Where There May Be

On a train in France a couple weeks ago (thankfully, not this one), I dove into an unreserved seat beside a petulant clove cigarette - this fragrant, smoking thing named Zoé.

Seeing Zoé's golden legs up on the back of my neck the seat in front of her, spying the empty seat beside, I went sprinting down the train aisle toward it, only to be met by loud protestations as Zoé sensed her alone time getting squashed.

"There are plently of empty seats, Monsieur!" this angry bird actually snapped at me.

"Bone swa," I grunted.  "Like to sit here."

Once, twenty years or so ago, there wouldn't have been this French resistance ... my presence, and Zoé's together, would've formed a pièce de résistance!  Led to peace ... Would've spelled detente!

Of course, I was that much younger then ... and Zoé, newborn ... But the point I'm trying to make is that seasons, things and people change.  If I felt growing "old" back then, imagine being middle aged now - when in an equivalent number of years removed, I'll be pushing seventy ... then daisies ...

"The Death of Jeff Glovsky"

And so might you.

What isn't changing naturally, though, is the way strangers regard each other.  Like nuisances and interruptions ... With little real interest, attention or even eye contact ... With little compulsion felt to look away from whatever else they're doing, playing or listening to at the moment their worlds -- or Words with Friends -- are invaded.

I feel all ages feed this corruption.  It's no longer a "Millennial" thing.  Our need to be alone, in fact, be anti-social with each other, is as pervasive as it is desperate.  Ironic on so many levels:  when we're fed transparently empty "news", and have no one who's driving the apple cart as it careens ever faster toward onrushing traffic, the brakes and steering wheels useless, threadbare tires spinning off ...

We need each other!

Otherwise, no stories left to build upon.  No love, or lust -- potential! -- unrequited ... carried through the decades, firing dreams and weighting memories, and hope (yet hopeful.  Waiting);

for who or what will be there when our "friends" outgrow their sex machines?  "Devices", "apps" and glowing tubes ... their piracies, idiocies, "reality" (really?) ... forced "fails", "quirks", fakely "eccentric" idiosyncracies?

"Blu Jg (Blue.Period) ... in E Major"

Me, I prefer to tread cobblestoned streets of each city ... avoiding the parking lot choked  superhighways (especially our "information" one) to pave my own roads ...

For better or worse!  When young, or now old ... willing riders or empty seats beside me ... Not "alone"; ever lonely, though ...

I'll get there.

Wherever "there" may be.

Happy Feedback

In the slice knife that is A.M., I cut through to get my things done ...

Mornings out and up with tea ...

In New York ... before loud hordes shatter each day, and in Munich, before tourists pour onto the canvas ...

I pour my breakfast loads in ...

 Mornings

"Celebrating" 9/11

in 2014

A dozen years ago already.  Almost last century.

And I remember the sirens.

New York is, has always been, a hot bed of decibels.  Among other gruesome sounds and noises, sirens forever going off ... but on this date twelve years ago, as I sat on the Upper West Side near Lincoln Center, literally miles away from "Ground Zero", they weren't just hitting-and-running through my consciousness.  They were becoming embedded.

As the 9am hour began that day, on September 11th, 2001, the sirens kept coming and going off -- police cars, fire trucks and ambulances -- and coming from all sides:  from uptown, downtown, east and west ...

A cacophony, full arsenal, of howling sirens that crisp, blue morning, as I finished my bagel and sat wasting time, told me something substantial, and amiss, was occurring.

I was freelancing then (as I still freelance), but not working steadily.  One of my regular clients was an audio visual company installed with an office on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center, in the North Tower.  When that tower collapsed -- taking with it the office (where I'd arrived for a job just two days earlier) ... as well as the renowned Windows on The World restaurant and several friends and colleagues -- I was back home, having my every suspicion confirmed.  The sirens were right:  something massive was happening.

"Views on Freedom", ©Jeff Glovsky

A dozen years later.  Older.  Unwiser.

I think of the years in between with regret; of the lack of substantial forward movement career-wise, creatively, living-wise ... conjugally.  Businesses and a marriage failing, friends (and colleagues) come and gone ...

I think, twelve years later, of every nook and corner of the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower, which my client, the in-house AV company, serviced ... and what I might've been doing just before 9am if I'd worked that day (and not two days earlier):  Sitting, sipping coffee, reading a newspaper, maybe doing a crossword ... waiting for the day's first meeting to begin, so I could unmute a podium microphone (then go back to my crossword!); then truly gruesome, hot decibel noise:  explosions, heat, fires, bewilderment, panic ... Where would I have run to die?

Knowing myself, I probably would not have piled into a crowded, dark and smoke-filled stairwell to begin a slow-motion descent from the 106th floor; or I certainly would have been loathe to do so, and likely remained put, trying to wait things out ('Let's see what happens').

As certainly, I would not have run and plunged for oxygen.  No matter how fresh air seemed to be evaporating, throwing myself out a window from the 106th floor wouldn't have crossed my mind as an option:  if the stairwell was unpalatable, trying to take flight, to this day, remains inconceivable.

Now possibly (also knowing myself) ... I might have been downstairs already, out on the street - buying coffee or a newspaper, or using a payphone, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed in, at roughly 500 miles per hour ... but really, who knows?

John F. Puckett did not have time to think things through.  Neither did Christine Olender, and 1,358 others above the 92nd floor.  I wouldn't have either.  Who does?  Who would?

All I know for certain is that I'm still here ... my flailing life, (e)strange(d), beautiful wife ... friends, family, my dreams and prayers.  And in the 'Big Picture' scheme of things, that's what I celebrate each September 11th - and the other 364 days also.