September 11

Lucky number seven marking the years after a fateful day and as is my wont, I confront the memory which lies in eclipse today, allowing us to grasp what we would never otherwise dare. How many of us discover gratitude in our existence? How many find respite in our heartbeat? How many even notice we are alive? September 11 could have been any building, anywhere, an act of maldivine temperament. Instead of being here, we could easily be looking down from above. But by stochastigarchy, we were drawn elsewhere, away from the epicenter. How many of us feel the aftershocks now? We’ve built this world out of free will, not brick, and some wolf will come and ravage it. Some say carpe diem, but I don’t think seizure saves us from arbitration. We need to shed our obsessive-compulsiveness, discard our anxiety about control, stop trying to micromanage details of our life because big things happen and we will be left insolvent of emotion, family, memory, material goods. What I felt this day seven years ago was helplessness, but it took me seven years to learn that stripping a person of everything still leaves hands, a head, a heart. When someone dies, her shadow lingers and her lessons persist. Even seven years later. No whisper is left unheard. 09.11.08.