After 9/11 - Music of the Fall

Music of the Fall - 2001

September 11, 2001 brought life to a halt in New York City. What followed was weeks of confused feelings. Relatives called and we assured them we were all right. I devoured the news looking for sense in what had happened. I found myself crying in the shower, and just let the tears flow.

Around the kids we turned off the news and tried to smile, to reassure them and hide how scared we were. After they cancelled the soccer games on Saturday, I held practice for my son’s team: to help the kids–and myself–hold on to something normal.

When we went back to work and stores started to reopen, we all tried to maintain composure, but there was sadness behind every look. I tried not to notice when I’d see one colleague sobbing into another’s shoulder. I tried to keep busy, but then another concerned email from across the globe would pop onto my screen and tears would well up in my eyes and I’d have to close my office door until the moment to passed.

The streets were eerily still, but then the sound of sirens would approach from a distance and everyone would stop to watch the vehicles speed by, no longer jaded New Yorkers. American flags sprouted everywhere, in windows, on lapels, taped to backpacks. We hung a flag in our living room window for weeks. For the first time ever there were no homeless people on the sidewalks.

In the first days I felt as if something had knocked the wind out of me and I kept struggling to catch my breath, yet my senses were sharpened. Was that the sound of a plane? Should I avoid Grand Central Terminal? I’d look out from our living room and calculate: if the Empire State Building went down, would it reach my family?

Gradually the city emerged from the shock. The subway ran again, except downtown. The air had that putrid smell only when the wind blew from the south.

One evening cooking on our roof terrace I heard plane engines in a thick fog, which made me anxious, given the flight ban over Manhattan. I stared, trying to see some detail until two large surveillance planes broke through, lumbering close to the building tops. I guess this made me feel safe, but also like we were at war.

As we tried to move on, reminders kept the hurt fresh. Everyone knew someone who had died. The bagpipes played day after day outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral and it was hard not to stop to watch the slow march of police officers or fire fighters and shed tears along with the others on the sidewalk.

But eventually music punctuated small steps back to life.

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First was the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. This annual visit was always a big deal, but this time it marked the reopening of the hall after the attacks. My wife couldn’t make it, so a friend and I sat close to the stage in my regular seats. Around us was the familiar graying grace of a classical audience, but more haggard than usual, the attire more rugged than elegant. Everywhere were dazed looks of people emerging from a dark tunnel into the sunlight.

The program had the list of unfamiliar works too typical of my subscription concerts. I recognized that new music needed to be played, but to be honest I always preferred to hear pieces I knew. I hoped for transport this time, in any event, from whatever the orchestra played.

Claudio Abbado finally came on stage to polite applause. But he didn’t mount the podium; instead, he walked to the edge of the stage and faced the hall. In a stage voice he called out: “In times like these, we always have Beethoven.”

Maestro Abbado thus scrapped the program and led the orchestra through Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The music wrapped the audience in familiarity and lifted my weariness. At intermission I didn’t leave my seat, for fear of breaking the spell. But it seemed everyone in the hall felt the same and a short moment later the orchestra returned and launched into Beethoven’s Fifth. The music soared and beat back the darkness.

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The next step came on a Saturday afternoon in mid-October. My wife was cooking in the kitchen. The kids were docile. I sat in front of the TV all afternoon watching the Concert for New York City. I had heard about this concert at Madison Square Garden ahead of time but it was impossible to get tickets. It turned out they gave most of them to cops and fire fighters. Paul McCartney lined up rock stars, politicians, athletes and comedians and even a few short films. On live television it must have lasted six hours.

The musicians were humble. Over and over they thanked the crowd and shouted out our common outrage. One fireman, saluting the dead members of his company and the Fire Department football team, invited Osama bin Laden to” kiss my royal Irish ass,” which drove the crowd into the Olympic chant, “USA…USA…”

But we Americans were not alone that night, as Brits were out in force, Mick Jagger and The Who, Eric Clapton and Elton John. The English had never in my lifetime felt so much like brothers. Adopted New Yorker David Bowie dedicated Paul Simon’s “America” to “the folks "from my local ladder, you know who you are.” The camera lingered on audience members in uniform mouthing words through tears and holding small flags. I was mesmerized, and felt relief that the people who made my music stood with us in pain and gratitude.

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The final event came as a surprise. We had somehow made it to November and the chill in the air reassured us winter would still follow fall. I continued to jump at sirens and trucks still carted away debris, but traffic had picked up and panhandlers had returned to the streets, like wildflowers poking through the debris.

My wife’s family arrived for a long-planned visit. Her family would not be put off by a terrorist attack. We had spent Saturday together, finished dinner, and found places for everyone to bed down. My wife and I had weeks before bought tickets to a benefit for an father from our kids’ school—a fireman who died in the towers—but hadn’t planned to use them. But suddenly we found ourselves with an apartment full of sleepy, responsible adults who could watch the kids, so we put in a late appearance at the parish hall to pay our respects.

The hall was shared by the church and the grammar school and used for everything from the Cub Scouts’ pinewood derby to confirmation lunch with the bishop. That night they dimmed the lights, stocked the bar and laid out tables of chips and cold cuts. Up on stage, a band of grammar school dads played rock and roll from their glory days.

We met some friends and the beer flowed. It had the feel of an Irish wake, the living saluting those who were gone with wine and song. We drank and we laughed because it felt okay; we no longer had to keep quiet. The more we drank, the better the band sounded. I found myself dancing with abandon and singing Beatles songs. The night blurred into a love for the music we all shared along with our grief.

I don’t recall how we got home that night, but do remember laughing as we stepped over sleeping relatives. The laughing, the friends and the beer, but mostly the music, made me believe life would go on.