| By Guy LeCharles Gonzalez,
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Every New Yorker has a 9/11 story.
Like most tragedies, 9/11 affected a wide range of people in a wide range of ways and places. Some are of the tragic, heart-breaking variety, pockmarked by personal loss and feelings of rage and helplessness. Others are more mundane; 24-hour cable newsreel memories that have faded over time, dusted off annually so as not to feel disconnected. Or too comfortable.
It's the days after that have always interested me more, though. The thoughts, the debates, the decisions that were made in the aftermath of the world...not changing -- not in the least, really -- but rather welcoming us to the table with a wry, somewhat sad smirk.
On September 12, 2001, my wife Salomé and I were huddled in our West New York, NJ apartment with our not-yet-one-year old son, Isaac, wondering what was going to become of New York City and whether or not we'd be sticking around to find out. We ultimately didn't, moving to Virginia the following January in search of a calmer way of life. 9/11 was simply the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
The City had been pushing us away for the past 11 months, from the day Isaac was born, as it does most "middle class" families -- aka those not poor enough to feed on, nor rich enough to feast themselves. The actual straw for me wasn't the attacks, but instead it was a craven Rudy Giuliani's hollow exhortations that life must go on, his primary concern being that people start shopping again so businesses didn't suffer.
Perhaps not surprisingly, we didn't find what we were looking for in Virginia and moved back 11 months later, our family now a fantastic foursome as our daughter India was born while we were down there. Still technically "middle class" upon our return, if barely, we were determined to make a life in the only city that had everything we wanted, no matter how little it might seem to care about that on most days.
Yesterday was the 6th anniversary of 9/11, the first time it's fallen on a Tuesday since that fateful day, and on my way to and from work I gave more than a passing thought to the possibilty of another attack happening. Not fearful thoughts, mind you; simply the same matter-of-fact kind of thoughts a smoker might give to lung cancer.
One might say that 9/11 has become the spindle around which life in New York City revolves these days, and as such, it's fitting that Spindle: NYC in the first person would launch in the wake of its anniversary, featuring a range of poems and essays related to memories of that day and its aftermath, some more loosely than others. As I explained to our stellar roster of contributors, 9/11 is about a change in perception; a transition; a surprise left turn. It's about what came after, when we picked ourselves up off the floor and decided what we were going to do next.
Welcome to Spindle.
PS: In lieu of a table of contents, I encourage you to poke around the website the way you might explore a new, unfamiliar neighborhood. Take your time, enjoy yourself, and walk down every side street in search of what might be hidden away. You might be pleasantly surprised to find exactly what you've been looking for.
Guy LeCharles Gonzalez is a Mets fan from the Bronx, and has a beautiful wife and two amazing kids. He won some poetry slams, founded a reading series, co-authored a book of poetry, and still writes when the mood hits him and he has the time. He prefers Pumpkin and India Pale Ales or Skyy Vodka with cranberry, still reads comic books, and hasn't completely let go of his plans for world domination.
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