Running Commentary

The People

Friday

Four days ago the world was what it was. Its changed. How did it come to this?

Demarcation lines in Manhattan have been drawn further uptown. Can't drive south pass 42 Street. Tunnels and most bridges are closed. People can't go home. I can't go into the city to shop in SoHo. I hate the fashions this season. Can't find a thing to wear. Searching for  simple pair of shoes I like, is as challenging as climbing Mt. Everest.

I need something for climbing and running and hiding and thinking and wondering and worrying.

We we are the huddled masses coming to our own shores of redemption and forgiveness. We pray, we chant. Missives of encouragement from friends near and far, fly over the Internet. All circuits are busy. Phone calls to family and friends when you are lucky to get through are priceless.

We are at war. Whose the enemy? Will we win?

We have depended on the Government Men to take care of us for so long, now they have abandoned us like sometime fathers do.  

We are, all of us, The People now.

9/11 A Running Commentary

Day Four: At War

It was a night of  thunder, lighting tossing, turning and pulling on more blankets to stay warm.

The rain is still falling. Hard. Relentless. Crying.

My first thought: We are at war. The world is not the same. I am not the same.

"We should have a plan of action. We just can't sit here and wait to see what will happen next." I told my daughter yesterday.

I tare at my brain, attempting to come up with a solution to the situation. We have three cars among us. There is a house up in Vermont we can go to and stay for a while -- just until this "thing" blows over. We can take a laptop,  money and food. Leave here for a while.. "Buy more water" she said.

We have more water than we need. The work at Ground Zero will be difficult . Dust  turned to sod -- a watery grave of twisted steel, bodies burnt beyond recognition, rendered in hundreds and thousands tons of sorrow and grief.

I want to wake up from this nightmare. 

Four days have gone by. I count and loose count of the hours. Who knows the actual count of the missing and dead? Who will ever know? Where will they take the remains after they have been sifted and sorted and investigated?  Questions? Too many that can't be answered.

I watch the news. Thought I'd see my boy friend Adger with his camera in the crowd taking pictures.   He lives near the towers. He called after the first tower was hit.  He'd  ridden his bike all the way uptown. Stayed over at a friends. Was leaving there to go back home. Why?" I asked. Had to brush his teeth he said.

We spoke again on Thursday. He had managed to slip behind the police barricades and got into his studio. He said that it really smelled bad downtown. That he had to tape his windows shut. The smell -- that's what we can't see on television.

Today, we the people -- the terrorist and the terrified, hold this self-evident truth that is so looming and frightening. My thoughts plummet my mind/heart like the rain that won't stop.

They said it would last for hours -- the rain. We are at war, I keep telling myself. My memories trample over each other and pour out onto the terrain of the day. I remember when I was very young,   my mother would tell me things that had  happened before I was a thought, as she'd say,  or too young to recall. She often spoke about World War Two. The sound of her voice comes forward from the deepest recesses of my mind, "You were a War Baby, you know."  In my innocence, I thought this made me special.

9/11 A Running Commentary: Here in Brooklyn September 12, 2001

Utter Fear:  9/12/01

Today we must do something -- pray, give blood.

We are scared and scarred. Even those of us who are safe and have not lost loved ones in the tradegy are in mourning.  Phone service is iffy. Its impossible to get through to anyone beyond the city. Email has been the best way to stay in touch. We are/I am safe for now. The day will continue to roll out new findings. We will take them as they come.

The commerical airplanes that usually crisscross the sky on their way to LaGuardia and JFK airposts are part of the humdrum of life here in Brooklyn. You get use to the sound after awhile. The roar overhead today is the sound of fighter planes -- a clear reminder of what occured yesterday.  On the ground, we atempt to go about our lives normally, but these are not normal times.  As much as we would like for things to remain the same, they hvae been inalterably changed.

I attempt to push away the visions that threaten to relilinquish me to utter fear: Army tanks from a foriegn country rolling down my streeet, soilders crashing into my apartment. Food scarcity. Water poisoned. Darkness everywhere. This is real/imagined/possible.

Two weeks ago, I was feeling teary. I had attributed this to the change of the season -- my  downhill tumble to Fall.  We are in a seaon of no return. My tears come and go over the simplist things now.

