9/11. The day the world stopped. It’s not often that you feel your heart has stopped and your blood run cold. This is the feeling many people had, especially in NY, on that fateful day in September 2001. There was the indescribable pain of loss, the sheer fear of the unknown, the helplessness of seeing the world teeter out of control.
The healing process is still very much a work in progress.
Browsing: World Trade Center
It’s that time of the year again and one’s mind turns to a day twelve years ago, to that clear blue sky and quiet morning which exploded into the horror of 9/11.
On this day, I always have this surreal sense of foreboding, of calm before the storm but life goes on and people are moving on.
Seems strange but yes, it is Fashion Week in New York and the city is full of beautiful people, designers, models and media. Art events are happening and the city is teeming with tourists. Working, dreaming, creating and deal-making, frenetic New Yorkers move on. Yet they do not forget, as the scores of memorial services around the city emphasize.
I myself am headed out to New Jersey for the memorial of a dear family friend, Rajesh Mirpuri who lost his life as the burning towers collapsed around him.
Every year for the past decade, hundreds of friends and family have gathered around his grieving parents at the Sadhu Vaswani Center, finding solace and strength in prayer. Time passes but can one ever forget?
Quilt making has always been a community effort and so it seems particularly appropriate in a commemoration of a horrific day when in spite of destruction and death all around, the community came together; strangers clasped hands and lit candles on the sad streets.
The age-old craft of quilting has seen generations of women through rough and tough times. Artist Faith Ringgold herself learned quilting from her grandmother who learned it from her mother who was a slave. Story quilts use painting, quilted fabric and storytelling to create powerful narratives about issues which effect humanity.
On 9/11, 2001 all hell broke loose from the sky in Lower Manhattan, and America and Americans have never been the same again. A human trust was broken, and now there’s always a chasm, a looking over the shoulder, a wound which never completely heals.
That brings us to the proposed Cordoba House community center/mosque near Ground Zero. Not a handful of soil has been turned nor a brick has been laid, yet this mosque-to-be has caused angst, debate and anger. Like a phantom, it has entered into conversations, both real and virtual.