everything stinks

it stinks mom,

my daughter kept saying, i would reply,

welcome to new york, everything stinks.

and by the grins and chuckles i heard from passers by, i probably wasn't too far off the mark.

standing at the subway station, looking at the black muck on the walls and ceilings, i thought, there is really no way for them to ever get this clean. Lord knows what you get in your lungs down here breathing.

a friend i met recently told me, he went to the doctor and got an xray. his lungs look like a smoker's. the doctor asked,

do you smoke?

no, never.

he replied.

do you live in the city?

yes,

he said.

ah, city lungs.

that they have a name for it, should not surprize anyone. but that it is as bad or worse than a heavy smoker is pretty tragic. considering how many people out there must be huffing and puffing around town with citylungs. i try not to think of this as i watch the half hour buffer for us to get to the museum from penn station tick away.

we are joined on the platform by a young tattooed couple. she was shapely, not overmuch, not artificially, but healthfully. he was strong and wise. his arms had all kinds of designs, sleeves, as they are called, but i didn't want to stare. that's the thing, i get so interested in observing people i act like i'm at the zoo and they are in cages.

so our train finally, finally arrives. we had to catch the E train downtown headed toward the world trade center. where the young couple were headed. we needed to get off a stop earlier, at spring street.

i found a map, got my bearings, and got off at the right exit. they followed. the conductor stuck his head out the window and said,

catch the next E train

as he pulled away. they shouldn'ta got off but they followed me. and we were running late so i couldn't stay to apologize. i felt terrible.

we walked an entire city block to varick and couldn't figure out where we needed to be. so the person we ask says,

i have no idea.

(which at least she didn't just give us some random directions).

so we literally run back to the subway and find spring street (which was my first mistake, not finding the street we needed to begin with), turns out, we ran around 3 sides of that city block and across two streets to the location. we were wiped when we got there. both of us huffing and puffing, you know, i'm no runner. my kid even less.

the tour had begun, but apparently we didn't miss much. we were at the nyc fire museum and they had a faces of ground zero exhibit going on. my beloved and i had agreed telling our girl about 9/11 before going into town was not the best idea, since she was so young when it happened, and we hadn't enlightened her since.

but on the train that morning from jersey i said,

now baby, there may be some words you don't understand. twin towers, 9/11, 343. i'll explain those to you later.

she looks at me with her precious innocence,

i know about september 11.

really?

i said,

where did you find out?

now this is always a precarious time when questioning children and reporters. will they reveal their sources? so i tried to keep the tone jovial.

tell me baby, i'd like to know.

my friends told me last week.

really, what did they say?

she told me they told her one building fell into the other and they both fell down.

i explained the whole situation to her. everything. i told her where she was, where we were, all that happened, and why we didn't tell her.

she said,

i wasn't going to tell you because i didn't think you knew.

ah!

i said,

you can tell us anything. and you'll be surprized by what we know.

we also talked about pearl harbor. and she was asking questions but i could only provide spotty info. so i said,

we'll have to read up on it.

meanwhile, we're headed into the big city and i'm trying not to scare the kid.

we read all the placards on the ten foot (if not larger) photos of the faces of ground zero and she was very sad. but it was a good experience.

so we're at this park with the homeschoolers, and hear an explosion. silence and then the glass of the windows rumble.

we all jumped. the moms in the park who were clearly from the area, said,

don't worry. it's nothing. construction. they demolished a building.

but that was not where i wanted to be any longer. it was freaky. and we'd just come from the museum. i was talking to a lady there who said,

that was not okay, just having that noise and the moment of uncertainty.

she told me she doesn't watch the news anymore (since 9/11, she lives in the city), or read the paper, or ever look at the cover of the times. her daughter was one year old when it all happened and she hadn't told her either. (which made me feel a bit better) but i really hadn't thought about living in the shadow of it. wow.

my dear female minister friend told me she went out into the community and reassured people. she is a very reassuring presence. but i can't imagine what it was like actually living through it. she lived in queens then.

more later, i must away. peace.