On this day ten years ago, a person came into my office and told me a plane had hit one of the towers. We all thought a small touristic plane, an accident and were struck with some level of shock. Minutes later our shock was brought to another level when the second plane hit. In disbelief, I walked out to the corner of E 86th and 2nd Ave. where I had a clear view of the smoke and flames coming from the upper floors. We turned to radio, tv’s and internet for news but it was all too confusing. By late morning I decided if the city was under some kind of attack I’d better haul-ass and get over to Central Park West to pick up my son in daycare. Transportation was immediately shut down and so were all the bridges, so I went by foot. I passed faces that were zombie-like, or those sobbing and holding their hands to their head. As all New Yorker’s realize, you’ve got a darn good chance of knowing someone who works at The World Trade Center.

My son and I came back to my office and he slept as I continued to try to work, as we weren’t really calling it a day yet. By afternoon, we decided to leave and start our long journey home by foot. We walked through the Upper East Side, did all of Harlem and crossed the bridge into the South Bronx – white folks, black folks, hispanic folks..folks from all over the world and it didn’t matter where we came from, that day we were going home together. Imagine what it must have felt like to be one of thousands walking directly on one of New Yorks busiest Avenues with no traffic!  I didn’t witness any looting but I obviously had some concern about it since there wasn’t a police officer in sight – not one and not one taxi either. Cell phone coverage was spotty, but at some point I managed to get through to my husband to arrange a pick-up on the other side of the bridge. It took about one and a half hours to reach him. We gave a ride home to two of my co-workers who kept me company with my newborn in a stroller along our exodus from Manhattan. So while I was home resting my feet and absorbing the news that evening, President Bush was rounding up the Bin-Laden family on planes and getting them out of the country and soon later he waged war on Osama. A mystery we’ll never have an answer to.

That evening I kissed my husband and thanked my lucky stars that he had left his job in one of the towers six month earlier and that our friends there were safe. During the next days we walked through Manhattan, where hospitals had endless billboards of pictures and missing people…thousands all posted in one place with flowers, poems and stories. Unforgettable and hair-raising. Today, Simone saw the news and asked me what was happening in New York. I explained that this already happened ten years ago while we were living there. He wanted me to tell him the story and I did.

I’ve been painting like a mad woman this summer. I’ve even involved my two boys to join me on the floor of the terrace with plates full of paint and cups holding our brushes. We mix colors on sheets of aluminum foil and use old t-shirts to clean our brushes as we go along.

It’s my secret weapon during our long summer break from school. If there is one thing they happen to love more than parking their little butts in front of our 42″ flat screen tv with Nintendo Wii…it’s painting! In my days it was all about getting out of the house and running around. Now my friends and I have one complaint, our kids don’t want to go out of the house because they don’t want to leave their video games and computers. It’s like pulling teeth to get them to go to their best friends house, they complain because he/she doesn’t have the right game or uses another video game like Xbox. I even got hit up for an iphone from my technology crazed 10 year old who says his friend at school has one.  He’s spending the summer Skyp-ing everyone he can or offering to set them up Skype accounts so he can plan on Skyp-ing them. An alternative form of socializing from his desk and never leaving home. So back to painting with my boys…Thank goodness for small things! Below is my son’s painting of me. (He’s got a style!)

My son went up to a group of kids playing soccer in the park and asked if he could play. The head of the group looked at his CI and said “What’s that? Are you deaf or something?”.  He turned with a smirk on his face to the others saying, “Hey look he’s deaf!”.  Suddenly he had 6 kids in his face circling him. The kid said, “Do you hear?”.  I quickly yelled over saying “Yes he does and he can speak two languages English or Italian if you’d like. ” The boy said to me, ” Does he speak Japanese?” .  I said with one eyebrow raised, “Why? ….Do you want to speak in Japanese?”.  All the boys started laughing at their leader.

Not one of their parents stood up to address what was going on. When my friend returned, I told her what had just happened. As I chased my other son who had strayed too far,  she walked over and said,  ”Look he came here to play, start playing or he doesn’t want to play with you!! Understand?”. The boys started to kick the ball around but obviously excluding my son. I said to my son, “Come on, let’s go I don’t like these boys”.

I don’t have any idea how many times this has happened to my son when I was unable to be there for him but I can only imagine. It’s unfortunate that not all parents have a good education to pass along.

Photo Gallery:

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Aperitivo @Hobo ArtClub:

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