“HEROIN IN THE MIRROR” Mainstream Media Misses the Mark

                           Karen J. Stuart 1957 - 1987

                 
An Original Collection of Provocative and Powerful Essay's by R. B. STUART. Her Work Begins and Ends at the Crux of Truth, Sorrow and Humor---Capable of Slicing Through Your Psyche and Piercing Your Heart.


By R. B. STUART
Part Thirty 

It was disturbing to hear Dr. Oz, who has become mainstream America’s Doctor say, that the attraction to Heroin is “its purity.” And ABC World News Tonight reported the telltale signs to watch for is, “paraphernalia, tracks, and pinned pupils.” I am certain that the average American does not know what a track is, never mind pinned pupils. And while we have the attention of the world on this soul-taking addiction, as the great actor, Phillip Seymour Hoffman succumbed to the need to be psychologically transported into the ethers, until he went so far he could never return…

Let the misjudgment on Hoffman’s behalf, by his agent or manager to propose the 2007 Sidney Lumet project, “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” of a Heroin addict to a former Heroin addict---be partially to blame. As being back in the mire of Heroin’s accoutrements contributed to him acquiring the taste to get high once again.     

Allow his mistaken death be the voice that reaches the families and loved ones struggling with the addiction---because ultimately the person addicted isn’t trying to kill them self, just be temporarily removed from the world that is causing him or her so much pain.

Watching my sister become an addict after her introduction to methamphetamines and cocaine at the age of 16 by a hustler/pimp ten years her senior, he knew that if she wasn’t persuaded into becoming a prostitute for a black man sober---then being high she would be. By becoming the source of what made her feel euphoric, and needing the mighty dollar to buy the drugs that made them both feel unstoppable and immortal, he’d convince her they’d have all the resources they needed if she went to work in Boston’s Combat Zone as a nude model.

After two years of physical violence and psychological abuse, she left him to seek me out in New York City. That’s where she met those new “friends,” that would show her New York’s underbelly and street scene.

No longer was CB-GB’s and Max’s Kansas City her hang outs---but shooting galleries throughout the Village. Cocaine and methamphetamines became speed balls (shooting up a blend of speed and downs), then graduated to the un-watered down high---straight Heroin.

Fast forward to the age of 29, as she laid in a Florida Hospital bed in 1987 diagnosed with AIDS. She blamed the shooting galleries in NYC and sharing needles with other junkies the culprit of her dire diagnosis. She died three weeks after she was diagnosed. Her death became a gift to transform my life, and I stopped smoking, drinking, doing recreational drugs and having casual sex.

It wasn’t only her that I watched dance with the needle, between consciousness and unconsciousness, Heaven and Hell, but a handful of other friends and acquaintance’s. My first injection at 20, guided by her hand, gave me the depiction of the high after vomiting, “I feel dead inside….nothingness. No thoughts or feelings.” She retorted, “Yes, that’s what I love about it.” I never shot Heroin again, but skin popped Dalaudids, which she complained was a waste of good drugs if you’re not going to hit a vein.

The definitions of Heroin usage for the unsuspecting public to detect in a loved one is broken-down:

 + Skin popping; injecting in the fat of the arm and not a vein.

+ Tracks; permanent black /pencil colored pin marks along a vein where an injection site is used repeatedly for shooting up the Heroin. The areas on the body can vary from the crook of the arm, to veins in the hands, behind the knees, and the feet.

+ Pinned pupils; when the black pupil of the eye becomes constricted.

+ Paraphernalia; works i.e. hypodermic needle, rubber band/bandana/belt to tie off the vein to make it protrude for injection, a piece of foil/silverware/table spoons to cook the Heroin into liquid form, cigarette lighters to hold the flame under the spoon to cook-it (the flame will leave a black soot on the bottom of the spoon), mirror used as a surface to crush the Heroin if it’s not in a powder consistency, a razor blade is used for that purpose.  

+ Vomiting within minutes after an injection.

