holliday

I want to tell you what a great weekend I had.

I want to tell you about getting my first 'shout out' for the work that I'm doing by fellow hotroders...

I want to tell you about the thrill of watching cars racing on the dry lake bed of El Mirage...

But today my mind is elswhere...

My memories of 9/11 run deep, and they always begin on September tenth...

I remember who I was that day...moving around in my very ordinary life...
I, like everyone, worried about all the wrong things.

I worried about whether or not I was too fat to have the speed to play soccer with the team I was on.
I worried about whether or not what I was wearing was good for the date I was going on that night.
I worried about the woman I shared an office with being an asshole and sabotaging my work.

I wasn't worried about whether or not I was happy in my life.
I wasn't worried about whether or not my friends knew I loved them.

I went to sleep in a life filled with all the wrong worries...
I woke up in a world that I no longer recognized.
Everything I had 'known' to be true...no longer was.

But rather than talk about the fear and sadness of that day...I prefer to remember the community.

Living in a such a electronic world...I suddenly found myself entirely disconnected.
Instead of fully loaded cable...I had one fuzzy news channel.
There was no internet, no instant messaging, no landlines, or cell phones.

Nothing but an overwhelming need to connect with people...and not being able to use the impersonal methods I'd become so accustomed to.

I've always lived my life as though I were an island...but even this island was shaken down to the very basic and primal need to be around people.

So I got on the subway and headed south. I wandered the streets and tried to find people.
I stood on the corner of Broadway and Houston crying and pleading with the police to PLEASE let me get into my martial arts school...the entrance not fifteen feet away...I knew my community would be gathering there...

When they wouldn't let me through I continued to aimlessly wander the streets...eventually ending up at my friend's house on the lower east side. Together we sat and watched the same fuzzy news channel I'd been watching alone at home...and though the news hadn't changed...it was being in the presence of another human being, a friend, that really mattered.

It went on like this for days, weeks even...all of use wandering and reaching out to connect with eachother, even though not much was said between us. There didn't need to be any words at that point.

We didn't have to *ask* for news of people we knew...that was the kind of information that was shared first, even before 'hello.'

We cried together. We supported each other. We learned to laugh again together. We moved on together.

***

Every year on this day, I take a look at my life and recommit to the lessons I learned.

To living every day authentically and with integrity.
To telling the people in my life that I love them.
And to being connected with my life...my friends...and the world as a whole...

Today is not about whether or not I'm "bummed."
And it's not about whether or not I'm "ok."
I can't talk to you about my memories because they are kept in a place in my heart you can't share.
And yes, I AM sure that I want to sit here and watch the news...read the stories...and remember.

I carry it in my heart every day I walk this earth...today, so should you.

***

Reach out and connect with someone today.
Tell a friend you love them.
Do something today that will bring happiness into your life.
Make a promise...and keep it.

Do it for me...do it for yourself...do it for the thousands of people who lost their lives that day...and for all of us who survived it.

***

Normally I say that I left my heart in New York City...
Today I say that part of it is burried there...