May 15, 2014

Today was the dedication ceremonies of the 9/11 Memorial Museum - an emotionally moving day here in the city. President Obama called the National September 11 Memorial Museum a sacred place of healing and of hope that captures both the story and the spirit of heroism and helping others that followed the attacks.

As you know the area below the new buildings, as told to me by workers involved with the construction, is haunted. Add some of the artifacts that are part of the museum and this energy will increase - for better or better worse.

I know that some people are stuck on that day rehashing events over and over again paralyzing them to the point where they can't move on. This is not my personality. I've talked to survivors, to the spirits who died on 9/11, as well as members of their families. As with all tragedies ... it's time to move on. That's how I would handle it. Many of the people who lost someone on 9/11, as the years have passed, agree with me.

Last week I read a woman whose boyfriend was one of the fireman who rescued survivors on 9/11, but sadly is now dying of cancer. Though they live in Pennsylvania, he is from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn where I live. The stories continue ...

May 20, 2014

Last night, my neighbor Joanne stopped by to tell me that her 9/11 story was one of 5 permanently selected, and could be heard, at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Saturday she visited the museum and found it to be emotionally depressing and not for everyone. She feels immortalized in the energy of the events of that day, yet every time we talk about it, I can feel her trauma. I believe rehashing dramatic events does not allow people to move forward and heal.

Visitors to the museum, and those who were there, will reflect on the past while looking toward the future with optimism, but the tempered sort of optimism that comes with growth and experience - the understanding that while there will be bad days and worse days, the world is not an inherently dark place, and that the good, once found, can last forever in one form or another, if not always (or often) the form we'd find most ideal.