+ Physical symptoms; a dry mouth, nodding off, scratching, slurring speech, not bathing, cluttered/unkempt living quarters, losing weight, lying, stealing (if money is a problem to buy the drug), burn holes (if a smoker) in clothes/rugs/furniture, uninterested in food, horse sounding voice, loss of concentration, skin abscesses in areas that are used repeatedly to shoot-up, swollen feet/legs/arms, sweet cravings, excessive “sleeping.”   

The quilt-work of my family and friends that became drug addicts and Heroin users during a 20-year period from 1980 to 2002, four others besides my sister would die from AIDS, one other was a Heroin overdose. And while I couldn’t grasp the reasons for the severity of their addiction during their lifetime… I found a correlation between my sister and five other friends as I became more self-aware: the common denominator was the secret of being sexually abused as a child; by a family member, Uncle or step-parent.

Twenty years ago we couldn’t comprehend childhood sexual abuse, never mind discuss it. I heard each friend’s declaration during glimpses of sobriety, but being unfamiliar with the damaging effects molestation has on the child as they reach adult hood, those intimate stories of their childhood was meant with silence on my behalf. I wish that I could have been receptive to their inner turmoil, suffering and pain, brought on by their abuser. I later realized that the only thing capable of drowning out the emotional and psychological childhood trauma---that was running on a loop in their psyche every waking hour---was Heroin. It became their savior, and later their Angel of Death. It may have temporarily eradicated the suffering---but without help, therapy, and understanding---the addiction compounded the shame and suffering, and ultimately became impossible to escape. Whether AIDS or overdose…. death was only one needle away.  

 

© COPYRIGHT 2014, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form. 

 

“Celibate in The City” - When Abstinence Becomes Celibacy…and You’re Not Clergy

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Four


They tell you as a writer to write what you know. It’s not that I set out on a path of vaginal cobwebs---it just happened that way---by choosing emotionally retarded or sexually deviant men over the years, paralleled with idealistic notions of love and romance portrayed in 1940’s films. My travails into premature spinsterhood was emphasized by broken promises, disappointments and misunderstandings. Compounded by my own emotional vocabulary comparable to the board game level of four letters (Scrabble). My trust issues percolated just below the surface with fear of intimacy and abandonment.

Since my late teens I went from abusive relationships with men 10 to 20 years my senior to intoxicated sex with the rare gay male friend, parlayed into fantasy relationships in my early 30’s upon moving to New York City. Which at the height of AIDS graduated to abstinence and later celibacy. My last casual relationship was with an impotent man (unless silicone was omni present) who still lived at home (fully aroused when watching the Playboy channel). When I caught him one day masturbating to their televised, artificially enhanced, shiny naked bodies---our fragile year long relationship ended, and so did my self-esteem as it was marred in cellulite. That finale edged me towards abstinence and into fantasy relationships.

My aptitude for fantasy affairs was born when I was 5 years old twirling around a silver clothes line pole holding the imaginary hand of my “man.” We'd end the dance with a kiss---my innocent tongue reached out to lick the salty, cold metal, as my blue plastic Cat glasses clanked the pipe. Immediately, my notions of men became eschewed as they took on an air of an inanimate, lifeless object. [photo above at six years old]

Likened to a romance novel unfolding, my imaginary ideal of love resurrected itself a quarter of a century later with a handful of fantasy relationships. They were rich with sexual gratification (in my own mind). Literally carrying on a romantic conversation with my latest conquest that escalated to sexual encounters. They were fueled by suppressed longings and an inability to communicate my attraction in real life (unleashing imaginary escapades).

The last fantasy relationship I had was with Ken, a young George Clooney type who worked at World Gym in Lincoln Center. In time, the disinterest and endless rejection from my object of affection, would eventually slap me back to reality. That is after I realized my lovely wasn't able to wake-up and smell the obsession. The hope of my affections being returned would ultimately go unfulfilled and the heartwrenching discovery became apparent, that once again, I latched onto unrequited love.

