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May. 10th, 2005 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynToday I came home from work and I thought, at first, that I might take the car and park it and then go walk in Van Vorst Park, which is near to where I live. The car was housed at a lot today, rather than on the street; I have small patience for scrambling to find a spot in the mornings that will not irritate the parking commission and their street-sweepers, so once in a while I pay for the lot instead. When I got into my car, a thought came to me- we have nowhere to be tonight. We have no one to report to. Why should we scrabble for parking now? Let's go and see what else we can find.
Let's find our way to Liberty State Park.
Understand, please, that Liberty State Park is very near indeed to the place where I live. On the side streets one takes to approach the nearest supermarket (a rather nasty PathMark, but that's neither here nor there), one need hardly turn one's head a little to the left to see Liberty Science Center. Further east, towards the river, one must needs turn and face south along the streets to see anything- but that anything is the Statue of Liberty, and she can be seen from feet to torch, on the right street. The Park is quite near. I have lived here since February, and not gone; I tried, once, and was thwarted by the failure of the roads near PathMark to lead me to where I wanted to be. My only option was the highway, and for that privilege I would have to pay a toll.
Today I wanted to pay no toll. Today I wanted to see the Park and not have to scrabble for change. (Speak not to me of EZ Pass. I will hit you.) So I thought, why not; why not go and see where the other side streets lead? Perhaps we only turned the wrong way that time.
The streets did not cooperate with me. In that part of Jersey City the streets are lumpy with construction and age, and they are not kind even to young cars. To my car, which is ten years old and showing it, they were nasty. Add to this the fact that my windshield was dirty and any hint of western exposure turned the whole thing to an all but impermeable glare, and my drive through the unfamiliar riverfront streets was ... unnerving, to say the least. When I came out to the street by the PathMark, I thought I might give up, but tried one further street that took me past the entrance to the highway. I saw no signs for the park, so I sighed and thought I might try for a round-the-block trip at th enext light in order to avoid making a U-turn. And on that block, as I started to turn south, I saw the sign for the Liberty State Park train station. It was barely a handful of minutes further that I came to the Park itself.
The park is... not much, when you think of places like the great Western parks. It is not even very much next to, say, Jockey Hollow, which has enough trees to green an entire small republic. What it is, is a long, long strip of grass, wide enough for several buildings if one wanted, and it is paths, paved over for the bicyclists and the skaters, and it is playgrounds in a few places, for the children, and it is riverfront, for those who would stand and watch and think. It is even a passage into the past, because from there one may find one's way to the causeway over to Ellis Island. I almost went. I chose not to; I should like to see that place when I have proper time and leisure, not at the end of the day. I did another thing instead.
From that part of the park that lies south of the marina, south of the playground, north of the causeway, and east of the Science Center, one looks out over the Hudson River and sees lower Manhattan. I saw, and the first thing I saw was a building with a pointed top and small arches in that top; I smiled. I worked there once, on Twenty-Third Street. From there the eye goes further south, and sees other buildings. Most are hard to recognize, and not really worth the effort. But there are two... The first has a green metal roof, pyramid shaped, and the second's roof is green, but domed. They stand quite near each other. I do not know what they are or what's in there, but I know they were quite close to where the Towers once stood, and that was what made me stop for a while. From there my eye went over the other buildings of the south part of the Island. That one, I thought, that black one there- that stood on the north side, and you counted the floors up to the place where the ashes stopped; there was ash as high as the eighteenth floor, maybe higher. That one there, that's the one your truck was parked next to, that's where you fled on foot when they told you to run until you hit the ferry. That one with the curve in it, further south, you stood next to that when you tried to call your mother, and that other one there, you and the others were in front of it when you made the tea and made jokes to soldiers about witches' brew and told one soldier you couldn't guarantee there was no pork in the sandwich. And that's Battery Park, there, that green place, where you stood on the edge of it with your arm around a woman in surgical scrubs who was weeping and asking how you could be not afraid, and you told her you weren't allowed to be afraid until you went home and took off the Red Cross logo. There. Those are the places.
And there, between those buildings, that's the Great Big Hole.
I don't know what I was expecting, or if I was expecting anything at all. I know that I looked for a very long time. I know that I realised, once again, that I could not mentally see the Towers any more. I no longer remember how tall they were next to the other buildings, or exactly which way their corners pointed, or any of it. If you handed me a photo of the skyline just as it was this evening and said, draw them, I could not do it. Either they would be forty floors too short or thirty floors too high, because there is nothing to compare them to any more, not even in memory. They were there. They're gone now.
Maybe that's what I was looking for. There was no mourning in it, no rage, no sadness or fear or anything like that. Only: they were there, and they're gone now, and the city goes on. To look at it from where I stood you would not know what had happened, you would not see a sign of what had been or what had become of us. The city is there, the river is there, the river goes on.
Why do you humans need so many names for things? Does the river need a name?
Maybe someone needs the words. Maybe there is something someone has to say. I don't know.
