A Tale of Two Towers

 

                        The author looking out at the Twin Towers. Photo by Robert Carioscia.

This week during my 7 a.m. novelist group, one of the writers presented an excerpt from the novel Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. The novel is about Phillipe Petit’s death-defying 1974 high-wire walk between the two towers of The World Trade Center.

Colum McCann describes the reactions from the spectators down below on the streets of Lower Manhattan that early morning in August. Some were confused, some were awed, some mesmerized. Some imagined a terrible fall from the enormous towers. But some were just annoyed by the interruption on their way to work.

Two years later in 1976 when I was en route to my temp job downtown, a man stood beside me at the cross walk and pointed up at the still-new Twin Towers and he told me how he witnessed Phillippe Petit’s spectacular high-wire act. This man was so enthralled by his experience, that he wanted to describe the excitement of the day to me--a stranger on a street corner. And so simply by listening, I became a witness to a witness.

Yesterday was the anniversary of 9/11 and my friend Elizabeth told me about her habit of emerging from the subway and then looking for the towers in order to determine whether she was facing uptown or downtown. We all did this back then--as a convenient way to find our bearings after emerging from the darkness of the tunnel.

It was something we all took for granted. But no more.

Loss has a shape. When it first arrives, it’s hard and sharp. It’s all angles. It pokes and pings. Then as time passes--say twenty-five years--loss grows softer, more rounded. Perhaps covered in mist.

But still, no less painful.

Creative Friends--our world is changing all the time. Be a witness. Listen. You may find loss. Tragedy. Even horror. But if you keep your eyes open, you might also be rewarded by unexpected delight--the surprising beauty of a lithe young man on a high-wire as he transverses the distance between two towers.

Love,

Jamie