Ken interest wasn’t in me---but rather a heavily painted, faux bronzed gym tart with implants. I wasn’t dissuaded. To me he was strong and solid like a rock---unmovable. But unknowingly, internally, he was shaking in his Nike’s. His silent strength emerged when he was still, quietly listening to me, and for the first time I felt understood and accepted. I thought during those seven months we had a special, equal, honest connection. Unfortunately, I was so excited by it, (becoming an exuberant puppy with men I’m attracted to) I couldn't contain myself and wanted to share with him every aspect of my life (without peeing on his foot). And in turn he became overwhelmed.

I felt that I had so much to offer and searched years for a man that could handle it, that my unexpressed emotions poured into him. The only way for me to stop the overflow was to step-back and give him and myself---space. Only a few days after we stopped talking did I realize that I appeared "needy." Maybe I was needing to be heard by someone familiar who would just listen. To be understood, accepted, and liked for who I was---by a man.

But a week later the abandonment set in and I crumbled. In an attempt to cloak my emotional collapse, I grappled with small talk, but Ken was swiftly doing sets, and the more he pretended I was invisible, the more desperate I became. I couldn’t bare the hurricane swirling within and it being Easter weekend---searched for the nearest church.

Barely able to contain my psychological and emotional convergence, I scurried down Ninth Avenue and leapt up the stairs of a church at 55th Street. I found myself weeping at the foot of another man----a priest, begging him for clarification. With sorrow spilling from my heart, I cried uncontrollably and in between heaves and puffs of breath asked, “Father, every time I find a man it’s unrequited love---no man ever loves me?” With a halo of candles burning behind him, he replied matter-of-factly, “You have to love yourself first.”

Those detached words of wisdom didn’t bring comfort or understanding, and I staggered drunk with sorrow to the M11 bus home (where I would rekindle a late night rendezvous with a Trinitron sized David Letterman).

Except, Ken’s rejection was so severe, it sent me to the cold white tiles of my bathroom floor. Symbolically, the bathroom where one cleanses, the primal pain of lovelessness throughout my lifetime surfaced as I sat hunched on the floor in the shadows of a night light. Trying to muffle my howls (from the other tenants), I cradled myself behind the closed door. The portal of pain became uncontrollable sucking me into a trance of one question to God, “Why doesn’t anyone love me?” That mantra reverberated through me as I rocked myself looking desperately for answers.

The emotional breaks of past loves (post abusers); Stephen, Michael, George, Marcello, Leonard, and imagined ones; Roy, Blaire and Ken---had ruptured. Looking at pictures of myself in a variety of ages and stages spanning my life---no longer a young, taunt filly. I realized I spent my youth wildly---and wept for the girl I used to be.

Is that me? Such a beautiful, young creature. Why didn't I see it then and love her more. Have I lost my youth? I didn't know what it looked like when I had it. Now I see--it was me. How could I have wasted so many years wondering what's wrong with me?

Believing I was too fat, too homely, too crooked, too loud. Now I see her as thinner, prettier, and all the crooked lines have disappeared. What a fool I was to spend her so recklessly.

While laying in the hammock of my loneliness I cried uncontrollably for quiet some time. I reached for my journal to write what was unearthing. I wrote about the loneliness I felt. It was then I observed my own mind, it wasn't cluttered with the obsessive thoughts of a man. The fantasy obsessions were for many years a distraction for the lack of a man----the void of love in my life. Without the daily pining over a man whom didn't want me, my dejected spirit, negative feelings of self-worth and unattractiveness became intertwined. I was finally alone with the emptiness of my own heart and mind. The more I scribed and reflected, I began to put the pieces of my emotional and psychological puzzle together.

I had many fictional relationships begin and end in my mind. Each ending was as traumatic as in real life. Aware of my regrets and mistakes, with each termination learning more about myself. I'd jest with my siblings that I was the only person to have a relationship, and cause infliction upon myself without ever touching or involving the other person. The fantasies protected me from a partner with unsuspecting sexual dysfunction's or diseases, feared pregnancy or the dreaded, awkward confrontation of clearing out your clothes or his (and asking for the return of apartment keys). It was less messy. Only one partner was hurt. One side of the story (literally). And after I woke from my hypnotic obsession, I'd wonder what I ever saw in him anyway.

