One Week in a Life

There are certain weeks in the timeline of life that for one reason or another hold special significance. This is one of those weeks in my timeline. There are a lot of memories attached to this week, and memories create new thoughts as old moments are relived. The week began with memories of 9/11, which felt very far away on Tuesday. But when I watched some recently released audio on Wednesday, the paralyzing horror that I felt that day in NYC came back, but so did the sense of community that flowed through NYC in the weeks afterward. 

At the end of this week, it will six years ago that my dad passed away. I was fortunate enough to be with him and two of my brothers for three days in Houston just before he died. As with 9/11, it's a weekend that increasingly feels far away. The funny thing about time is that so much life happens as it passes, that the accumulation overshadows all that came before.

My daughter is a big part of that accumulation of newness. Yesterday, she wrote her name for the first time. I'm not sure why that is a moment that felt so important to me, but it did. Perhaps because it's one more step toward literacy and the world of stories and learning that such a skill will open for her. 

Yesterday also marked the 20th anniversary of my first date with the girl who would go on to become my wife, my best friend, the mother of my child, and the love of my life. In that course of time, all of the changes that it has brought, she has always been my constant. Though our lives have changed very much, they've always been changing together and I'm so grateful for her.

To celebrate, last night we went to see one my favorite bands of the past few years, The Mystic Braves. They came from L.A. to play in our small city. We were two of very few people to attend, but it was a wonderful night. We were able to walk to the show, enjoy dinner, and "hang out" for several hours the way we used to do before we became the parents of an intelligent, and sometimes demanding, little girl. 

For whatever reason, most likely something to do with the zodiac, the second week of September is one in which the universe has zeroed in on me and chosen to focus its attention. As I grow older, I've come to see all events, both good and bad, as part of the magic of life and try to appreciate the journey...whatever may be, may be.

Fiction Friday (8)

I noticed this morning that it's been quite some time since I had a Fiction Friday. This is partially due to my blog slowdown in January, but mainly due to the fact that I spent over a month reading the same book. That's something that hasn't happened in some time. It wasn't a lack of reading that caused this but rather the length of the book. But as always, I conquered the text and have moved on. In order to properly put the past two months behind me, I give you reviews on the two books that occupied my reading time during that span. Enjoy.

Forever by Pete Hamill
(Back Bay Books, 2002)

This is the type of book I'd never pick up on my own, but which I read because it was a gift. The reason I say that is simply because a flip-through in the store would reveal that the writing style is not the kind I gravitate towards. I prefer more surrealistic language and transporting prose, and given that Pete Hamill is first and foremost a journalist, this novel is written in a more direct manner. For many people, that is probably a pro rather than a con, which is also probably why it has the "National Bestseller" tag printed on the cover while most of the books I read do not. All of that said, I did quite enjoy the book, even if it is a book with competing aspects, some of which I thought were far more intriguing than others.

The first hundred pages or so are firmly steeped in Celtic folklore and the conditions of Northern Ireland during the mid-1700's. It follows the story of a boy and his parents who live as protestants while secretly holding shunned religious beliefs. This world comes alive quite nicely, but as with the book as a whole, I found it tries to tackle too much, to be too all-inclusive, thus muddling the points it tries to make.

This first part of the book serves to set up a semi-epic frame tale that carries the rest of the narrative. It's a folktale-ish story of revenge and mysticism that plays out over 250 years in Manhattan. But the real highlight of the book for me was witnessing the evolution of New York through the character's eyes. Having been a New Yorker, it was utterly fascinating to see how this small island beat the odds to survive.

Then comes the last part of the book. As soon as this segment begins, it's painfully obvious that the story is going to turn into a 9/11 story. It felt disappointing to me because the book was so much more than that, yet it was ultimately going to be bunched into this sub-genre. But I suppose one can't talk about the history of New York City without dealing with the most important day in the city's history. And to it's credit, it covers the topic excellently. Having been in the relative area on that day, I felt this account captured the confusion and numbness that most New Yorkers experienced that day. Yet, at the same time, seems to discredit it by steeping it once again in mysticism.

In the end, this was a fascinating read that sometimes got lost trying to present social consciousness regarding slavery and equality within a context of folklore.

Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
(NYRB Classic, 2009)

Another fascinating book in the NYRB series, a series which attempts to bring lost books back into the world. This time it's a collection of several longish short stories by a Russian author. Most of these stories were written in 1920s, in the earliest days of the Soviet Union, but somehow they feel incredibly contemporary.

The writing style feels more in line with fiction of today than of the past. There's almost a post-modernist angle to many of the themes in the book, especially those dealing with the end of ideas and the bankruptcy of literature. There were so many great concepts and details in these stories that I continue to think about, now more than a month after finishing the book. One in particular involves an expanding room that reminds me so much of Doctor Who and his brand of Time Lord science. Certainly worth checking out from literary historian point of view.

We All Fall Down

(Artwork by Joel Cruz, 8 years old)

He climbs up to where I am. pretty fast. fast as he can. He sure loses his shyness pretty quick. I think we're going to fall for sure. but I hold on. hold on to him and he holds on to me. and just before I close my eyes, I see three lights spark to life in the Twin Towers, like stars just for me. my mind is made up. there really is no choice after that. I've settled on which buildings are my favorite, once and for all. ---(from the draft of my book Tomorrow, Maybe)

This is how the original version of the last paragraph on page 55 of Tomorrow, Maybe was written in the spring of 2001. This book was meant to be an abstracted story of my first few years of living in New York City. In those years, I found New York to be a terribly lonely place at times, but always a beautiful one. The way the skyline changes as you walk is certainly a part of that. When I was kid, I loved the romantic nature of the Empire State Building, but the longer I lived there, I grew to appreciate the Twin Towers even more. Having worked in an office with a magnificent view of them, I got to see them come to life with light everyday. This was the feeling I was writing about in the above passage.

The great thing about the view was that there were no buildings in the line of sight despite the twenty or so blocks between where I was and where they were. Of course, the very same wonderful view that I loved so much also proved to have consequences. On this morning, ten years ago, I was standing outside on the patio of the top floor of that building watching smoke billowing into the sky. I stood with friends and we watched in confusion, wondering, like everyone else, what was going on and why helicopters weren't landing to attempt a rescue of the people on the top floors. Then the first tower fell before our eyes and everyone screamed.

There was a rush to evacuate the building after that. On the stairs, someone who had been in their office asked me what was happening. All I could say was 'it's gone.' Minutes later I was lost in the wild stampede of frightened people running north on Broadway. Just two days before, I had been driving into the city through the Holland Tunnel and I remember expressing my amazement at the two buildings with the person in the car with me. I had been saying, as I often did, that sometime in the distant future, civilizations were going to marvel at those buildings the same way we do at the pyramids in Egypt.

In the final version of Tomorrow, Maybe, we changed it to read the Empire State Building. This wasn't out of any 'sensitivity' that was rewriting history at that time. It was merely because we didn't want to date the action in the story of the book to a certain time. But the original version was the honest version. My favorite buildings disappeared ten years ago along with thousands of fellow New Yorkers. But as horrible as it was, on that day and the days and weeks after, no one in New York felt lonely...we all hurt and healed as one.

(Artwork by Melanie Cohn, age 8)