By the end of today, I usually get a handful of messages asking why I’m not making posts about 9-11. It is more personal to me than most realize. I remember watching it on TV like everyone else when everything went down. No one could grasp what was actually happening in New York, The Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
I was set to travel to New York City shortly after the events unfolded to perform at Carnegie Hall. Yes, on top of being an absolute Viking savage, I was classically trained vocally and performed most of my early adult life. I have performed for Parliaments and governors and sung National Anthems at major sporting events and large concert halls, including Carnegie Hall. When we arrived in New York, the city was still picking up the pieces from when the buildings fell… all three of them.
Before our performance, we walked to Ground Zero, where the rubble was still smoking and heavy equipment was still pulling out steel beams dripping with molten steel. All of which were loaded onto ships and sent to China to be sold as scrap. Construction fences that lined the hole in the ground were covered in pictures and names of those missing and not found. There was a gathering of family members and New Yorkers at the front of the construction zone, and we decided to have an impromptu performance.
We sang a composition called “Sing Me to Heaven” by Daniel Gawthrop.
The first verse is as follows:
In my heart's sequestered chambers
Lie truths stripped of poet's gloss
Words alone are vain and vacant
And my heart is mute
In response to aching silence
Memory summons half-heard voices
And my soul finds primal eloquence
And wraps me in song
Wraps me, in song
If you would comfort me, sing me a lullaby
If you would win my heart, sing me a love song
If you would mourn me and bring me to God
Sing me a requiem, sing me to Heaven
Touch in me all love and passion
Pain and pleasure, touch in me
Touch in me, grief and comfort
Love and passion, pain and pleasure
Sing me a lullaby
A love song
A requiem
Love me, comfort me
Sing me to God
Sing me a love song
Sing me to Heaven
After we finished, everyone was weeping. Complete strangers came up and clutched us as the remnants of the three buildings lay smoking in the background. Construction workers and mothers cried, and the cute Soprano beside me wept.
It was powerful, and I’ll never forget it.
I can make patriotic social media posts with Eagles flying over New York or I can tell you my personal experience of it all. I protested the Afghan War and the Iraq War but am not anti-military, far from it. I was against the Patriot Act and the creeping control mechanisms of the Government that followed.
But I am for remembering what happened that day, the hardship that many went through, the first responders that died that day and after the fact due to EPA lies, and realizing that any day may be your last.
Live.
In my heart's sequestered chambers
Lie truths stripped of poet's gloss
Words alone are vain and vacant
And my heart is mute
And my soul finds primal eloquence
Now take a deep breath, welcome life and the day, and let’s crush out a workout.
Find yourself a good podcast or soundtrack.
Get loose and do some dynamic stretching.
Let’s get started:
Round 1: Three Times
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