As a writer I found the paper helped clear the dead wood hanging around the attic of my heart and mind. An emotional eruption gained momentum with each memory unleashed and re-lived. In order to write about it I had to re-experience it. During a moment of being stuck in a deep fog of emotional pain from the past. I came to realize while walking through the fire---that somewhere along the way I stopped needing people. The endings of important relationships, the loss, the deaths stacked upon one another until I closed my heart and stopped needing and loving others. In the interim it was safer to fantasize relationships. Ending a fictional relationship was still hurtful for my young heart, but less permanent. The obsession was created as a need to not feel any more pain or loss---I was already filled to capacity and needed to empty.

The vessel I searched my lifetime for, to pour my love and adoration into, wasn't a man after all. I mislead my heart in a continual quest for "the one" who could handle such powerful love and devotion. The prose tumbled around my soul while I waited for him. I had so much to share with this creature, where was he?

The years of suppressed emotions saddled with the inability to communicate laid dormant no longer. As I hovered over my laptop rewriting the past, the sorrow and pain surfaced. A cluster of tears dripped from my eyes and through them I found my way clearly. All the experiences and words I absorbed until that point imploded onto the page. The paper morphed into my vessel. I poured all the love, sorrow, regrets and heartache into those pages; strong enough to handle the abundance of painful words. In its silence---effortlessly absorbing the overflow of what I could no longer contain. Unconditionally accepting everything I offered.

But the more I wrote….the more detached I became from men and relationships---as the work became my lover---the memories and experiences became my muse. The reams of white cotton 24 lb. Strathmore paper parlayed my way to celibacy.

Trying to quell my sexual desires the first year of abstinence was the most difficult. The second, somewhat challenging but fulfilled by conjuring up liaisons. Years three to five were satisfied by porno….

And what I notice now after living without the warmth of a mans hand, is that the more I’m in my head as a writer---the less I feel my body below. A disconnect emerged. The less physical touch I experience---the less time I invest in (presumed) dysfunctional friendships or relationships, it severs my connection with other humans. I’m not sure if there’s a way of going back. As I still sense the trappings of inadequacies, the older I become, the more beautiful younger women appear (affirming that without enhanced procedures my days are numbered).

So instead my thoughts drift off to prayer and God (the ultimate in imaginary figures), imagining a better life, and what I want to accomplish. I ponder how iconic religious figures, whether Jesus, the Pope, Dalai Lama or Buddha dealt with the lack of intimacy that comes with celibacy. In 2007, new Mother Teresa journals surfaced, one inscription read, “….I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness, coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. (If I am) The Child of Your Love….you have thrown (me) away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no one to answer — no one on whom I can cling — no one. — Alone…”

Is it harder to walk this life alone, independent, and seemingly self-contained---then committing to the pain and sorrow brought by exploring and loving another? Or will we as humans always crave the love and closeness of another, whether we are celibate or not.

© COPYRIGHT May 14, 2009, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

“Dear Bill: A Politically Incorrect Correspondence”

By R. B. STUART
Part Sixteen

A 2001 letter to Bill Maher

Dear Bill Maher,
I ran into you days before the WTC attack at a health food store on 8th Avenue and 55th Street in NYC. You were looking to buy a fan. I turned around amused and said, "I'm a fan." We chuckled as I had caught you in a double entendre. I congratulated you on your good work and left with my groceries as you searched a food store for electrical appliances (next time check a hardware store).

I wanted to write a diary of events as a volunteer behind the scenes. And for being a NY "fan" I'm sending along a FDNY T-shirt. I know you're a little fella so I hope it's not too big. The shirt is from my local company on West 43rd Street, Rescue One. This specialized unit was created as a rescue company of firemen for firemen. They're considered the Green Beret of firemen. They have lost nearly half of their men. Among the 11 missing, 6 have been found dead along with the Captain Terence Hatton. They hope to recover the other 5. So wear it well.

