Author: Stacy Horn

Yesterday was intense.

New York Magazine put up the things we said on Echo on 9/11. It begins with my post about the first plane crashing into the WTC. Reading that was how I began my day.

Then I went downtown and spent about 8 hours down at St. Paul’s Chapel. Saw a lot of old friends, not a single picture came out well, unfortunately. I stayed for the Interfaith Memorial Service, which was emotional and well done on so many levels. They had people from Buddhism, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh (and more) faiths reading and speaking. I loved the Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr. so much I want to join his church even though I don’t believe in God! I also loved the Buddhist, (not sure of her name) one of the Rabbi’s (Joseph Potasnik) and Mr. Amardeep Singh, one of the Sikhs. I grabbed him afterwards to ask him about the text he read. I’ve only been able to find a piece of it, but just from this one piece I think you can get how amazing it was:

As out of a single fire,
Millions of spark arise;
So from God’s form emerge all creation,
Animate and inanimate.

(From the Akal Ustat, which is from the Dasam Granth.)

Barbara brought a copy of one of our favorite letters that came to the Chapel. It’s from a young girl named Claudia. I left out her last name for privacy sake, but here is the letter.

Dear Firefighter,

There are many deaths that I can die. Cancer, heart attack, AIDS, hepatitus, sickle cell anemia, Leukemia, natural causes, choking, being strangled, shot or hanged, I could get the death penilty, or rabies or a snake bite, or a wild animal could attack me. I could get run over by a car, be in a car crash, fall, slip, get a concussion, get small pox or be stabbed, cracking my skull, get poisoned, heart disease, get stung by too many bees, and many, many, many more. But I know I will never, ever, die in a fire, because people like you great people would go into flames to save an ordinary person like me, and that’s what makes you so great, courageous, brave, terrific, wonderful, special people.

Yours truly,
Claudia

Finally, I got a little obsessed photographing the Towers of Light as I walked home. The first shot is right at the Trade Center. The last was once I hit the Village, where I live. It was just so beautiful.

This is the back of St. Paul’s Chapel, where I volunteered during the recovery effort. The city put up this ramp so people could look into the hole where the towers once stood. It always struck me, watching people walk over one graveyard to look into another. This must have been taken in the Spring of 2002.

I’m heading down to St. Paul’s Chapel later. I hope to see lots of old friends and have happy pictures to post tonight.

My choir director, John Maclay, sent out some very moving email about the times we live in, and making music in these times. He had a number of great quotes, but I liked this one of Robert Shaw’s best. “Might not the arts be not the luxury of a few, but the last best hope of humanity to inhabit with joy this planet?”

Still experimenting with making movies. This was made with my digital camera, which has the ability to make movies, it turns out. I made this yesterday when birds started lining up on the roof across the street, just like the Hitchcock movie, “The Birds.”

Hmm. The quality is not great at all, is it? It’s probably more acceptable with movies shot close-up. Oh, but maybe it’s because I compressed it too much, so it wouldn’t take up a lot of room.

What is not communicated in this photograph was the two minutes of crying at the ceiling and me trying to figure out what was wrong.

The conversation.

Buddy: Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.
Me: What??
Buddy: Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.
Me: What??

The same conversation, translated.

Buddy: Aliens! There are aliens in the ceiling! Help me! I cannot fight them alone.
Me: What??
Buddy: What? Are you deaf?? Aliens! ALIENS. For the love of GOD. Here they come. God help us.
Me: What??

My agent read the chapters I’ve written so far and wrote, “This stuff is gripping, vivid, cliff-hanging. The characters are amazing. Esp. Rhine. I just love it Stacy.”

Howard read it and said it was one draft away from being great (everything is first draft now, of course, and still needs polishing).

So, I’m giving myself one of my favorite treats, a trip to the beauty parlor! (No one calls them that anymore, but that’s what they were called when I was growing up.)

Here’s a group shot of some of the people I’m writing about. Thank you for living such amazing lives!