Deborah Schultz

Ten Years brings perspective

This year, more than any other, I feel incredibly protective over the memory of 9/11.  I have been surprised by a feeling of anxiety and dread during the drumbeat leading up to today and have found myself getting angry at the inevitable media reflections and documentaries that were to come.  

But, as I woke up this morning, something interesting happened, the anger had vanished.  I am sad but, I also have a sense of calm.  As I reflect on today and the ten years that have passed,  I've come to realize that 9/11 and my experiences downtown have shaped me in ways that I am only now beginning to understand, it is a part of me, how I view the world and how I choose to lead my life.

I have written before about my experience Downtown as a volunteer in the days after 9/11 as well as reflections in the year's since, but I have always felt a bit strange about highlighting my experience.  I have told myself that my experience was not that unique.  After all, I was just a volunteer that arrived on the scene that evening.   I watched the buildings collapse from the safety of my rooftop on the Upper West Side and thankfully did not lose any immediate loved ones.  I spent most of my time as a volunteer a few blocks from the Pile [the actual burning carnage at the center of the relief efforts].  Over the years, I have honored the day quietly in my own way always with a feeling of sadness. For the past few years I did not even post my thoughts as I had in the years immediately following - I simply tucked them away.  

However, today, with perspective and a greater willingness to look inside myself, I realize that for the first time in ten years my primary feelings around 9/11 are not about sadness or grief or what was taken away but about what the events of 9/11 have given me and taught me.   As strange as it may sound I considered and consider myself lucky to have been able to volunteer Downtown. It  gave me a sense of purpose and a place to focus my shock and grief.  On the evening of 9/11, I began the first of many 12 hour nighttime shifts as a Red Cross volunteer working with first responders -getting them to eat, take breaks, change clothes and talk.  As the work on the pile "normalized", I did weekly shifts with a group set up to outfit firefighters for the 30 day tours of duty that continued for months [the NYFD could not afford to keep re-outfitting the teams as they wore out their gear too quickly].  My experiences  enabled me to witness first hand the incredible essence of humanity at its core ; when people perform acts of bravery and dedication and come together to do what's right, even at great risk to themselves. My experience was not the horror and chaos in the moments that followed but of dedication and seeing the best of who we can be.  

 There are many specific moments that stick with me to this day; the family in a pickup truck from Ohio that pulled up in front of our post at 3am with piles of socks and boots, t-shirts and food; the cliche macho Fireman who after 48 hours on the pile looked me straight in the eye and collapsed in my arms as he dragged me to the ground sobbing after I simply smiled at him; the chaplains and clergy who toured the site and performed their sacred duty with compassion and respect; the camaraderie of sharing a 12th cup of coffee with fellow volunteers as the sun rose over NY; getting a lift up the West Side Highway to my apartment and the rows of cheering people and signs that lined the route; the restaurants below 14th street that stayed open for weeks round the clock to feed the volunteers; the massage therapist who smartly realized she would be needed and dragged her table downtown and seemingly never left; how the NY tech community, came together to provide much needed hardware and software  to help process the thousands of people who lined the Red Cross wanting to donate blood and volunteer.

There was a unique atmosphere in this hobbled together group of people from all walks of life, economic status, races and religions.  None of these people were seeking fame or glory - they simply showed up because there was work to be done.   

I realize now that these experiences and others down at Ground Zero informed many small and large choices I have made in my life.  In many ways the seeds of my passion around Tummeling and the Social Web were fueled during the days and months that followed.  Peter Merholz posted my initial thoughts on his blog [my first unofficial blog post]. I spent almost two years launching and running a community center in Lower Manhattan focused on revitalizing downtown using many new technologies to galvanize community, I worked on the first Personal Democracy Forum conference and I moved to San Francisco to join Six Apart.  Sure, I was interested in community and tech before but I had proof of the power of emergent communities and individual people to make a real difference and --well-- this faith has stuck.

Anniversaries exist for a reason, they provide us with milestones and opportunities to honor those who are gone and hopefully to find perspective.  On the Jewish calendar 9/11 comes out during the month of Elul. This month is set aside prior to the start of the Jewish New Year for reflection, accounting for the past twelve months and preparing for those coming. As I set aside time today to reflect on 9/11, I have mixed emotions as I do every year, I struggle with how best to think about my experiences; and 9/11 in general; am I overdramatizing or not acknowledging enough?  This year,  I now know that although my boots and hard hat are tucked away in a storage unit in Manhattan, I carry with me always the lessons I learned Downtown and I am blessed to have been given this gift of first hand knowledge of the best we can be as people.  I try to live from this place. 