We call the river, "Hudson."
There are things I can never share, because I do not have the words for them and do not think the words exist. There are no words for the seeing-of-whales, the voice and touch and feeling of the Mind in the Waters, when there is only a little light for the eyes but that matters not because all around you is seen by hearing, feeling, knowing. There are no words for the silence I have heard in the north of Alaska, the silence that was in the world before ever came the race of Man, that still lives there when the human things withdraw for a time. There is a place on the westernmost coast of Canada where the trees that grow now are old compared to any on the Eastern seaboard, but even most of them are yet young, next to one still growing that put its sprout forth when the Mayans lay the foundations at Chichen Itza; are there words for what passed through the touch of that tree, when I came to it and lay my face and hands against it? Do words exist for the leaping of dolphins into your waking sight and out again through your dreams, because you know they have acknowledged you? Is there any way of saying what it is to feel the ocean trying to take you away, yet not begrudge your rescue, and not begrudge your returning to it and leaving it a hundred times over after that? Where are the words for the knowing that the light that spills over the buildings you see is fresh and new, that even in the hydrocarbon stink of a thousand thousand cars and a thousand thousand people you are seeing light washing the city clean? For the math you know is present in the curve of the highway that arcs higher and farther and more gracefully across the grubbiness of industry and the brown and grey of swamp, singing the numbers of an engineer's heart and mind with every thump of a car's tires across the joints?
Where are the words for what remains when the fires that have been are gone, and the green land of California looks like the blasted heart of Trinity? Where are the words for the mark on a building hundreds of yards from the Cheat River, the mark where the water rose to and drove the residents out in its path? What words for the trees ripped from their roots and flung aside like toys, when the storms with names have been and gone?
What words for the feel of the wind and the rain and the grey dark boiling overhead as you stand outside in the face of a storm with its own name?
For some things there are no words. There is too much to say, and there are no words to say it with. There is only- this is here, this is and was and has yet to be. It cannot be translated. At best, it can be understood. Mostly, it can only be- there are not even words for that! Seen? Experienced? Felt? All of it. Some things are too big for human words ever to encompass. We give them words because we are human and we like to set limits on things, because the limits are places where we say: I know where the limit is, and I know what is inside it, and so I understand. And we go away thinking we understand.
But the river has no need of a name, and the silence has no words, and understanding does not always come in the space of a minute or an hour or a day or a year or a decade. It comes when it comes, if it comes at all. Sometimes, perhaps, there is no understanding. There is only being there, and coming away from it different from how you came to it.
I will be going back to the Park, I think. I had missed having a place like that close to hand. I am... quite glad to have found that place, and to have seen the city from the side of the river. I should like to see it again, sometime.
Let's find our way to Liberty State Park.
Understand, please, that Liberty State Park is very near indeed to the place where I live. On the side streets one takes to approach the nearest supermarket (a rather nasty PathMark, but that's neither here nor there), one need hardly turn one's head a little to the left to see Liberty Science Center. Further east, towards the river, one must needs turn and face south along the streets to see anything- but that anything is the Statue of Liberty, and she can be seen from feet to torch, on the right street. The Park is quite near. I have lived here since February, and not gone; I tried, once, and was thwarted by the failure of the roads near PathMark to lead me to where I wanted to be. My only option was the highway, and for that privilege I would have to pay a toll.
Today I wanted to pay no toll. Today I wanted to see the Park and not have to scrabble for change. (Speak not to me of EZ Pass. I will hit you.) So I thought, why not; why not go and see where the other side streets lead? Perhaps we only turned the wrong way that time.
The streets did not cooperate with me. In that part of Jersey City the streets are lumpy with construction and age, and they are not kind even to young cars. To my car, which is ten years old and showing it, they were nasty. Add to this the fact that my windshield was dirty and any hint of western exposure turned the whole thing to an all but impermeable glare, and my drive through the unfamiliar riverfront streets was ... unnerving, to say the least. When I came out to the street by the PathMark, I thought I might give up, but tried one further street that took me past the entrance to the highway. I saw no signs for the park, so I sighed and thought I might try for a round-the-block trip at th enext light in order to avoid making a U-turn. And on that block, as I started to turn south, I saw the sign for the Liberty State Park train station. It was barely a handful of minutes further that I came to the Park itself.
The park is... not much, when you think of places like the great Western parks. It is not even very much next to, say, Jockey Hollow, which has enough trees to green an entire small republic. What it is, is a long, long strip of grass, wide enough for several buildings if one wanted, and it is paths, paved over for the bicyclists and the skaters, and it is playgrounds in a few places, for the children, and it is riverfront, for those who would stand and watch and think. It is even a passage into the past, because from there one may find one's way to the causeway over to Ellis Island. I almost went. I chose not to; I should like to see that place when I have proper time and leisure, not at the end of the day. I did another thing instead.
