At the core of my being, I’m a writer. A storyteller. Always have been.

I love giving voice to stories, listening to stories that others have lived and written….

Loads of people have told me that I should write a book about my life, and I always smile and say, “maybe someday.”

That’s been the standard answer because, until very recently, there’s a huge part of my own story I haven’t been able to easily think about, let alone tell. There are people who have known me for over a decade who just recently found out that I was a responder/recovery worker on 9/11 in NYC. Until last fall, it wasn’t something I talked about much at all.

The words still don’t come easily, but they do come now, thanks, in large part to Come From Away.

Yep. Here we go again with the Come From Away posts.

That musical came out of nowhere and has done wonders to help me to think about my own 9/11 story and start to process it in ways I haven’t been able to until now, as well as share it with others.

I think we all live in the intersection of where our story meets other stories, and that sometimes, learning the stories of others who have lived the same event in a very different context can free you to think about your own story in a safer, broader way.

I’ve written several times now that the Come From Away [CFA] musical has been incredibly healing for me – from the first time I heard the soundtrack to the moment I walked into the Schoenfield and burst into tears on Christmas day – but I haven’t been able to articulate exactly HOW or WHY, or what’s been going on in my head as I interact with the stories in the show.

In fact, it’s taken me several months to figure it out for myself – my subconscious has been working overtime, but pushing those thoughts to the forefront has taken some time. The AHA moment came when I was in NYC this past week, sitting at dinner in the Glass House Tavern with my girlfriend and my new friend Diane. It was actually something Diane said that made the light bulb go off in my mind about exactly what has been happening as I listen to/watch this show.

We were sitting there, just before the three of us were due to walk over to the theatre, when Diane said that she’d be, in part, watching the show that evening in the context of thinking about my story, and trying to see it through my eyes and thought processes, as I interacted with the story being told on the stage. And that’s when I realized that was EXACTLY what I had been doing every time I listened to the show myself. As they told their stories, it made me think of my own, and it was giving me permission and space to explore my own story/memories in a way that I hadn’t allowed myself to do until now.

So if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share some of the thoughts I’ve been able to put into words, in context with the lyrics/lines in the show. Yes, I am aware that this is about to get very self-indulgent [and long], but I know no other way to put into words what I think other than this…

The first line that hits me is in the opening number, when Beulah says that it’s their first day back in the classroom, and that it’s a gorgeous day. That day was the first day of my last year in seminary, and it was just gorgeous out. It was a day that started off full of so much promise, so much sunshine. I was barely able to contain my excitement that morning – I had no idea of what was to come.

Welcome to the land where the winters try to kill us and we say, “we will not be killed.” Welcome to the land where the waters try to drown us and we said, “we will not be drowned. “Welcome to the land where we lost our loved ones and we said, “we will still go on.”  Welcome to the land where winds try to blow, and we said “No!”

Those defiant exclamations…..all the bullshit we went through because of ground zero, all the bullshit in my own mind and body because of that event…and I’m still here. I’ve not succumbed to illness, haven’t drowned in anxiety…I just keep going, determined to survive…..and I’m sure they [the Newfoundlanders] don’t realize that their defiance of the elements up there, making a home on such a potentially inhospitable island, is courage.  I didn’t realize my defiant will to live was either, until I saw/heard it in them.

I’m sitting in my car.

I’m in the library.

I’m in the staff room.

And I turned on the radio.

You are here, at the start of a moment, on the edge of the world.

Where the river meets the sea.

Here, at the edge of the Atlantic, on an island in between there and here.

I was in the chapel at the seminary, just another normal day, when the dean stood up in front of us and said that they needed volunteers to go on the first wave – people who had disaster relief experience.  Someone pushed me forward and said that I could run a mobile kitchen. And like that, I stood there, at the start of the moment[s] that would change my life forever.

Can I help? Is there something? I need to do something to keep me from thinking of all the scenes on the tube. I need something to do ‘cause I can’t watch the news, no, I can’t watch the news anymore. In the winter from the water in the wind. If a stranger ends up at your door -You get on a horn.

We didn’t have time to think about it. We just sprang into action. There were people who needed help, and doing SOMETHING was better than sitting and doing nothing.  There was no time to think about what had happened. As I listen to this song, the urgency of it, watch the passing of boxes on the stage, I remember what it was like that first day, trying to get stuff set up, just moving and moving and working, and not thinking about the magnitude of what was happing all around us.

We had no way to get information

This is before most people had mobile phones. And only a couple people got through

Hello? Mom! Bonjour? Operator? Tom?

Oh, thank God! I finally got through. I borrowed a passenger’s phone. How are you? Are the kids okay? No, I’m fine Tom. I’m fine.

