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Connection, Comfort and Community

By Janet Kirchheimer

It is said that New York City is too big, too anonymous to find human connection and form communities.  In fact, anonymity is probably one of the things that New Yorkers appreciate most about life in the Big Apple.  But that isn’t the whole story.  Like everyone else, New Yorkers want and need human connection. After the attack on the World Trade Center, I found it in expected and unexpected places. 

On September 11 my dear friend Elia, who escaped from the World Trade Center, and I began walking home from the CLAL office in midtown Manhattan, talking about the attack, comforting each other.  We joined the larger tide of New Yorkers who were also trying to make their way home. No one knew if the subways or buses were running.  People on the street told us what they knew, strangers helping complete strangers. As we walked through Central Park - usually an escape from the hustle of city life - we met other people walking and we all felt more connected than ever before. We were subdued, wondering what would happen next, looking up at the fighter jets that circled overhead in the bright, clear sky.   

The next day the city was shut down.  Most people were home from work, just trying to cope.  Afraid and alone, I found an unexpected connection right next door. I hadn’t been close with my neighbor, but that day this changed.  We sought each other out, kept each other company, talked and supported each other that day and in the days that followed.  We forced ourselves to go out for dinner together the night after the attack, not so much to talk as to be together; we walked back home afterwards through the smoke that had made its way uptown from Ground Zero.  We helped each other to get back to a “normal” routine.  Even now, more than two months after the attack, we continue to check in with each other on a regular basis, something we had never done in the eleven years we have lived next door to one another. We have a much stronger and closer friendship now and have become part of each other’s lives.  

About a month after the attack, I went to the opera for the first time this season.  Just being back in the Metropolitan Opera, one of the premier opera houses in the world, was a comfort.   When I entered the house, there was an air of anticipation.  I listened to the buzz of pre-performance conversation in the balcony where I usually sit.  Once in my seat, I looked around the opera house taking in details that I realized I had taken for granted before September 11 - the immense curtain that covers the stage, the elegant chandeliers, the velvet-covered seats, the musicians straggling into the orchestra pit and beginning to tune their instruments.  

The curtain opened to La Boheme, and I felt welcomed by an old friend.  The set design, costumes and music were exactly the same as the other times I’d seen the opera, but that night the familiarity gave me special comfort.  I knew what to expect at a time when life was anything but expected.  During the intermissions, instead of talking in the lobby with my friend who accompanied me to the opera, we stayed in our seats, engaging in a conversation about opera with the people who were sitting around us. I don’t normally do this, but that night I felt compelled to join in the conversation that had begun in my row. The need for human contact seemed to be driving us all to connect with each other in ways we had not done before.  We all talked and laughed about the good and bad performances we’d seen over the years. We spoke for 20 minutes during one intermission, then for another 15 minutes during the next, and September 11 was never mentioned. It was as if we gave one another permission to enjoy ourselves for the evening. That night, the experience of both the opera itself and of the conversations during the intermissions brought a few moments of normalcy that helped me, and perhaps others as well, to heal. 

I returned to my poetry workshop three weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center.  Many of us brought in poems about the attack - poems about the return to normalcy (knowing the return to pre-September 11 would not happen), poems about the lives of those who died that day; and poems about the fear of failed poems. For almost two weeks following the attack, I couldn’t write.  I tried, but nothing came.  The poet in me was shattered.  I spoke with a friend from my workshop. She told me she was unable to write as well.  We advised each other to wait, told each other that what was inside of us was too raw.  We would have to wait until the words were ready.  And when they were, they began pouring out of me and have not stopped since. The workshop has given me another glimpse of normalcy.  As well as the comfort from just being in a community of poets, it is the discussion of the craft of poetry that has helped.  Though the subject matter is difficult, the craft takes over and the poet in us all comes to the fore, giving us some respite from traumatized life in New York City after September 11. 

As I continue to journey through difficult times, I have been reminded that human connection and community comforts us, helps us heal, challenges us to go on.  I hope my old and new connections will sustain me, and I hope I will continue to find new connections and will remain open to finding them where I least expect to do so.

To read additional articles by Janet Kirchheimer, click here. 

    

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