Veil of tears

Walk down Garfield to 7th Avenue and look past Old First Church towards the city. The air is thick with humidity and visibility is damp -- if that is possible. You can just make out one of the beams from the Twin Lights Memorial. It is easy to spot. The streets are so quiet tonight, but the few people who are out at 10:30 p.m. are all looking up. That's what we do on 9/11 here in New York. You look up and remember -- where you were that day, who you knew, what you were doing. If you have kids maybe you watch a little trauma TV and relive those awful moments. I've been wondering for this whole first week of school what it was going to take to get mine to put their cell phones down for a moment. The site of those planes, and the cascading towers sure worked. 

The intensity of the beam is forming what looks like a well -- a directionless cannon of light -- seemingly moving both up and down against the backdrop of thick cloud. I swear it looks like some weird Twilight Zone scene, a waterfall of tears stretching from above the trees of Park Slope into the night sky. I'm not an insanely spiritual kind of guy, at least not in that way. But it is really hard not to gaze into that pulsating beam and imagine all the lost souls being remembered tonight. Thoughtful day. Sad evening.