October 3, 2001
A Politically Incorrect New Yorker,
--R. B. Stuart

Dear Bill,

My diary of events from behind the scenes as a NYC volunteer: What disturbs me the most about this tragedy besides the obvious: Is Ian Schrager running full page condolence ad's in the Times and then a paragraph down begins hawking his luxury rooms to the people that were displaced for $3,000 a month. While Mayor Guiliani strut's around the city as if he's really done something significant besides touring politicians around the site. While begging us to spend money, he insists that we go back to normal by pretending nothing has happened, so NY doesn't go into a financial collapse. He's worried about money and camera angles---we're worried about mourning.

The Red Cross has been in hype mode for volunteers, blood and money. During the initial days and weeks of the tragedy, fifteen volunteers besides myself have watched first hand the multi-level confusion and disorganization with this agency. The miscommunication is rampant at Red Cross headquarters. From the thousands of LDV large disaster volunteers) workers whether you're a driver, food deliverer, shelter worker, telephone bank person; no one knows what's going on. The national Red Cross members continuously hand down incompetent information and instructions. As a result, this is one organization I will never depend on. My mother told me that my father (a WWII Veteran) always hated the Red Cross. I asked why. She said, "Because Daddy said the Red Cross didn't do shit for them in the war." It is apparent.

The Red Cross claims that they have never seen a disaster as monumental as this and they were unprepared. Well, what was WWI and WWII a play ground? This organization has been around since 1864, I think that's plenty of time to get their shit together. Frankly I think that they are using the WTC tragedy to restock their blood banks and fatten their bank accounts with all the financial donations pouring in. [Four weeks after this was written their financial support for the victims is in question as is the blood.]

By day three the city set up a volunteer center at the Jacob Javits Center. Within two day's thousands of people enlisted. We forked over confidential information and identification then waited on the sidewalks of 11th Avenue and 34th Street. Standing the day and through the night, waiting with a slip of paper in hand with a designated number. [I wonder what the city really did with all the data that they accumulated?]

The left side of the street was 10 deep with volunteer electricians, plumbers, steel and construction workers. The right side lined with out-of-town cops mingling with the NYPD, medical staff and us. We were being well taken care of with food and beverages by The Salvation Army and local New Yorkers walking around with trays and baskets of sandwiches, pizza, fruit, cookies, candy, water, soda, kindness and love. The unity had begun. A New World was forming. Some slept over night on the cold sidewalks; the voluntary homeless with make-shift beds out of newspaper and denim jackets, colored bandannas tied around their necks, scuffed yellow-buck work boots fastened at their ankles, pillows of blue plastic hard-hats, and rows of white candlelight looming over head.

The country that was built on the backs of these men, and were willing to break their backs again by sleeping on the grey concrete their brothers mixed and poured years before. Even still---they would wake with ease. Then at Ground Zero they'd gather the ruins that were laced with sweat and toil from their forefathers. Which was now soiled with the blood of our beloved, and our enemy. And they would do so lovingly.

Eventually you realized that your volunteer potential wasn't being utilized. Which prompted many of us to "do your own thing" by helping on the "block." The Relief Workers donation center was set up in a fenced outdoor parking lot on West 34th Street, accepting truck loads of supplies 24 hours a day. The trucks were jammed pack with newly packaged men's white socks, T-shirts, briefs, sport shirts, sweat pants, work gloves, black steel-toe work boots, masks, packaged food, bottled water, medical supplies, toiletries, paper goods, cigarettes, Canine booties, dog food and bones.

In the dark of the night we worked side by side unloading these trucks. Crews of construction workers and out-of-town cops. Women and men, shoulder to shoulder---white collar and blue. Each of us suspended in a new reality. Tied together by the red, white and blue ribbons that were pinned to our breast. While a quiet sadness filled our hearts and a peacefulness flowed from our Spirits---for once, we were all equal.

