Every year, I feel a lot on this day. Every year, there's a lot I want to say. Thinking about my friends I lost that day. How most of the day, and even days later, I still didn't know they were gone. I was in Houston, which is where I'll be again next week. It just wasn't computing that day and I couldn't think of what to do. The only thing I could think was that I wanted to talk about art, so I went to Chipotle with my friend Jason Pallas, who was the person I liked talking about art with the best. I had no idea my friends were gone.
I think about David Aoyama the most, every year on this day. My Buddhist practice has lulled a bit these last few years, but I always feel comfort knowing David was on flight 11 as it hit the first tower chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo-- all the way-- for those around him, and for us all.
And when I start to tally up our mistakes since that day, ten years ago-- there's so many-- instead, I try to think about things like this. Kids singing. And kids singing in the invincible spirit of New York. It's actually my favorite thing about VOTE! Maybe even why I wrote it. Definitely why I wrote the title number. I'd allow a lot of criticisms of where I'm from, but our spirit isn't one of them.
When I start to get angry about why it took so long to rebuild anything down there, to fill those gaping wounds in my favorite-- the best-- city in the world, I try to remind myself that in the year since I've left, they've managed to build the section of the memorial I liked best: twin rectangular waterfalls that flow into the void of where the buildings used to stand. Reminding us what we lost. Reminding us to keep going.
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