My parents and younger brother were in SC. I was in NYC. I tried to call them from my apartment before I deployed with the kitchen, but the phone lines were jammed. I kept getting an ‘all circuits are busy, please try your call again later’ message. There was no way to reach them. My first contact with them was almost 15 hours later, when my dad came running up to my kitchen in his disaster uniform. He’d driven all the way from SC to NYC – to look for me, but also immediately ready to help. I remember being so confused for just a split second when I saw him, and then feeling immediate relief and security because he was there. He was one of the lucky ones who had a cell phone, and he called my mom to tell her that I was okay,  and that he was going to get to work.

 

Somewhere in between your life and your work

When the world may be falling apart

And you think, I’m alone, I’m alone, and I’m so damn helpless…

This is exactly how I felt every night after my shift – I’d go home to my apartment and I couldn’t sleep, or eat, or sit still. I remember thinking…I’m barely an adult – am I always going to feel this way now? Is it always going to be like this? Will life ever be normal again?

Lead us out of the darkness

Lead us somewhere to safety

Lead us far from disaster

Lead us out of the night

I listen to the soundtrack almost daily, and have seen the show in person twice now….and I still can’t hear this piece without breaking down. This, more than any other lyric in the entire show, has so much ‘stuff’ rolled up into it for me. When we came up out of the cleanup area – especially the first night – it was like emerging from a war zone. There was no electricity. We trudged up the West Side Highway on foot, covered in ash and dirt and grime, in the dark, when we realized that there were hundreds and hundreds of people lining the road, shining their flashlights onto the pavement for us, holding signs telling us that they loved us, asking god to bless us, and they were…clapping. Silently. They were not cheering. Not making any noise at all other than clapping. And the further we got up the road, the more lights there were, and the more people there were. It was like walking out of hell…and they were there, silently cheering us on with their signs and applause, until we finally reached the neighborhood where the electricity was on again and we could catch cabs or get a subway uptown to where the vehicles were parked. That’s what I think about when I hear them sing this. And the fact that here we are, 18 years later, and I’m just starting to be able to talk about it, think about it, move past it….in a way, I am still being led out of the darkness of the memories of that day.

And you look around

And blink your eyes

And barely even recognize

The person in the mirror who’s turned into someone else

I was barely an adult when 9/11 happened – in my last year of seminary. My life was just starting.  The second I laid eyes on the pit, I became a different person. Truthfully, I can barely remember the person I was before that day. I try though, every time I hear this song. And every time, you know what image comes to mind? Me, sitting on the floor of my shower after my first shift at the edge of the pit, trying to wash away the ash, the dust, the pain, the images of what I saw there….and failing.

Prayer.

The entire song. Jesus. What power. This is the other one that makes me cry literally every time I hear it. So many thoughts go through my head. I think about the fact that, working at ground zero, there was no religion, and yet there was so much that was sacred that the entire experience was an act of….worship? The group I worked most closely with myself were the Scientologists, who couldn’t have been more different from my own religion, yet, down there, there were no differences. We all had the same goals. Layered on top of that, I think of how my life has changed since then – the need to do something for a living that will help alleviate the suffering of others, the drive I have now to tell my story, after keeping it silent for so long….

I also think of how my own theology has changed, and how all the prayers blending together is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.

 

Somewhere in between the place of life and work and where you’re going

something makes you stop and  notice and you’re finally in the moment!

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of who knows where,

you’ll find something in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of clear blue air,

you’ve found your heart, and left a part of you behind.

 

These lyrics – they’re my favorite in the entire show. I’m still fully unpacking why, but it so beautifully encapsulates what life has been like for the last 17 years…and how this show has come out of nowhere to help me to find the courage to think about my own story.

All this time, I’d been looking for closure. I realized, quite suddenly, a few weeks ago, that even though closure was what I’d been hoping and searching for, it wasn’t what I needed at all. It’s something I’ll never have. 9/11 is part of me, and always will be. It’s had such an impact on my life – my body will never be the same, my mind will never be the same, my heart will never be the same – that it isn’t something I can just close out and be done with. In so many ways, I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t been part of that recovery effort.

What I needed was to start a new chapter. To be able think about my story, those events in a new way. To figure out the next phase of life, post 9/11. I did not expect a musical to be that catalyst. I did not expect to make amazing new friends. I did not expect to sit there and HEAL in a theatre. And yet, that’s exactly what happened. Out of the clear blue air, I’m able to think about what happened, process it, talk about it freely….and start a new chapter. I am not the same person I was on 9/10/2001, but now I’m also not the same person I was on 9/12/2001 either. I’m me. Today. Different than I was. Stronger. More vulnerable. Changed.

I never thought I’d get another tattoo, but last week, I started a jar where I’m keeping all my change, because those words will be inked on my body someday:  In the middle of clear blue air, you found your heart, but left a part of you behind.