9/11:A Running Commentary

September 11,  2001  Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

Past Present Future

Taking heed from the moment by moment breaking news about what has occured in lower Manhattan this morning; that's still unraveling and  unclear as to who and what done it, I walk over to Myrtle Avenue, the shopping strip in my neighborhood. There I will  buy candles, water, canned tuna, sardines and other canned  goods that can be eaten out the can at the Korean Bodega and to withdrew money from the bank. These precautions are  in case everything goes down. In the meantime, my neighbor downstairs has rushed over to another part of Brooklyn where her son and my grandson go to school to bring them home.

I was born in the mid 1940s and grew up in 1950s. It was a time of Senator Joe McCarthy a right-wing Republican's  witch hunt for Communists  hiding under the bed, the A-Bomb Scare and watching black and white World War Two movies, starring Audey Murphy Yellow and black signs indicating bomb shelters are "Here",  I am well informed about what to do when you're under attack.

Given the circumstances of the day that continues roll out in undulating shock waves of horror and stagnatingly awesome  truth, I  suggest to my landlord that he unlock the door to the basement in our building.  "We might have to go down there for shelter,"  I reason  He chuckles. 

While shopping for supplies to hold us over until this 'thing' blows over,  in a sudden burst of inspiration, like birds set free from a cage,  out of my mouth flies,  "Did you know that the end of Manhattan Island has bad vibes? I can feel it when I am there?. I am  directing my opening line and eyes to a woman -- a virtual stranger whose the only other person in the store besides me. She's  standing near the dairy section,   The owner, is in the front of the store, gaurding his cash register.

I continue. " It was once a place of terror. It was African Slaves  whose white owners had them build a wall to  keep the Indians out, so they couldn't attack them and  steal their money ? That's where the name Wall Street comes from." 

My unsolicited history lesson rings out in the store like a shot in the dark, and begins to fall  like mist spraying over the bunches of collard greens, kale,  spinach  and mound of red cabbage.  The woman now gives me an indicipharal nod, a juandice eye and twist of her mouth, as if to say,"What are you talking about lady? She moves on and begins  picking over tomatoes on the vine.

Between her quizzicle look , and the owner's happy smile, which supplants for his limited knowledge of the English language, I wedge in, "They shouldn't put office buildings there anymore. A park for peace to redeem the area's dark past, would be a better idea, I believe."


.

9.11.01 a running commentary

Live With The Ease of Your Heart

to all the people in the world,

did you ever think about the fact that love can't be measured in amounts --  too much or not enough because its more about a person's capacity to give herself/himself/themselves to the other(s), wholly and unselfishly. but first there is self love, which is not to be confused with self-importance. 

anyway, do you realize that every person on this planet are souls, hauling around our bodies (the spacesuits we need to live/survive here?). further no matter how dire one’s life is, humans for the most part, will fight to the bitter end not to die. and more so, that no matter what the circumstances: war, famine, drought, genocide, sickness we are fiercely addicted to living, even though we harm ourselves in so many ways.  

my other thought is that i equate all grown  up people to children. that no matter how old we are, in some ways we never grow up. say we might bump into each other. we get an attitude over this, or something that’s so unimportant and we begin to make  a mountain our of a mole hill. one shouts out,   “you did this. i hate you." i am gonna kill you." how often have you heard yourself say this? hummm. or :i don wanna play this game with you anymore!” and then  other one shouts back even louder. so we fight to make a point. if we’re in a relationship we might separate, or get divorce. o r if we’re a country our government  simply drops bombs on the other country to make it clear about how much we don’t like the other one.  in the process no one wins. we all get rubbed out and robbed of something.

as no two thoughts can occupy the same space, there can never be two winners of anything unless both players are seeking the same end game. say its a war for peace (a totally oxymoron). and besides,  your peace might not be my peace. it’s a loosing battle.

anyway,  veering  way off the subject, if in fact there was one to begin with,   this morning, very early when the sun was not up yet,  i woke up. it was around 4am. i stumbled to the back of my huge mansion heading toward veranda, when suddendly i paused in mid-stumble to  listen to a mediation cd. actually i didn't make this decision it was more that it was made for me.  i picked up the disk.  I said  lets' do this! (to myself.)

