought by the hijacked Flight 11 over and over and over. It became hypnotic.
That easy walking pace -- that became hypnotic as well. A vision appeared to me -- a vision I would write about, which would be sent around the world in several e-newsletters over the next few days.
This vision was more real than the treadmills and the televisions.
In this vision, my grandmother came to me, dressed in her RN uniform. She told me she and many others were ready to help. She waved her arm for me to look again at the scene. I looked and saw a solid rosy hue about three-feet above the streets of Manhattan. She bid me look even closer, and I realized that what I was seeing was a field of angels spread wing to wing. The rosy hue was the love they were emanating.
The vision held steady -- and at that moment I understood that out of that cruel tragedy could come a world that embraces love.
The rosy hue of thousands of angels wing to wing. Just imagine.
On a somber day such as this, it doesn't feel quite right to review a book that has as its roots the destruction of New York -- even while it is literary and well-researched, and even while it is about the books, movies, and art that have targeted Manhattan for hundreds of years. At the same time, when I received Max Page's THE CITY'S END: TWO CENTURIES OF FANTASIES, FEARS, AND PREMONITIONS OF NEW YORK'S DESTRUCTION a few days ago, it brought back childhood memories.
My grandmother, an RN in the ER at Lenox Hill Hospital for decades, lived on the Upper West Side from the time she was twenty-something until she passed nearly seventy-years later. I lived with her until I turned school-age, and my mother transplanted our little family to the Jersey suburbs. It took just twenty minutes to get back into the city to visit my grandmother.
I remember when the Empire State Building was the tallest on the Manhattan skyline, and when there was talk of building something taller. I vividly remember discussion that the towers would be too tall, that they couldn't possibly be structurally sound, that they wouldn't last. Nevertheless, I saw the space in the NY skyline fill in with the towers, and they were gorgeous. But I kept the sense that the towers were as permanent as the lights today that ceremonially fill in the space where the twin towers once stood before 9/11 . When I looked at the newly-constructed towers, I saw, instead the space.
A couple of years before 9/11, my two sons, and then-husband and I visited NY -- a homecoming for me after more than a decade. A first time for my sons. We took elevators and stairs and stood at the very top of the World Trade Center, our hair blowing in the wind, a magnificent 360-view of the city. We were charged with amazement and power and vertigo.
Even with this, the sense that the towers would vanish remained. I can't explain it -- childlike stubbornness? A prescience? Comics, some of which are beautifully depicted in Page's historical book?
The morning of 9/11, I walked into the gym just after 5:30am Pacific time. 8:30 Eastern. I got on the treadmill, started it rolling at a comfortably fast walking pace.
Moments later, like everyone else in the room, I was stunned as I looked up at the bank of televisions, all showing the same bright blue NY sky and billowing clouds, flames, terror. The same shot of the destruction and devastation wrought by the hijacked Flight 11 over and over and over. It became hypnotic.
That easy walking pace -- that became hypnotic as well. A vision appeared to me -- a vision I would write about, which would be sent around the world in several e-newsletters over the next few days.
This vision was more real than the treadmills and the televisions.
In this vision, my grandmother came to me, dressed in her RN uniform. She told me she and many others were ready to help. She waved her arm for me to look again at the scene. I looked and saw a solid rosy hue about three-feet above the streets of Manhattan. She bid me look even closer, and I realized that what I was seeing was a field of angels spread wing to wing. The rosy hue was the love they were emanating.
The vision held steady -- and at that moment I understood that out of that cruel tragedy could come a world that embraces love.
The rosy hue of thousands of angels wing to wing. Just imagine.
Labels: 9/11, AND PREMONITIONS OF NEW YORK'S DESTRUCTION, angels, FEARS, grandmother, Max Page, rosy hue., THE CITY'S END: TWO CENTURIES OF FANTASIES, twin towers, World Trade Center
posted by Diana Page Jordan @ 10:21 PM
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