object of memory

we must return to where it was lost / if we want to find it again

Category: running

  • the climb

    the climb

    Some people traveled to warm tropical destinations this spring break, while others may have opted for skiing or international trips. We didn’t. I wouldn’t even call it a staycation, as we didn’t do much unless you count my reluctantly taking Emmett to the 9/11 Museum upon his request, which was as far removed from typical vacation material as a New Yorker who experienced it firsthand can get, but whatever.

    I tried hard to balance my feelings this week as we look towards a horizon filled with light, something that hasn’t been possible for years – Sid is coming home in May. He will return almost eleven months to the day since he left. That’s wild when you think about it. Essentially, it’s been an entire year. I’ve been clinging to this aspect of the future, this reality that doesn’t quite feel real yet, but it’s getting there, and the realness is infused with fierce maternal joy, excitement, and a lot of anxiety that comes with years of heartache. All of it is natural, and the core of it is that my baby is coming home.

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  • i run to keep things whole

    i run to keep things whole


    Once upon a time, I stood at the full-wall kitchen window in my West Village office building and watched two planes crash into towers a mile downtown. I watched debris fall and gradually realized that it was not all pieces of plane and glass. I watched those towers pancake to the ground, the vision painfully surreal to process.

    I walked the eighty blocks back to my apartment, tuned the radio to NPR, and slumped down onto the kitchen floor. An hour later, unable to sit with my grief, I threw on my sneakers and ran. Uptown and downtown, I would have looped the bridges had they not been closed. I couldn’t stop running; I needed to feel my heart beat. And with every beat, I wondered how many other hearts had stopped.

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