It was distressing to hear the next day that a truck was loaded from the donation center and the driver took off with the entire contents. Along with having to fend off the few meandering vultures that thought they were at a K-Mart free-for-all, as they attempted to stuff their bags with socks, T-shirts and toiletries. Only after reprimanding them with scornful dismay were they reminded of WHO the recipients were; the FDNY. Disgruntled for my spoiling their Christmas, they reluctantly walked away. One man did steal a sleeping bag, but claimed to be homeless. And a local fire company let a stranger into the firehouse to use the bathroom. He was graciously admitted since he was adorned with a FD sweatshirt. Once inside he pulled the fire alarm, and during the ruckus he wiped out the firehouse of their gear. This was not an isolated incident. At another station house someone stole a bag of protective asbestos masks ten minutes after it was logged. People were going to extremes to be allowed into Ground Zero. Although it was the NYPD that disappointed me the most.

By day four, the FDNY were still not receiving the proper gear they needed for Ground Zero. What was being sent to the stations were work boots in size 6. A size a teenage boy could wear. The firemen still without masks or sufficient footwear were wearing their own make-shift work gear taped up. The work boots that did make there way to the site were hoarded by the NYPD. Some cops refusing the firemen boots saving six pairs for their fellow officers. I know the NYPD lost men in the collapse, but isn't it the firemen who are working in the rubble along side the iron and construction workers? Shame on the NYPD for such a power play. I guess they feel their guns and badge gives them the authority to bogart anyone.

With Guiliani having the Police and Fire Commissioners in his back pocket, it's no wonder why this was allowed. I hadn't realized it until I went to a firefighters memorial service at St. Patricks. When the Mayor went to the podium to speak I intentionally didn't clap. But when he introduced the Fire Commissioner, Thomas Von Essen the applause wasn't as grand as Guiliani's. I observed many firemen not clapping for the commissioner. And found it peculiar. I wondered if there was some underlying resentments with the firefighters. After some probing I discovered there was.

Over the years, with each promotion, Von Essen moved up in union ranks at the Fire Fighter's Union. The firemen supported him every step of the way and hoped, "Finally if we have one of our own in there. Then we'll start being treated better." Each year passed and nothing changed. Von Essen gained clout and eventually was selected under Guiliani's reign as the Fire Commissioner. The firemen who stood by his side voting for him at each step---he ultimately left in the dust, and rubble. No longer one of them. He sold them out to be another Guiliani puppet.

And as of lately, Guiliani has through the media, trashed the FDNY who only recently were the cities most beloved Hero's. It seems (by anonymous FDNY sources) the fire bashing Mayor was interested in hundreds of firefighters volunteering for the relief effort only until the truck load of gold and crime scene material was located and recovered. Days after the retrieval of this "valuable dig" is when Guiliani cut back the man power needed for the WTC clean-up. Which evoked the passion and dedication in these men who have tirelessly worked around the clock for nearly two months in a cause more valuable than gold---HUMAN REMAINS.

It is sacrilegious to remove the remaining 4,000 loved ones mixed with debris by dump truck. And to scale back the man power to twenty-five men is utterly preposterous. It will take seven times longer to clean up that area if this act of degradation is allowed by the Mayor. And the excuse Guiliani's using for the cut-back is ridiculous, "It's for their safety. There are too many firefighters working at Ground Zero someone might get hurt." The firemen are the one's who are in the rescue business. They weren't in the way or unqualified on September 11th, why are they now? It can't be because they're costing the city too much in overtime, because they are doing this for free. Even eight weeks later the firefighters working at the WTC are VOLUNTEERING. How about Guiliani volunteering for the city for two months and giving his salary to them?

It is a disgrace that Guiliani is attempting to turn the public against the FDNY. As the media hops on the band wagon of this smear campaign. Reducing the quiet, humble and caring firemen to a pack of violent thugs---is a shameful slander of character made by the news stations via Guiliani's police state. Because of his District Attorney background you'll never hear him slamming the NYPD who's reputation is one of a big-blue Teflon bully. He has a Gestapo mentality and cops blood running through his DNA. But he'll never possess what is needed to be a member of the FDNY: Heart.

