“I can no longer stay quiet in this world, I have a voice and I feel it reverberate off my internal walls, making its slow climb upward until its melody can be heard all around.” Elin Stebbins Waldal
Typically, I paint with no thought of documenting the process. This work was different, however. If you visit Kim’s blog, you’ll understand why, which is my reason for posting the work.
Witness the power of love and community that can occur between online friends who have never met in real life, yet share an emotional bond as deep and rich as though they live next door. I am quite touched by both the heart and soul of Totsy, sharing her gift of artistic talent to capture Kay in all her beauty as a loving tribute to Kim and her family. Kay is Kim's dearly departed sister, so brutally murdered almost two years ago in an act of domestic violence. I dare you to click on the above link and not be touched...
For me this act of kindness rings coincidentally true to the core with a totally unrelated conversation I was having a mere two days ago with a good friend of mine, whereupon this rather astute observation was made to me (I've purposely changed and bracketed the pronouns to show how striking and relevant that observation indeed is):
That's what humans do: 'Form attachments'. Doesn't need to be face to face. If [they] weren't "real" in cyberspace what would have compelled [Totsy] to do what [she] did for [Kim]? We are real. So real that [Totsy] is spending time on a person [Kim] who [she] is most likely never to meet, ... but has caught [her] imagination.
Anthony watching my friend Jack and me doing big boy stuff like capturing ants.
Well little brother, just a quick note to let you know we were all thinking about you today. I had a piece of cake at home, called mom and dad to chat a while, and looked through a few pictures of us when we were kids. Jack sent me some pictures last year, and I thought you might like seeing one of us together on Jack’s front stoop.
Happy Birthday!
Your big brother,
Phil
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Written in 2009
Dear Anthony,
Another year has passed and here it is your birthday once again. Even though you are not here to celebrate it with us, I just wanted to let you know we were all thinking about you on this special day. Mama is doing fine, her heart is on the mend after some troubles earlier this summer. Pop is well too… Read More
View of lit Twin Towers at dusk from our apartment
I lived and worked in New York City for several years immediately after graduating college up until we left the City for good in 1984. Tonight on the eve of the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, my wife and I were going through the photo books, looking at pictures we had taken while we lived there. As occurs whenever you live in a place long enough to take many things for granted, we had surprisingly few pictures of the World Trade Center itself. Unlike many of our friends from out of town, who we took on tour whenever they would visit with camera in hand, most of our New York pictures were just ordinary ones with lots of friends and people celebrating various events, not of places.
Luckily, I managed to find a few pictures taken with the trusty old 35 mm back in the days of film. Our apartment on 23rd Street had a southern exposure from the windows in our living room, and we were up high enough in our building to have an unobstructed view of downtown Manhattan with the Twin Towers dominating the skyline, day or night. The above picture brought back a flood of memories to me. I worked in the Finance industry, and as a result, had walked around so many of the floors, offices and corridors of both towers countless times for business meetings and other business related errands. Perhaps this is reason for my lack of fascination with it all as compared to tourists that were easily identified with their awe-struck gawking at the sheer size of each tower.
In May before we left New York City for good in 1984, both sets of grandparents came to visit our daughter and we spent a part of the day making our way to see the view from on top of the world. I thought it would be neat to snap a few shots looking upward from the ground in the plaza between the buildings. A favorite of mine is one with the camera perched up against the steel and glass frame looking straight up the side of the South Tower. Below are the two photos taken that day.
View upward from plaza
View upward standing against South Tower
Having lived in New York for quite some time before we eventually left, the events of 9/11 were deeply personal. I lost a workplace friend that day. I wrote about it in 2009 as my second entry to this blog. Here is what thoughts came to mind that morning as I sipped on my coffee, reflecting on what that day meant to me:
I am sitting here having my morning cup of coffee, much as I can imagine you were doing that fateful morning as you were getting ready for work. It was a crisp, beautiful day. I would like to believe you kissed your lovely wife good bye and hugged your kids as you left for work, but the reality is, we sometimes fall into a routine and just take that kind of stuff for granted. I wonder, what were you thinking as you left your apartment for that subway ride to your office? Was it the wonderful weather, a work issue, maybe a family happening?
