9.11.12 In Memorium
I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I didn’t know why, just that I was sullen and despondent from the time I opened my eyes. As the morning revealed itself to me, after I had dropped Myers off for school, the melancholy settled upon me.
Then, plugging into the grid, I fully realized it was 9/11. Yesterday gave some foreshadowing, with the University planting the quad in rows upon rows of small American flags in remembrance. Yesterday, the photo was a pleasant reflection. I have not been to the center of campus, solely by chance, since the flags were displayed. Now, I don’t know if I want to go. Today, the memories of that horrible day flooded in.
When thinking about all the flags in the quad, I reflected on a gathering in Convocation Hall a couple days after the planes hit. It was basically a community wide information session and mutual support / outpouring of grief. At Broad Mountain Farm, the Mexican Sage was in full roar. I had harvested about 5 buckets full just that morning.
Mexican Bush Sage (Salvia leucantha) is a wonderful plant. It towers at about 3’-4’ in its prime, loaded with foot long spires of fuzzy, purple and white blossoms. They are a terrific everlasting, keeping their color indefinitely if dried properly. Due to the trait of lasting, I felt the buckets of blossoms would be a fitting offering to the Convocation meeting.
The meeting garnered several hundred attendees. Professors, students and community members packed the hall to, if nothing else, be together in a time of great hardship. I’ve written volumes on my experience of the fateful events. If I could pick a handful of images which have lasted the past 11 years, it would include the flags spontaneously appearing on University Ave, with the background of hardwoods in full fall ebullience; a woman driving out Jump Off while I was driving in, when the news was still wall to wall on the radio, crying her eyes out; cutting sunflowers on a picture perfect September morning; going over to a friend’s, who had satellite TV, to watch the cascading terribleness of the coming days and weeks; and setting 5 buckets of flowers outside Convocation.
I went into the gathering for a moment, but was far too emotional to stay. The 5 buckets of sage were in my truck, bunched in 3 stem bunches. As the gathering went on, I set the buckets just outside the hall, on and around a majestic bench. There was no missing the display upon exiting the hall. A note was weighted down by one bucket. I wanted people to take flowers home, enjoy their beauty but also remember where they found the flowers and why they were there to be had. This was a totally anonymous action. However, I did sit across the street, in my truck, and weep as those leaving took note of my offering.
I will always be proud to call Stephen Alvarez a good acquaintance. Being a little self-congratulatory, I would claim him as a long time, good friend, and once upon a time, a lifesaver. He has photographed a portrait of my dog. It isn’t everybody who has a proper portrait of their dog by a National Geographic Photographer.
To me, Stephen epitomizes the guy jumping off into the abyss, secured to life by only ropes and pulleys. Sometime early on an October morning, in 1986, I fell off a cliff, or as the vernacular would have it, a bluff. This particular bluff consisted of one very large, flat rock which had fallen on another, squat, rectangular rock. The formation is called “Proctor’s Hall”, as the chamber betwixt the rocks forms a shaft, a “hall”, where University students have imbibed since the late 1800s, as evidenced by the etched graffiti throughout.
When I fell, the volunteer Student Emergency Medical Technicians arrived as soon as called. Granted, I had been at the wrong end of the bluff, paralyzed, for many hours at that point. Stephen was the first down the craggy slope that fateful morning. He asked how I was doing and I managed a thumbs up, which he mirrored, all the while grateful to see them. Stephen was a fraternity brother, as was the second person I remember seeing, Lewis Jones. When he asked how I was I said, “Great. You?”
Long story short, I was beaten and bruised from head to toe. They put me in a basket for a 2 hour haul up the side of the mountain. Then came August, the dog of my life at present.
When my world was dissolving before my eyes, my marriage, my home, my dreams coming unglued, I noticed a stray in our neighborhood of Natural Bridge Road. He seemed to be a gregarious, big, leggy pup. His favorite activity was inciting Little Pig, the neighborhood’s communal dog, into chase, the big stray playing the submissive. Of the three or four sightings of this dog, he was still attached to 20’ of zip line cable, frayed at the end, at least twice.
I had a nice place to live in the basement of some friend’s in Clifftops. Another friend had found me a great house to buy, for a slight premium, before it went on the open market. The Clifftops digs had a proper dog kennel. The new house had a massive, fenced yard. It was then Stephen called to see if I wanted a dog, the canine I now refer to as August West, of the aforementioned portrait.
On one of his websites, http://www.picturestoryblog.com/ , Stephen posted a picture of his godson running amongst the flags in the quad. His narrative was hopeful that his godson’s generation will not be scarred by events like 9/11, as previous generations have been. However, the somber tone of the following quotation echoes and resonates in my deepest thoughts, my sensory memory from that tragic moment and the days that followed.
“I will always be afraid of a beautiful day the second week in September. That particular quality of light will always make me sad, it will always remind me of 9/11/01.”
Stephen Alvarez, 9/11/12
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