A Big Day

“A big day,” he declared, “right?”

The Super Shuttle I’d called pulled up to the curb in front of where we were standing.

“Man, it’s hot already,” he added, shielding his eyes from the sun.

Enrique, a hotel valet with whom I’d shared brief conversations during my weekend stay, was earnest, gracious and cordial, but I couldn’t read the inflection in his voice, or his facial expression to determine whether his comment was a question or a statement about me, his plans, or this particular day.

My response was equally cryptic. “Every day’s a big day, even the hot ones.”

We both smiled.

He opened the door, accepted my tip and handshake, and within seconds the cab was proceeding down N Street headed for Dulles International Airport.

It was 8 a.m., Sunday September 11, 2016 when I stepped into the van and began the return trip to Vermont following a three-night stay at the Hotel Tabard Inn in Washington.

I’d traveled to Washington to attend the book signing of my friend and editor, Herta Feely, whose first novel Saving Phoebe Murrow (I recommend it) had just been published, and while in the capitol to visit some of its many memorials, including the ones commemorating  Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., F.D.R., Vietnam War Veterans, and Korean War Veterans. It was a weekend celebration of the present coupled with a reverential and celebratory look at our country’s past. I’d also connected with a college classmate who I had not seen in years.

As the van traveled along city streets, and into the suburbs on the Dulles Toll Road, I savored the events of my “big” D.C. weekend: Herta’s successful book signing and party, a renewed friendship with my college classmate, and solemn musings of reverence and dismay over our country’s checkered past.

Traffic was light, which made for an early arrival at the airport. I proceeded to the TSA Pre check-in line, and was about to enter the walk-through metal detector when everything stopped.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? Let us observe a moment of silence to honor the nearly 3,000 people who died on 9/11.”

It was 8:46 a.m. EST.

The profound absence of noise caught me off guard. I held my breath, and stood at attention much as I had fifteen years before at my friend David’s side as we watched in disbelief on live television the horror of the attack and collapse of the World Trade Center Towers.

“Thank you,” said the faceless voice, bringing me back into the present moment.

I followed the signs for Terminal B, made my way down an escalator to the tram-platform, rode it a short distance to the terminal and gate area to wait for my plane to JFK, and connecting flight to Burlington. Fellow travelers appeared preoccupied, silent, and when engaged in conversation did so in barely audible voices, in a collective hushed reverence.

I located a quiet space in an empty gate area then chose a seat with an overview of the tarmac. The words of British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott came to mind as he referenced the importance of piecing together traumas of the past:

“We cannot experience what we cannot remember and we cannot remember what we try to forget.”

Moments of remembrance laced with reminiscences I’d both held onto and tried to forget were triggered by the TSA minute of silence. Forty-eight hours earlier I’d stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his August 28, 1963 “I Have a Dream” address. The National Mall was occupied with smatterings of tourists, and only a few people walked along the perimeter of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool where 250,000 people had gathered on a Wednesday to hear him speak 53 years ago.

Before climbing the steps at the Lincoln Memorial I’d walked along the [over] 492 feet of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, described as “a wound that is closed and healing,” occasionally touching the names engraved in the gabbro rock wall. At both this and the Korean War Memorial my reflection was visible on the stone face of the darkened wall, creating an image of my presence, an uncomfortable blending of my visage with the names and faces of the deceased.

Enrique had inadvertently expressed what he couldn’t know—it was to be a big day for me.

I have a meandering mind that often takes me to surprising thoughts and memories, and on this occasion it was to a short poem, called “Peace,” by Amy Lowell.

Perched upon the muzzle of a cannon

A yellow butterfly is slowly opening and shutting its wings.

I want and strive to remember so as not to forget, and in the remembering perhaps experience again, for the first time, what I’ve tried to forget. The birthing of a new novel and a rekindling of loving friendship elicit paeans of joy and celebration to the accompaniment of a lament whose lyrics of injustice and violence demand my attention. Winnicott knew how difficult it is to dig deeper and remember what we try to forget, and Lowell captures, in a simple yet profound image, how ephemeral the border is between violence and peace. The British psychoanalyst doesn’t reference combat, but the internal turmoil that results as we wrestle with conflicting inner impulses can be warlike. Amy Lowell, the American poet who once wrote [that] “all books are either dreams or swords, you can cut, or you can [soothe] with words,” knew the power of both.

Forgetting and remembering, remembering and forgetting, and waiting, oh yes, the sometimes endless waiting for the cycle to evolve and lighten the load.

I pray and work to muzzle the cannons and blunt into ploughshares the cruel and callous impulses that too frequently seep into my consciousness.

I am grateful for “big days” laced with celebration and friendship even when those moments are part of a tapestry stitched together with sadness and dismay.

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