A City's Soul

Some thoughts on where we are in these eight years of mourning, building, and protecting life and liberty .

The sound of New York City city resonates with the beats of our hearts. It is distinctive. It’s a soft, yet persistent din. A mechanical collective breath that says there is life, and love and hurt here. The pain for most lessens with each passing year, but it will never be gone for some.

Ever since September 11th, 2001 the out-breath of our city has been a sorrowful sigh. Its sharp in-breaths acknowledges the continuing emptiness and loss. But, as in all loss, there follows an expectation for the new of life, the cradle of wonder, and the young of hope, for life must go on. New York City abounds and lives in the actions of her people as they move above and below the cobbled cracks of streets and sidewalks, and the city's soul dwells in the quarried homes and window stacks of human life and light.

Life, after a terrible tragedy, is often seen in the whimpers of weak smiles and too in the annealed skin of hard hurts. But below all of the pain, all of the loss, all of the tears, there is a positive cry to New York City; you can feel it and its sound is a collective soul that says, “I am exquisite.”