Week in Seven Words #569

This covers the week of 12/13/20 - 12/19/20.

linguistic

An app with a green owl mascot is helping me work on Hebrew writing and French reading comprehension skills.

nurturing

She's painted the walls of her bedroom a dusky pink and hung up drawings of plants, from lianas to roses. The room feels more vital and cozy, as if everything in it is cupped in warm hands.

rebuild

Of the dumb, shattering decisions people make, from which will they recover and to what extent?

silvered

A silver sheen on the lake and leafless trees.

snowing

The park is powdered, the paths slick.

viruses

I'm glad to hear she's feeling better. One virus dominates the headlines these days, but there are still others, like colds, flus, and stomach bugs – miserable, and sometimes very serious. 

warmer

The heat from the candles washes over my hands, and I feel cozier and more content.

Week in Seven Words #525

This covers the week of 2/9/20 - 2/15/20.

fever

His face is beaded with sweat. On his nightstand, a thermos is perched on a short stack of books, and beside it a bottle of over-the-counter fever reducer.

frigidly

Our fingers are numb and chilly from handling wet bags of celery in a stiff wind.

gritting

Wounded, she staggers back to her feet, her jaw set.

outlet

Their backyard is a narrow rectangle, just big enough for the kids to take their noise outside for a while.

pausing

Some of my most peaceful moments that day are on an elevated subway platform, waiting for the train. It's a lull in my schedule. The day is cold, but the sun is steady, and I can stamp some warmth into my feet.

retrieved

A bit of biology knowledge – on meiosis – floats up to consciousness at a critical moment. Sometimes you don't know when you'll need to know something.

scavenging

The leftover fruit, soft with rot, is tempting. They shuffle closer to snatch up the firmer specimens, while ignoring every barked order to leave.

Week in Seven Words #275

detritus
We don't know the stories of these rocks and trees. Pacts broken, glaciers retreating, branches stripped and gathered for firewood on desolate nights.

heading
I walk from one bus stop to another. The bus never comes, so I keep walking.

java
Still feel the tingle of that cappuccino foam on my tongue. The most memorable cappuccino ever. I doubt I'll find coffee like it in local shops.

obstruction
A clearing covered in short straggly grass. No trees grow there, because a few feet under the soil there's a building, ruined.

rearing
Statues on horseback among budding trees.

venting
The cab driver trades complaints on speaker phone: siblings, girlfriends, friends, the physical pains of aging. At a red light, the man on the other end hangs up. The driver tips his head back against the seat and closes his eyes.

vigor
People get wheeled out to the crowd of tulips. Red, yellow, purple and white - so alive in their plot by the hospital.

Week in Seven Words #261

backgrounded
On stage, there's a doctor, silent for the most part, who hangs in the background of every scene reminding people of impending death. For the actor who plays him, it must be a fun if not challenging role - he gets to look grave and silent while listening to grand music, night after night.

fibrous
Mango in ropy slices on a blue china plate.

gutless
What he tells her is a cop-out. "Heaven will reward you," he says. It's a consolation that's easy for him to offer, as he gently insists - at no cost to himself - that she give up what's important to her in this life.

inching
They're all careful in the dim, carpeted room. Their shoes are off. They speak quietly, even about things that devastate them. On a table to the side, there's seltzer and cookies.

operatic
She sings her way to an early death.

rejection
When she hugs him, he keeps his arms by his sides and turns his face away.

threadbare
She takes the view that people are motivated either by fear or by love in anything they do. Love and fear are battling all the time in her, and she's exhausted with both.

Human After All

I've published a short story at Front Porch Review called "Human After All." It opens like this:

After the fire ruined her face and body, Aisling didn’t want to live among people.

You can read the story here.

Across the street from the WTC

Across the street from the World Trade Center site is St. Paul's Chapel.



The church dates from the American colonial era and is the oldest continuously used public building in NYC. It didn't sustain structural damage on 9/11/01; trees in the churchyard took the brunt of the falling debris as the twin towers collapsed.



On his inauguration day in 1789, George Washington prayed there (NYC was the U.S. capital then) with members of Congress.



Two hundred and twelve years later, St. Paul's Chapel became a base for workers involved in rescue, recovery and clean-up following the attacks on the World Trade Center. In between shifts they could come to the church for food, foot rubs, back massages, conversation, counseling, prayers, comfort, a shoulder to cry on, soothing music, a place to sleep. The church was packed with volunteers, helping out 24/7.

Messages of support also came in from around the U.S. and the world.





If you visit the church these days you'll find 9/11 exhibits and memorials. They're often personal and very moving. The deceased are remembered (including those who died in the act of saving other people or trying to); the exhibits also recount the many acts of love, healing, assistance and selflessness that followed, along with the nightmarish work undertaken by the first responders, recovery and clean-up workers.





I was in Manhattan on 9/11; thankfully many blocks away from Ground Zero. My first sight of the attacks was an enormous mass of smoke against an otherwise lovely blue sky. I have just fragments of memory from the rest of the day: hearing on an elevator that the second tower had collapsed, and spending most of the day going from one place to another looking at TV screens for updates. Also calling and IM'ing family and friends. Thinking back on it I remember how people didn't want to be alone, but were leaving apartments, offices, dorms to gather into groups and try to make sense of what was going on.

My first bus ride down there felt like an approach towards a large, open wound. Last time I was there in late December '09 the feeling wasn't as strong but it was still present.


View of the WTC site from the churchyard of St. Paul's Chapel, December '09.

No matter how extensive the rebuilding and restoration, the place will always feel raw.

I've had many discussions with people about the attacks, their evil and their global and political ramifications. I was a teenager at the time. The attacks, and the discourse surrounding them, markedly shaped my thoughts about the world and how I evaluated other people's worldview.


WTC site, August '08.

What I've kept returning to are memories of how people rose to the occasion in the aftermath, in large and small ways. Thinking about this doesn't solve the bigger problems, it doesn't erase the horror, but it's an antidote to unhealthy pessimism and a reminder of how people can continue to be decent, brave, and unselfish even in an inferno.


WTC site, December '09.

The salvation of man is through love and in love. - Viktor Frankl