I remember working with you at another financial firm in mid-town back in the early 80′s. You were a few years older and were always helpful, showing me the ropes, assisting me as I learned my job. You were finishing up law school and I remember you telling me how you wanted to pursue that career path instead of the one laid out before us in mid-town. You dreamed of working on Wall Street. By 1984, when I moved out of New York to pursue a new career opportunity, you had already left the firm, chasing your dreams downtown. It would be poetic to say we were the best of friends, but in actuality we were merely work acquaintances who shared an occasional beer socially outside of work. We didn’t keep track of each other over the years; you went your way and I mine.
Seventeen years later, I recall waking up September 11, 2001 to an incredibly crisp, cool day. The weather was beautiful, so I decided to extend my early morning run. By the time I returned home from the run, my kids had all left for school and my wife for work. It seemed like an ordinary day. I showered and left to meet some bankers at an outdoor site we were looking to finance. I didn’t get back to the office until about 9:30, where I was immediately told of a horrible crash. Everyone was huddled in the conference room where the TV was on. I watched in stunned silence as buildings that I so often have been in and out of for the many years I lived and worked in New York were on fire. This was too personal for me – I had been inside those very same corridors countless times! I was appalled, and yet I just couldn’t look away. I watched the unthinkable happen, as the Towers gave way. Feeling sick, I returned to my desk. All I could think about, all I could focus upon was who I might know and were they all OK. I frantically started calling my friends in New York; the lines were all busy. Busy, busy, busy. Every attempt busy. All day long busy. Nothing but that awful busy signal.
It took me three days to account for everyone I knew or had worked with. Everyone made it except for you.
Rest in peace, Stephen.
I need to go hug my wife and and call my kids right now and tell them I love them before I leave for work.
Much of my extended family lives in the New York and Connecticut area. My wife and I moved to Maryland in 1984 and we would drive up Interstate 95 through New York City and onward to New England to visit family on many holiday occasions. That first drive we made after that horrible day was during Thanksgiving of 2001. I will never forget the experience as we approached the city skyline from the New Jersey Turnpike; it was surreal. There was a hole in my heart as we drove by, my mind trying to find and locate a familiar landmark no longer there. There were no words then to describe the feelings swirling within me, and to this day, there still are none that can accurately describe that hole, that emptiness. The emotional wounds of that day have healed with the passage of time; the memory and love of those affected, however, does not fade.
I grew up with music all around me. I took music lessons as a child and continued into my early teens, but then my brother became ill with Leukemia. My brother’s illness became an all-consuming devastating process, draining the family resources and taxing everyone’s time as he was shuttled back and forth to the Hospital, countless Doctor appointments, and various Treatment Centers. There was simply no money left after all this for music lessons. Most music schools would have accepted this news and parted ways with student and his family. In my case however, there was a wonderful man who took pity on my family’s plight. Rudy was his name. He owned the music school and studio rooms that sat over a small department store downtown, and he made a proposition to my parents they couldn’t refuse.
Rudy approached my father, concerned I would have too much idle time on my hands while my parents were tending to my brother’s needs. He suggested I spend a lot of this time at his studio whenever they were busy with my brother or if I just needed a place to hang out after school. He would accept no money. All he asked of my father was to let him know the schedule as much as possible. All he asked of me was to study and complete my homework first, and to behave in the studio when done while others were getting lessons. If I wanted, I could practice or play around on any of the pianos as they were available, but there was no obligation to do so. As long as I listened and behaved, the place was completely available for me to lounge around as I pleased. I look back now and realize it is oftentimes difficult to recognize a profound act of someone else while it is in the moment, especially when it comes disguised as a simple gesture of kindness and patience. It took me years to truly comprehend the magnitude of this simple gesture and the effect it would later have on me. Rudy would indeed have an enormous impact in my life, but at the time, neither of us would know exactly how as he diligently planted seeds in me that would remain dormant for quite a while in such a turbulent time in my life.
For several years, first when my brother became ill, and for quite some time after he passed, I would spend countless hours of countless days of countless weeks doing my homework in any number of rooms with the sound of pianos, flutes, violins, violas, cellos, clarinets and other instruments filling the air in quietly muted tones floating through the closed doors of various lesson rooms and from his main studio whenever larger assemblies of bands would practice. Despite the chaos of activity and sounds, it was, for me, an incredibly relaxing and comforting atmosphere. To this day, I still will listen to classical music (often with headphones) playing softly in the background whenever I have a lot of reading or work to do. It is very much like a security blanket for me, giving me comfort and actually helping me focus.