From that part of the park that lies south of the marina, south of the playground, north of the causeway, and east of the Science Center, one looks out over the Hudson River and sees lower Manhattan. I saw, and the first thing I saw was a building with a pointed top and small arches in that top; I smiled. I worked there once, on Twenty-Third Street. From there the eye goes further south, and sees other buildings. Most are hard to recognize, and not really worth the effort. But there are two... The first has a green metal roof, pyramid shaped, and the second's roof is green, but domed. They stand quite near each other. I do not know what they are or what's in there, but I know they were quite close to where the Towers once stood, and that was what made me stop for a while. From there my eye went over the other buildings of the south part of the Island. That one, I thought, that black one there- that stood on the north side, and you counted the floors up to the place where the ashes stopped; there was ash as high as the eighteenth floor, maybe higher. That one there, that's the one your truck was parked next to, that's where you fled on foot when they told you to run until you hit the ferry. That one with the curve in it, further south, you stood next to that when you tried to call your mother, and that other one there, you and the others were in front of it when you made the tea and made jokes to soldiers about witches' brew and told one soldier you couldn't guarantee there was no pork in the sandwich. And that's Battery Park, there, that green place, where you stood on the edge of it with your arm around a woman in surgical scrubs who was weeping and asking how you could be not afraid, and you told her you weren't allowed to be afraid until you went home and took off the Red Cross logo. There. Those are the places.
And there, between those buildings, that's the Great Big Hole.
I don't know what I was expecting, or if I was expecting anything at all. I know that I looked for a very long time. I know that I realised, once again, that I could not mentally see the Towers any more. I no longer remember how tall they were next to the other buildings, or exactly which way their corners pointed, or any of it. If you handed me a photo of the skyline just as it was this evening and said, draw them, I could not do it. Either they would be forty floors too short or thirty floors too high, because there is nothing to compare them to any more, not even in memory. They were there. They're gone now.
Maybe that's what I was looking for. There was no mourning in it, no rage, no sadness or fear or anything like that. Only: they were there, and they're gone now, and the city goes on. To look at it from where I stood you would not know what had happened, you would not see a sign of what had been or what had become of us. The city is there, the river is there, the river goes on.
Why do you humans need so many names for things? Does the river need a name?
Maybe someone needs the words. Maybe there is something someone has to say. I don't know.
We call the river, "Hudson."
There are things I can never share, because I do not have the words for them and do not think the words exist. There are no words for the seeing-of-whales, the voice and touch and feeling of the Mind in the Waters, when there is only a little light for the eyes but that matters not because all around you is seen by hearing, feeling, knowing. There are no words for the silence I have heard in the north of Alaska, the silence that was in the world before ever came the race of Man, that still lives there when the human things withdraw for a time. There is a place on the westernmost coast of Canada where the trees that grow now are old compared to any on the Eastern seaboard, but even most of them are yet young, next to one still growing that put its sprout forth when the Mayans lay the foundations at Chichen Itza; are there words for what passed through the touch of that tree, when I came to it and lay my face and hands against it? Do words exist for the leaping of dolphins into your waking sight and out again through your dreams, because you know they have acknowledged you? Is there any way of saying what it is to feel the ocean trying to take you away, yet not begrudge your rescue, and not begrudge your returning to it and leaving it a hundred times over after that? Where are the words for the knowing that the light that spills over the buildings you see is fresh and new, that even in the hydrocarbon stink of a thousand thousand cars and a thousand thousand people you are seeing light washing the city clean? For the math you know is present in the curve of the highway that arcs higher and farther and more gracefully across the grubbiness of industry and the brown and grey of swamp, singing the numbers of an engineer's heart and mind with every thump of a car's tires across the joints?
Where are the words for what remains when the fires that have been are gone, and the green land of California looks like the blasted heart of Trinity? Where are the words for the mark on a building hundreds of yards from the Cheat River, the mark where the water rose to and drove the residents out in its path? What words for the trees ripped from their roots and flung aside like toys, when the storms with names have been and gone?
What words for the feel of the wind and the rain and the grey dark boiling overhead as you stand outside in the face of a storm with its own name?
For some things there are no words. There is too much to say, and there are no words to say it with. There is only- this is here, this is and was and has yet to be. It cannot be translated. At best, it can be understood. Mostly, it can only be- there are not even words for that! Seen? Experienced? Felt? All of it. Some things are too big for human words ever to encompass. We give them words because we are human and we like to set limits on things, because the limits are places where we say: I know where the limit is, and I know what is inside it, and so I understand. And we go away thinking we understand.
But the river has no need of a name, and the silence has no words, and understanding does not always come in the space of a minute or an hour or a day or a year or a decade. It comes when it comes, if it comes at all. Sometimes, perhaps, there is no understanding. There is only being there, and coming away from it different from how you came to it.
I will be going back to the Park, I think. I had missed having a place like that close to hand. I am... quite glad to have found that place, and to have seen the city from the side of the river. I should like to see it again, sometime.
