Wrapping Fish

The day began a brilliant blue, but only for an hour or two. The color faded from the sky that day, faded to a smoke filled hue. The innocence we awoke with too, drifted away in the smoke that grew. The color faded from the sky that day, faded to a smoke filled hue.

I was not there on September 11^th, or the days that immediately followed. I arrived three days later on September 14^th, on empty train feeling very alone. I was not one of the first responders, like my fellow Boston Herald photographers, that I was sent there to relieve. I did not arrive in the fear, smoke, adrenaline and fire after a harrowing drive down from Boston. No I arrived on that empty train into a smoking city, scared, but still standing proud. I left five days later smelling of smoke and carrying my own scars, but also proud of what I witnessed there.

The train rounded the bend with a smoke filled Manhattan laid out before me. I took a deep breath as the train plunged under the river into the city. I emerged into a city no longer griped in the chaos of the immediate aftermath. I have no iconic photos of buildings collapsing, people running for their lives, or the heroism of the first responders. That all happened days before. None of my photos graced the front page. I don’t even know if any of them even made the paper, for I have never checked. This is the first time in 10 years I have looked at them, so I am not sure what they show. You will not see them in any of the tributes, or probably anyplace else, but this is what I experienced.

I remember the first day I photographed at “Ground Zero.” I remember being covered in smoke and ash, even five days after the collapse. I remember the smell of the smoke and the way the ash clung to everything making you cough even while wearing a respirator. I remember walking from Ground Zero to the Jacob Javits Center and the streets slowly filling with people the further I walked. I remember being lost in thought and catching my toe and falling, sprawled into the street camera gear crashing all around me. I remember getting to my feet, pausing, dusting myself off and continuing my journey.

I think or hope that my photos from those five days I spent in, New York in September of 2001, are of people getting to their feet dusting themselves off and continuing on our collective journey. Ten years on that smoke and ash still clings to us and always will. We all carry that ash in our soul, some of us in our lungs and some of us in the items we brought back. I still have the respirator I wore, stored in its plastic bag. I have opened that bag once and coughed and choked on what remained. This is the second time I have opened, “that bag”, in writing and sharing my photos from my experience there. I still feel the ash it in the back of my throat when thinking about that time in September and always will, what a small price to pay considering what others paid that day…

Nature's first green is gold

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then the leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

~Robert Frost 1923