thank you everybody for your really nice birthday wishes.
they cheered me up quite a lot.
because i’m here in tokyo (about to get on a train to go to osaka), and as much as i love japan i feel very strange being away from new york today.
i feel strange being away from new york because it’s my birthday and my friends and family live in and around new york city. and i feel strange being away from new york because it’s september 11th, the one year anniversary of the most significant day in new yorks history in the last 150 years.
i feel a sense of sadness, but even more so i feel this desire to walk down to the site of the former world trade center.
i feel this strange need to stand in the sun in downtown manhattan and smell the air coming up from subway vents and look at people rushing to work and to remember what happened a year ago. i want to remember what happened. i want to standon my roof and look at the hole in the sky where the twin towers used to be. i want to remember what they looked like when they dominated the skyline.
no offense to japan and the wonderful japanese people, but i shouldn’t be hereright now.
it was a mistake to schedule a tour that took me away from my home on september 11th.
now i know. i feel this strange need to just open my door and start walking down church street towards the former world trade center.
i’m sorry for the loss that people suffered one year ago. my remembrances mean nothing when compared to the people who lost friends and family members. for what it’sworth, we all remember. we remember the faces of the missing on the pieces of paper at every park and post office in the days and weeks after september 11th. we remember their names and their lives.
i can’t walk out my door today and walk to the former world trade center, but i can sit here and cry and remember what happened.
i’m sorry for everyone’s loss.
moby