Out On the Streets and You Could Hear From Inside...

I've always had a certain sixth sense about things.  Not in every situation, but often enough that I am aware of and trust it. Maybe it's just that I'm a little more observant than most, maybe it's the sloppy mix of Gypsy and Jew in my blood--I am named for a book of mysticism after all. And my dreams tell me truths about the people around me, give me a tiny glimpse of what might be about to happen. Deja vu happens to me all the time. I see places for the first time that I've already seen. I meet people I already know...

On September 11, 2001 I woke up early, I jumped in the shower, I washed my hair.  And the thought hit me out of nowhere--what if someone blew up the White House?  What kind of chaos would ensue? What would we do as a society? Why am I thinking about this in the shower on an early Tuesday morning?  

I had a roommate at the time, and as I stepped out into the kitchen I yelled to him, "I just had the most fucked up thought. I was thinking about someone bombing the White House."  I got no answer, but I could hear the TV from the other room. I walked in to find him pallid and terrified.  We watched without really talking, trying to process what was going on, and then word came that a plane had hit the Pentagon.  Too close to home, and too close to what had happened in my head an hour earlier.  

And then the dreams came. A little girl in a desert, about 4 years old I think, blonde in a pink flowy dress.  There were ruffles.  She stood alone, nothing around her but sand. Everything was sort of orange/yellow.  She looked right at me, and then turned to white dust. Anthrax.

It soon came out that roomie had actually been terrified of me that day.  It changed us.  My next Rolling Stone came with an American flag pin on the cover.  I had friends who got married soon after, claiming 9/11 put things in perspective for them.  Two months later my youngest nephew was born.  And my mother began her long, slow flirtation with death.  Life went on.  It still does.

I've known two survivors of the WTC attacks, and countless friends and connections affected in the city. I've observed moments of silence with the white noise still buzzing in my head. I brag that my Dad volunteered at Ground Zero. And I wait for the next mass hysteria, the next scene of human tragedy that will feed our insatiable appetite for carnage, and our need to feel connected to something.  And life goes on.