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September 16, 2001
11/9/10 13:08I'm not going to write about that day, because enough has been written about that day. What I'm thinking about right now is the Sunday after that day, September 16, 2001.
It had been a beautiful week--clear, crisp, the platonic ideal of autumn in New York, arrived just a little early. The kids were back in school, the city was humming with energy. And then that. And it seemed truly weird that the sun kept shining (through the overcast of smoke and crap in the air) and so much of life kept on. The city was hushed and tentative as if everything was at a whisper, but each day it got a little louder, moved a little closer to its normal tone of voice. So by the weekend, when the first AYSO games were scheduled, there was some chatter back and forth on the team listserv: were the games still on? Would it be okay (meaning, would some further awful happen)? In the end, we--the coaches, the parents, the soccer association--felt that we should go ahead and assemble and watch the kids play. It was Avocado's first "game"--as a kindergardener, that meant they were playing what the Spouse calls "clusterball", in which the kids swarm around the ball back and forth and nothing much gets done.
So it's a clear, beautiful September day, just like Tuesday had been, and we're all in the park rather tentatively playing at Life as She is Lived, and a film crew comes by. They're doing shots for a New York promo, and is it okay if they film the kids? We shrug, say OK, sign releases. The game begins. Avocado scores a goal. There are Entenmann's Doughnut Holes and juicepacks for post-game snack. Everything feels very real and normal, because the whole entire city is trying to will it to be that way, working on creating a consensual reality in which we will all go on and have soccer games and go to the movies and go to work and love and hate and write and sing and mop the kitchen floor and just live, dammit.
A week or two later we see one of the "I Love New York" promos and there, along with Nathan Lane and Ben Stiller and Regis and Kelly and Derek Jeter and all the rest, at just about at the 29 second mark, is a flash of a little girl playing soccer, about to make her first goal.
For a lot of reasons watching this clip makes me cry--but mostly because it is New York as it often is, at its bravest, most whistling-in-the-dark-est. And because it takes me back to that Sunday when we were all working to believe that the city could be made whole again, stronger at the broken parts.
It had been a beautiful week--clear, crisp, the platonic ideal of autumn in New York, arrived just a little early. The kids were back in school, the city was humming with energy. And then that. And it seemed truly weird that the sun kept shining (through the overcast of smoke and crap in the air) and so much of life kept on. The city was hushed and tentative as if everything was at a whisper, but each day it got a little louder, moved a little closer to its normal tone of voice. So by the weekend, when the first AYSO games were scheduled, there was some chatter back and forth on the team listserv: were the games still on? Would it be okay (meaning, would some further awful happen)? In the end, we--the coaches, the parents, the soccer association--felt that we should go ahead and assemble and watch the kids play. It was Avocado's first "game"--as a kindergardener, that meant they were playing what the Spouse calls "clusterball", in which the kids swarm around the ball back and forth and nothing much gets done.
So it's a clear, beautiful September day, just like Tuesday had been, and we're all in the park rather tentatively playing at Life as She is Lived, and a film crew comes by. They're doing shots for a New York promo, and is it okay if they film the kids? We shrug, say OK, sign releases. The game begins. Avocado scores a goal. There are Entenmann's Doughnut Holes and juicepacks for post-game snack. Everything feels very real and normal, because the whole entire city is trying to will it to be that way, working on creating a consensual reality in which we will all go on and have soccer games and go to the movies and go to work and love and hate and write and sing and mop the kitchen floor and just live, dammit.
A week or two later we see one of the "I Love New York" promos and there, along with Nathan Lane and Ben Stiller and Regis and Kelly and Derek Jeter and all the rest, at just about at the 29 second mark, is a flash of a little girl playing soccer, about to make her first goal.
For a lot of reasons watching this clip makes me cry--but mostly because it is New York as it often is, at its bravest, most whistling-in-the-dark-est. And because it takes me back to that Sunday when we were all working to believe that the city could be made whole again, stronger at the broken parts.