i listened and followed the voices of the people who were recorded on the disk.  each one was  smooth, warm inviting and loving. i sat in a chair as i was instructed. opened my eyes to no more than a slit and stared  through  my eyelashes (which are mine).   i breathed in and out.  i was asked to sit up on my sits bones. not to lean my back against the chair so that i could feel myself in a different way --  and to just allowed myself to be.

one minute then two minutes and then more and more time passed by in silence,  except there was the sound of me breathing -- conscious breathing that is.   then i stood up and began walking ten,  fifteen steps through my home: back and forth,  leading up to the finale of the meditation. and then i sat down in the chair again.  while doing this i was instructed to say repeatedly, “ i am safe. i am healthy. i am happy. i live with the ease of heart. " 

lastly,  i was to tell all the people in the world to be safe, healthy, happy and live with the ease of your heart. 

stay lovely

moi,
mahmoudah

my thoughts written in lower case

dear friend,

thank you for sending me the email regarding the gardener you’ve asked me to pass along and were you stated: "i hate doing this, but…”.

i find it interesting, how often we do things we hate doing. case in point is how you and all of us at some point when we’re faced with the task of not breaking the chain of these well-intended blessings, prayers, jokes, money angels, psalms, buddha wisdom and now the flowers, which my friend had sent to me against her better judgment recently.

though in our heart of hearts we really don’t believe our lives will change by doing this frivolous and simple act (which we hate doing),  our fear causes us to dither back and forth on the chalk line. invariably we succumb to the task.  conversely, should we decide not to play this game which causes us to do so in ten secs flash, where we scurry around in our memory banks to hustle up the names of our dearest and best ten fav friends, to whom we must send this sort of email on to, in order to assure ourselves that the circumnavigation chain of these valuable missives will not be broken.  in turn, the recipients will do the same. most will begin by saying, “I hate to send these kinds of….” eventually the blessings or money might come might back and bite us all in the ass. so far, i have not won any money from this type of lottery!

on the subject of fear,  is our growing old. we know we can't do a damn thing about it.  to this, the other day i was listening to the leonard lopet show on national public radio. or perhaps i was watching tee vee. as you can tell, my confusion as to which form of media i was engaged -- listening to/or watching, has completely left the room!!!. with certainty my lapses of memory is a clear sign of me lacking daily large doses of gingko.

anyway, as i move further into life, which  i prefer to say rather than using the "o" or "a" words --  that somehow by me not uttering these three letter words is my way of veiling the truth about getting older. further, by me not mouthing the truth, might somehow miraculously stall  life's progression. and then i think to myself, "well honey what about old money and old cars (as in vintage ) or wine and the old country? none of these seem to bother me. so how is it that when i speak about time’s passing, do my thongs get all twisted in a bunch! um i am not referring to my havaianas flip flops here! 

are you laughing yet?  

anyway, the other day there was a wise woman on lopet’s show, as i began to say a few paragraphs ago. she spoke about  the tick-tocking of our personal clocks that will undoubtedly stop one day.  she asked the listening audience, "why are we so afraid of growing old? adding, can't we get it that aging is a gift, rather than something we must fear and fight to the teeth. the teeth by the way, which we habitually and ferociously whiten to look younger.  btw have you ever watched old movies on turner movie classics, say one starring charlton heston, playing god or one of those old dudes from biblical times, who’s teeth are as yellow as lemons!  just wondering.

further, how is it that we use hair dyes to cover ‘the grey” and diet pills to get back to the clothes size we wore when we  were ten years old, and potions of anti-aging creams, which we smear on our faces and bodies in such a frenzy that one would think our minds were slightly bent toward the left? (or right). this is not political thinking on my part, but something that runs straight down the middle of the aisle of life and  death.

eternally yours,

 moi mahmoudah

ps: omg!!! its suddenly , lightening and thundering outside!!!!! i wonder if is this a sign from god,  aka charlton heston, that i will be damned for the rest of my years, because i broke the chain by not sending the flowers from the gardener my friend had sent me even though she hated to do so, on to someone, which I utterly hate to do and therefore have refused to play the hold my breath and wait game any longer!

oh well.