I do not know about others...

But I must admit I had been VERY depressed.

It seemed as if it would not be possible to let this go until the
images stopped running in my head... and that would not be possible
until I could reduce the whole thing... the entire thing... (the
pentagon, the four planes, the north tower, the south tower, the people
jumping, the towers falling, the firemen, the pilots with throats
slashed)... the whole thing had to come down to one image... and it
had to be a Good one for me to move on.

Finally, after about 2 weeks was I finally able to construct the
image... and where the image occurred... and to write about it... and, finally,
to call only on that one image whenever I was reminded of this...

In the event you are interested, I am sending the image on to you. If
you are not interested... just ignore this message as of no
consequence, and forgive me for wasting your time...
I am sure there will be much to read about these
events, anyway, and my perspective is just one of millions of others.
These are just my feelings I wanted to share. I know it is not much
about co-dependency... I am sorry... but I offer it anyway as an image.

An Image In a Dark Stairwell, On a Long Runway

You could fly at the base of the World Trade Center. Their cross
sections were not square: they were in the shape of a square with the
four corners cut off. And the towers came straight down to the ground
with no pedestal to stand on.

So you could literally walk right up to each tower; you could put your
chest up against the shaved-off wide, flat surface of what was the
corner, tilt your head way back, and feel like you were standing on the
edge of a huge runway. God! what a powerful feeling that was! The
effect of standing up and having your head at an angle gave this
feeling of weightlessness while standing on a runway that went on
forever; it was as if any moment you would lift off and begin your
ascent into the heavens.

My mind keeps returning to that day; and just when my heart stops
palpitating, and I can stop sweating, can I sublimate the horror of
being on one of those four planes; of being that pilot or that
passenger. I can relax, just for a moment, move on, look up from my
computer and (here it comes again) face the image of being in an office
and seeing a jet coming at me at 600 miles per hour. And I can only
thank God I am not that stewardess, that pilot, that passenger or that
office worker. I am just me; I am grateful that I was where I was on
9/11 and I feel such pain for all those who were there; and for all
those whose loved ones were there.

And just when I finally "let that image go", I see, next, the people
standing on the ledge of the building... jumping... just jumping. The
news images do not even capture the sound. Were they screaming? I
imagine myself falling back down the runway just like them, and I still
do not know if they were screaming. And I never will. And I never
should.

And when I can finally let that go, I imagine, this time now, those
left up on the building top, and I feel his majesty lean slowly to the
side; and once again come screams of the twisting steel as those people
now begin their scene, careening down the runway, accompanied by glass
and metal and concrete. For here it comes again. When will the images
go away?

And, as irrelevant as it may seem, comes the image of a squirrel,
minding its own business in WTC square, oblivious to stock options, the
Middle East, and all our problems... mildly wondering... "geez, wad' is
'dat noize I hear", as it picks up a breadcrumb, looks up, and is
smashed into oblivion by over a million tons of steel and concrete
indifferent to squirrels and flower beds.

I suppose this is part of what that horror was to me. The inability to
linger even for a second on one small minutiae of that day. It feels
like a Spielberg Movie on MethAmphetamine: speeding and careening from
one horror to the next faster than a jet plane on a runway during
takeoff.
But I finally come to rest back in my childhood.

I recall visiting the firehouses in the Bronx. I imagine every kid in
this nation at one time or other voicing the words: "I want to be a
fireman". And at this point, my memory races with my imagination and
tries to complete a story that never came true because, frankly, I do
not know if I could ever have the courage as those men who went right
back in. I can only say that their stories were not captured on camera
(thank God! I do not have to see courage played out on the six O'clock
news to constantly remind myself how much more work lies ahead of me to
be like them). Only those last few people who did not make it out,
holding the hand of the firemen who went back in, and looking into each
other's eyes -- those people knew the courage of the firemen, and in
that flicker of an eye, in that moment that lasted an eternity as they
held their breath, amidst a noise so loud you could hear a pin drop --
did they become one with the same courage as they began racing up a
runway that was racing back down on them (greeting those coming down
and lifting them back up).

It happens now, you see. So many childhood memories now culminate in
that day. So many memories are getting an ending I never could have
imagined.

I have this memory of being a child and taking photographs with
visiting uncles from another country, while standing on a Ferry, with
The Lady on the left and the Twin Towers in front of us. I see the
pictures standing there in my mind as my mind races forward in time,
now, and eclipses twenty years faster than the buildings crush down on
the secretaries, the janitors, the single parents, the pigeon or
whatever squirrel just happened to be there at the wrong time. For I
can no longer linger in memory of being at those buildings without being

fully aware of their ultimate fate.

I know I will go back to NY again this Christmas. I know I will get
lost in the lower city like I usually do these years: it has been a
long time since I have lived there. Only this time I know I will not
be able to look up and figure out where I am because those two towers
will not be there to help me by saying: "that is where you are right
now (and you still have a long way to go)".

I know the space will be there. But the ashes will be gone by the time
I get there. I can imagine the ashes. But what is the point? They
will all have blown away in the wind. I suppose that is good.

For in time what will remain for me will not be the ashes, or the
concrete or
the twisted steel. In time, one day, my mind will actually be able to
flicker from the horror and play the images at speeds far in excess of
600 miles per hour, without the pain, and move past the airplanes, the
secretaries, the squirrel and, I suppose, the firemen. For of all the
racing on that day, the descents and ascents will be still in
comparison to that one moment when humanity embraced. I hope in time
I will come to dwell on that moment of the embrace and that look when
their eyes might have met: the fireman and that person in the darkness
of a stairwell; when they heard the rumble coming for them. I suppose
then I will be able to see that one pivotal moment when eternity became
real in the body of two people becoming one at the moment. And at that
moment when memory and imagination become one and I get this dejaVu
feeling that I am imagining a memory (or remembering an imagination),
will all the pain of that moment be supplanted by a vision of what we
are all capable of being; at that time, maybe the wound will heal.

Loved ones will have moved on; they will have remarried or found other
partners; children will be born; others of us will have died taking
some memory with us.

And, in time, when I do recall that day amidst the noise: the roar of
the engines, the ignition of jet fuel, the racing of my heart -- as my
plane takes off from San Diego on my way back to NY at Christmas -- may
I hear instead, something much quieter (because the beauty of this
sound is softer than the unfolding arms of a rose or the opening arms
of an angel beckoning a new arrival). I suppose if I had the strength
of character, I could hear it even now from 3000 miles away as the
cranes lift the last concrete blocks and the remaining steel beams
slide past one another. It is the voice of humanity holding two people
tight in an embrace of a Compassioned Human Love stronger than any
thing we know. This voice needs no words as one million tons of metal
softly dissolves into the earth beneath; This voice needs no words as
two spirits roar up a runway on its magnificent ascent into heaven.
This voice sees this catastrophe as just dust in the wind. This voice,
today, might only be heard by a lady, in a harbor, holding her breath,
and waiting for the day when we all hear that same voice beckoning us
to recognize the Fireman that is possible in each one of us.

THANK YOU TOM AND GOD BLESS YOU FOR PUTTING INTO WORDS THE UN-IMAGINABLE.