while cruising through the west village en route to see the 911 memorial, there as hulking as a hanging skinned beef carcass, with a hanky covering his head defining his colorado-landscaped mug, his mouth hung as a horse shoe off of door, and his bulbous door knob nose moving towards me was stevie van zandt.. ',yo, uhm hmm, you're... i lov...', and then he was gone. 
with a smile larger than i can normally smile incised into my face, i, the bowling ball, continued to roll downtown eventually coming to a halt as i hit a queue to enter the 9/11 Memorial.
since 2001, the City of New York has been a dismembered body, it's skyline having looked depleted, toothless as a 4 year old. She has appeared unrecognisable and from the streets of the city, down the cavernous corridors of Manhatten, peering down south there was no hook to bait the eyeballs of New Yawkers. Now, slowly, the towers are rising, re-forming, mutating the city of New York. She is morphing, returning to the state that once had its skyline inbedded in our memories, instilled on postcards, sketched on napkins. the stump of the WTC 1 rising, rising brushing the belly of the sky. the Empire State now has a winking partner.
the 9/11 Memorial is the footprint of each of the twin towers surrounded by metro stops and the ever growing WTC 1 tower.
the two sunken waterfalls, the extent of the footprints of each the devastated original twin towers. black tiling and gushing water. rimmed by laser cut steel embedded with the names of each of those killed on that day. a red carnation. a red rose. circling each of the pits, touching many of the names. im engaged. my viewfinder can't get a great shot. this was great devastation. we aren't staring up at a monolith, but rather peering down into a pit. my senses tell me this is me standing at the edge of a grave hole. that is humbling.this isn't the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington ,it doesn't engage the viewer as actively but it does extract emotion and disbelief.
i exited the Memorial still stumped at what happened that September day in history.
that rolly lad in a plaid shirt, desert tinted chinos and a baseball cap carrying a paper bag sent a mary jane inspired giggle to my face and a smile to my belly.
ghost limbs of the city are now active operating on the emotion of visitors.
as i walked with the tower and her memorial at my back, shedding the carapace, the skin of sadness, my back regaining it's height, my eye's drying, and my face looking to the sun, Jonah Hill nearly walked into me.
that rolly lad in a plaid shirt, desert tinted chinos and a baseball cap carrying a paper bag sent a mary jane inspired giggle to my face and a smile to my belly.
get me to a greek, i need some hummus.
From the Russian Bear Hunter, living out of a backpack and scrubbing the streets of Noo Yawk for a story, RRrraah, ggrggrrr, Raaahhh
a quote by the giant Big Wave surfer, Laird Hamilton, 'Let's just expose our weaknesses and focus on sh*t we can't do.'
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