Meanwhile Bill, the Mayor just sits by as the residents in lower Manhattan remain displaced indefinitely, and still have to pay telephone, electricity and rent, on some apartments that aren't even salvageable. Those rents should be waved with no questions asked. With businesses closing weekly, hiring freezes due to Anthrax, the city is in a financial crisis. If he wants to help us he should roll back the rents throughout the city. A $1,500 shoe-box studio will lose its appeal when people see Manhattan ends at 8th Street and the air has been infiltrated with asbestos. But it seems his only concern is car pooling or taking Mass Transit since it will ultimately create revenue for the city.

The irony is two years ago Guilini sunk $16 million into building “the bunker" on the 23rd floor of 7 WTC. Which went up in smoke along with the Mass Transit offices. Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't a bunker a shelter below ground? Why doesn't he focus on that financial blunder for a day or two? His distraction for everyone is to shop, shop, shop, buy Broadway tickets and trinkets, eat Bon-Bon's and drink Cosmopolitans. There's atleast 10 percent of us in this city without jobs, how can we spend? Who wants to be trivial in such a tragic time.

I guess my question is really for the FBI and CIA. If there is all this file footage on television from camera men shooting video tape of bin Laden over the years. Where did it come from his P.R. people? And if he is really the master mind and such a dangerously evil man, then who is the Governmental Einstein (probably a friend of Guuliani's) that allowed them close enough to shoot film of him all around Afghanistan, but not shoot him dead. If they had access to him and knew where he was to shoot the footage, why wouldn't they know now? What was the CIA waiting for? THIS?

I must say that prior to this tragedy the word GOD was used only on Christian networks. On the 11th of September that changed. In the initial three weeks I heard news anchors, talk show hosts, and people in general talk about GOD with ease. Where people would once shirk at the mere mention of the word. Even Oprah has relinquished her New Age term "Higher Power" for the exact word of GOD. After thousands of years of spiritual bankruptcy, let New York lead the way. Maybe through financial bankruptcy our spirituality can emerge from beneath the ashes of loss and mourning. Could this be the second coming?

Maybe the two slabs of wood Jesus was nailed to now takes form in two steel towers, and the nails hammered into his flesh, was the planes thrust into the buildings. The blood from Jesus' body is akin to the blood shed of the 6,000 people. And the horror, the grief, the unbelievable sorrow is a reenactment of that day in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. The reason is the same: religion. The bottom line is the same: money. The outcome: mourning and resurrection.

A spiritual shift has occurred within the masses around the world and it is 6,000 times stronger. We just might be able to get it right this time. That's if our love and unity can overpower the hate and violence the Government is trying to jam down our throats via the media through fear. I have longed for the day to live heaven on earth---instead of in my mind and heart. Maybe now we're that much closer, and if not---then there's still time to bake anthrax cookies. If things get any worse I'll send you a dozen…..

Be well Bill, keep up the good work----and don't let the bastards get you down.
--R. B. Stuart
October 3, 2001

Copyright October 2001, R. B. STUART, All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

"THE WORLD COLLAPSES"

The Sixth Anniversary of the World Trade Center Tragedy

By R. B. STUART
Part Six


On September 11th 2001, while living in New York City I watched the terrorist attack the World Trade Center on television. After an hour, when the numbness and denial faded, an urgency to volunteer swelled within, needing to care for the city the way she comforted me over the years. I would go to her rescue in any way possible and aid the two limbs that had been taken without warning. The Mother of all cities, was herself, crumbling down to the marrow below her streets. The solid bedrock which sprouted two of her tallest beauties, were savagely destroyed---taking with them the many children of her city.

