I'm feeling some aftermath stuff, that's for sure. Ever-striving to be awakened in processing whatever the disaster continues to stir up in me, the ice cream run has certainly become a valid indicator of emerging, emotional unpleasantries. Fur balls to cough up...
I try to pause—mid-run—to get to the bottom of my sudden feelings of urgency, and the desire to either numb or replace painful recollections with pleasant, instantly gratifying sensations. In the observer mode, an unconscious stimulus-response reaction is finally becoming a conscious one. I walk to 13th Street, look right, see no Twin Towers, then turn left and approach Hagen Daz, half-way down the middle of that block.
I'm running a 75/25 success ratio with my ability to pause long enough to a) process and embrace the feelings at the time, and b) direct myself to some nutritious food, coaxing myself with the bargain: "Okay, wee self. If you still want the ice cream cone after we've gone down just two blocks farther—to Sammy's Noodles—when, after having consumed nutritious veggies, sautéed tofu and brown rice, or after proceeding to Joe Jr's diner for a bowl of soup (only just one block away)—then, upon eating until well-sated (but not stuffed), then, m'dear, you may proceed to the ice cream store. When I am successful in coaching myself through this progression, Hagen Daz in The Sky is long forgotten.
I was forwarded a letter that a friend's sister sent to NBC. Barbara wrote, in part:
"Wednesday 10/3/01 on the news at 6:00 PT was the most shameful journalism have ever witnessed. Other stations also ran the same. This was a recording of the voices of those in the Twin Towers AS THEY WERE DYING—the last panic we would all experience in that type of situation. The newscaster was all hyped up as well and his voice sounded very much like a sports announcers at a football game. I was tuned to NBC but my husband heard it on another station as well. I was not actually watching—just listening.
THIS IS PRIME TIME TV. The children—the families and certainly the people of families who were deeply affected by this tragedy were listening. THIS IS EMOTIONAL RAPE of our people—especially the people who have lost the most.
I am old enough to remember troop convoys in WW ll going past my home. I remember radio broadcasts when I was a small child. I can still hear Roosevelt's voice and Churchill's and radio news casts about the war. The sights and sounds are still in my head of the tanks going up our street on their way Fort Lewis. (Our memory carries sound longer than it carries pictures.) I remember all the sounds of wars and 'conflicts' we didn't call war from then to now.
I remember the dear ones I knew who lost their lives fighting for these United States in some of those conflicts. I remember the grieving we all did for them. It would be absolutely horrific to hear their voice as they were taken prisoner or as they were shot down echoing now in my mind. I would not be able to eliminate that from my memory —not forever. This is why I say these sounds now, as people are starting or are struggling to gather their lives back around them is an act of rape on their emotions......those who already went to the memorials of their loved ones killed Sept. 11, 2001.
These sounds have now been imprinted deeply in the spirits of our people—probably people around the world at this point...children around the world."
Many of us now hold shocking visions and the echoes of unforgettable sounds in our attentive minds. The media gave us details beyond our wildest and worst expectations. Police cars, fire trucks, ambulances on their way to St. Vincents—even horn-blasting delivery vans—going by on 13th Street, just below my window, shriek with amplified urgency now. Their intrusive sounds trigger unavoidable and immediate flashbacks to all that they rushed towards (and ducked to avoid) such a short time ago. We're definitely on sensory overload. I hope that these associations won't last forever.
Barbara's letter brings to mind two parts of myself that play against each other: the one that yearns for, seeks for, obsesses for missing pieces. The part that doesn't want to be left out of any information, or else my imagination will try to fill in the details. And it knows no boundaries. To make the unknown real. To resolve a major contradiction that I experience in this third-dimensional (illusionary) reality: death appearing as real. While my soul knows that it is not. This is why I personally believe that we gawk ("rubberneck") at horrific sights, such as car accidents on the highway. We are trying to resolve that contradiction.
And the other part of me that knows that that other part of me often does not know what is good for it—for me. And that many of these sounds and images are becoming indelible in my psyche. And I will wish that they were not.
Already, those blending impressions are becoming a sort of desktop icon that I can click and immediately access — the sick, sinking feelings of the horror, the reality of the devastation and the losses. Not unlike the feelings that snap back when I look out my window and see what's not there.
At the same time, that icon also triggers reminders of important changes in myself that were jump-started that day, that will never let me return to who I was before 9/11. And that's a good thing.
I will continue to work with my ability to re-frame sights and sensations in a way that promotes transformation from dark-to-Light. I will continue to observe when images pass by me (or get triggered), those that cause me to spiral downward. And even as they're doing so, for me to remember to pause, to surrender to the Source, and to allow them to transform into insights that re-direct me upward. And I pray for parents to learn to do this for themselves. And for them to pass this power on to their children.