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My Block in Brooklyn

Yesterday, we recognized, remembered, and honored those lost on 9/11. My act of respect is to ignore social media aka not worry about the petty stuff. For many of us, those towers were not only symbols of our city, but of our youth. From my bedroom window, just above the trees in my neighbor's backyard, they stood proudly. As a kid from Brooklyn, they represented a faraway land, one that I'd venture to for museums, plays, my father's job, and eventually for school. Manhattan, the island, the metropolis, the insane "real" world. I moved in 1985, and while I've been back to visit, nearly every borough, I've yet to visit Ground Zero. I can't.

Men
Women
White
Black
Spanish
Asian
Christian
Jewish
Muslim
Hindu
Buddhist
Other Religions
Agnostic
Atheist
Straight
Gay
Bisexual
Rich
Middle Class (when there was one)
Poor
Babies
Adolescents
Teens
Adults
Parents
Grandparents
Great Grandparents
Emmy winners
Grammy Winners
Politicians
One German Deli
One Bodega
Over 60 different countries of Origin

One block in Brooklyn

That's what those towers represented to me and their crumbling and crashing down not only took away my generation's innocence but stripped away the symbols of my childhood and who knows, maybe a young boy's American Dream. I was only on top once, but remember peering down and realizing how small we are and how vast that city was. I also remember thinking that all of this, every skyscraper and every manhole cover was made by someone. Someone like me, like my neighbors.. We all lost, and I know clearly, I lost less than others. I'm proud of my friends who did what they could. I pain for those who lost loved ones and friends.

In the years since we've become different people. Attaching lifetime memories to Internet memes, social media posts, and other technological moments of the day. Our long-term memories aren't connected to landmarks, but to websites. A system crash is viewed as a disaster, but it's easily fixed or replaced.  There will be no photograph that can replace my childhood view. Those who share their magnificence brings pain to me. Lost innocence, even in our later years, is a hard pill to swallow. Those who post of the devastation, do so for attention in my opinion, as I know few who gazed at them daily who can handle such visions. We grieve differently; this I know, but that moment for some was like losing a loved one. Do we share those images of them how we want to remember of them or of them sick and decaying?

I return to my block. Running down the cracked sidewalk, greeting Mary, Maureen, stopping at Mr. & Mrs. Dorsey, huffing while the old man draws from his cigar, telling me to slow down, and that I have time. He reminds me I'm a kid, and that whatever I am rushing to will still be there. I'm a kid and I worry it won't. I'm an adult, still younger now than Mr. & Mrs. Dorsey then; and it's not.


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