The Twin Towers were akin to California Redwood Trees, only in an urban environment. The destruction of our Redwoods brought about an equal amount of emotion--just as tree-huggers feel watching the electric saw chip and cut away the thick brown skin of natures grandest. The disbelief while watching the calamity brought upon the defenseless, helpless victims---who sat perched on each of the 110 floors as they attempted to fly---becoming One with the towers. Kept the world standing in silence enveloped by a quiet banding together of those experiencing the traumatic event of mass devastation and sadness.

For a brief moment the grief and sorrow had given way to love and peacefulness. It was as though an intertwining between Pearl Harbor and Woodstock had occurred---lifting consciousness with prayers, white candlelight and solidarity. Emerging from the pain and suffering of our forefathers past and present who have fought in those very wars, most, needlessly by sending many to their grave and psychologically maiming others for the rest of their life. It was their history coming forth, and in so doing brought volunteers from across the country and from the foreign lands where those battles were once fought.

The unity had begun. A New World was forming. In the dark of the night as volunteers we worked side by side unloading trucks at the donation center at the Jacob Javits Center. Crews of construction workers and out-of-town cops, women and men, shoulder to shoulder---white collar and blue. All suspended in a new reality. Tied together by the red, white and blue ribbons that were pinned on our breast. A quiet sadness filled our hearts, and a peacefulness flowed from our Spirits---for once, we were all equal. The Hero's that died, united us, in compassion.

Some volunteers slept overnight on the cold sidewalks; the voluntary homeless with make-shift beds made out of newspaper and faded denim jackets, colored bandannas tied around their necks, scuffed yellow-buck work boots fastened at their ankles, pillows of blue plastic hard hats, with rows of white candlelight looming over head on the cement walls. The country was built on the backs of these men, and they were willing to break their backs once again by sleeping on the gray concrete their brothers mixed and poured years before. Even still---they would wake with ease. Then in the early morning hours at Ground Zero they would gather the ruins that were laced with sweat and toil from their forefathers. Which was now soiled with the blood of our beloved---and our enemy. And they would do so lovingly for well over a year.

The financial downturn that occurred in the aftermath of the city lead many New Yorkers to re- evaluate their lives as they knew it. The future of the city was uncertain and my own life took on a gloomy air. People seemed more caring in the weeks after the tragedy but it didn't last. The lack of connectedness takes its toll on you after awhile, you begin to absorb the cement from the sidewalks and the only way to rescue yourself---is to leave.

Hiring freezes happened immediately. The avenues became barren as stores posted "Going Out of Business" banners in the windows. Filled U-Haul trucks peppered the desolate streets as taxi cabs rode empty---a sign people were leaving. The city simply wasn't the same, and neither were the lives that lived within it.

Within four months my trepidation's about leaving became clear when my mother suffered a third stroke. The possible loss of one's mother shifts the order of your priority list. She would be the reason for weaning myself from NYC after 13 years. The magnetic pull of her failing heart brought us to her bedside for six weeks. We stood holding her hands---she was barely able to gaze at us one last time before dying.

She watched September 11th and its effects on her daughter, living long enough to see me come home safely to care for her. Not knowing six months after The World Trade Center tragedy, I'd witness my own tower collapse---my mother. If the survivors of September 11th can go on with the unexpected tragic loss of loved ones in their life---then I can certainly be grateful as I mourn, for the fortunate six weeks I had watching my mother make the transition to death. Breathing her sweet scent, caressing her brow, kissing her motherly hand while gazing at her childlike face and loving eyes one last time---is more than the survivors of September 11th had. I must find the grace in knowing that.

Since then I've observed the loved ones talk about those that have senselessly and suddenly died in The World Trade Center. They spoke of similar characteristics and qualities the deceased possessed: a good person, happy, humorous, a heart of gold willing to do anything for anybody, kind, considerate and loving. It sounded as if God was calling his favorite children, back home..... Maybe, just maybe---they can find peace knowing that.

Copyright September 2001, R. B. STUART. All Rights reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form. Above photo of rock in the sand taken at the beach 2005, "An Angel in The Sand."