What I remember most however, were those special times I got to spend with him after all the lessons were done for the night and before my father would come to pick me up. As Rudy would wander around closing up the studio, he would check in to see if I needed any help with my homework and tell me I could join him in his office when I was done with homework to wait for my father to pick me up. Rudy was an older gentleman, a widower whose two children were grown, married, had children of their own, living in other states. His passion of course was all things musical. But his special passion, a passion that burned within him was opera.
In those hours after the school closed its doors, Rudy would retire to his office and play any number of records selected from a vast collection of 78′s and LP’s scattered on the many shelves of his credenza, intermingled with musical scores and books. Occasionally he would listen to a symphony or concerto, but almost always it was opera. Let me be honest. I was not initially taken with it – my initial impressions were tilted to strange. I certainly didn’t understand it nor did I get what all the fuss was about. Still the musical melodies were gorgeous at times, even if I had no idea what was being sung. After all my homework was done, I’d wander in his office, plop down into his beat up old sofa, and eventually muster up the courage to ask him what in the heck was all the singing about; what did it all mean?
People who are passionate about a topic are without a doubt the most enthusiastic teachers, always eager to share their knowledge freely. Rudy was no exception. His eyes would light up and twinkle as he wandered over to the phonograph in order to lift up the needle and pause the music while he spoke, setting a scene, weaving together story of people, images, time, explaining the verses, their meaning and translations, and describing all the emotions of the scene. After a wonderfully rich set-up, he would turn back to the phonograph, gently placing the needle on the record, and ask me to close my eyes and simply listen; let my mind imagine and re-create what we discussed as the music played. This new-found knowledge and set-up made for a powerful experience; the seeds of my own passion were being sown, one musical passage at a time.
Week after week, he would tirelessly explain, and we would listen to countless passages of opera. He had this gift of knowing how to paint a scene, giving you all the essential information without spoiling it musically. You craved to listen to the musical passage after he set it up; it was never unnecessary or anti-climactic. As I reflect on him now, I realize he had many, many gifts, but this one, instilling a desire to hear more was indeed a rare one, difficult to achieve.
In a perfect world, people would recognize a gift and its significance at the very moment it is given. In a perfect world, people would stay close to each and every friend who is generous, kind, thoughtful, and caring; they would not take such acts for granted. I am not a perfect person nor was mine a perfect world. I soon graduated high school, left for college, graduated, moved away, got married, and had children. Basically I was busy getting on with this thing called life. Oh so busy it seemed, at least at the time.
I remember well the day my parents called to tell me they heard news that Rudy had passed.
Rudy, dear Rudy. I had always meant to drop by the studio and say hello. I had always meant to let you know how my studies in college were going. I had always meant to catch up with you and show off my new family. I had always meant to keep track of your retirement and the closing of your school. I had always meant to get your new address and ask you how you were enjoying your retirement. I had always meant to let you know how much I appreciated your selfless act to shield me from my own misery and sadness of dealing with a dying brother smack dab in the middle of my formative teen years. I had always meant to let you know how much you really shaped an integral part of my persona. I had always meant to let you know that I too have become passionate about opera, all because of you. It is with great anguish and shame in my heart that I sit and ponder how I managed to fail so completely to do all these things I had meant to do while you were still alive. Thankfully, my parents are better people than I.
I cannot dwell in misery for long, as it is not in my character. I will resolve however to take a big piece of you with me as I move forward in my own life, sharing my love and passion for opera with others. With the magic of the Internet and links to music, I plan to explore an opera experience with others and to do it Rudy style. I will draw on our many experiences together, with the hope I can manage to inspire and delight others to enjoy and have a passion for this great art form. It is the only way I know to relive those moments, if only in my mind, and to hopefully pass on a small bit of your legacy to others.
I know Verdi was your personal favorite, and have selected the following passage as my much-too-late farewell tribute to you. It is merely a prelude, absent the voices but a powerful way to set the scene. Very much like Alfredo and Giorgio Germont, I shall weep for the loss of someone who lived a life so full of compassion, who was free in spirit and selfless to the very end, all as I reflect on my own shortcomings.