Seven years of reflection

Once again, as I have for the past four years, I woke up incredibly early, my subconscious prepped for a quiet solitude of sunrise reflection. I exchanged my annual phone and text messages with my fellow volunteers as I have every year on September 11th and then went about my day. 

Eight years is an emotional eternity and yet a blip in historical perspective - the world moves on and the event is a now a political pawn. The experiences of those who lived through the day are shared privately vs publicly and perhaps that is as it should be. I am always saddened by America's lack of history and ability to commemorate the fallen in a unified way - something akin to Israel's moment of silence on memorial day.  Now, more than ever this missing moment highlights the festering wounds.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends who lost loved ones on that tragic day. They are the only ones who truly understand the cost of terrorism.

Some past reflections:

Six Years - and a lifetime

Four years later

Three years - view from the west

Day of: events of the day[from Peter Merholz's blog as my original post lost in the cloud]

[Photo credit: Absolutwade]

Six years and yet a lifetime

As has been the case for the last six years, the days leading up to September 11th bring with them both sadness and reflection.  September 5th is my father's Yahrzeit and the two events --both the personal and global--are forever linked in my mind.  Last night I sat in the Cincinnati airport on the final leg of a long three weeks of travel that included many airports and security checkpoints. As I routinely went through the security motions for the thousandth time, I realized that the sixth anniversary brings with it a dullness of the pain and emotions of the day. My heart will always skip a beat and my chest will always tighten when I see any images of that day, but the sharpness has faded.

September 11th 2001 has had a reverberating impact on my life in ways that I could never have surmised at the time.  I spent that evening (and the two months that followed) down at Ground Zero, the event also ushered in my connection to blogging when Peter posted my thoughts on his blog. And later that year I launched the Downtown Info Center to herald the rebuilding efforts Downtown. 

But it was my experience at Ground Zero that will always remain deeply ingrained in my psyche.  Although the events and images were horrifying, the  experience of volunteering was one I shall cherish always. The volunteers at Ground Zero demonstrated the best of humanity at the same time we had just witnessed the worst.  That sense of purpose and camaraderie across all races, religions and socio-economic divides is something I carry with me as a hopeful promise of what we are capable of as human beings.  I keep in touch with some of my fellow volunteers and we make sure to check in with each other each year as a touchstone of emotional understanding.  Unfortunately, as time passes the "spirit of Ground Zero" feels increasingly remote as our nation and the world recedes into fragmented corners viewed through myopic lenses.

As the saying goes, "time heals all wounds" and it is inevitable that we must (and should) move on and live our lives in the present and future, rather than in the past.  However, as the sixth anniversary comes and goes, I can't help feel sad for the potential that we lost, the opportunity to unite and rise above our differences.

As always, my thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends who lost loved ones on that tragic day.

Previous reflections:

Four years later

View from the west

Tribute in light

Events of the day

[Check out Anil's blog, for some of the most eloquent thoughts on 9/11]

September 11th - four years later

and a lifetime ago.  This is my second year away from 'the city' on 9/11 and once again, as I did last year,  I woke up spontaneously at around 5am PST.  It's as if my body has some internal clock on this particular day and yet I have no outlet for the emotions that seem to build up and bring me back to what I went through  for the days and months that followed.  This year was particularly difficult for me.  My father's 5th Yahrzeit (the Hebrew anniversary of his death) took place on September 9th - (the closest it has ever been to September 11th), and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath resonated deeply with me - another human tragedy of epic proportions.  As I helplessly watched the coverage on TV - the same generalized anxiety, helplessness, anger and frustration from four years ago started taking over.  This mood slowly built up during the course of the past week.  I was in a pretty rough mood, I bickered with friends and colleagues, and took work (my usual refuge) too seriously.  All in all I was not too pleasant to be around. Until, finally on Friday, I snapped and cried my eyes out during a nice Shabbat dinner with friends. 

It is truly amazing - I had tried to deny that this was what was happening until I could deny it no longer.  The conversation in my head went something like this  - "Geez Deb it's been four years since 9/11 and five since Dad, look at the Katrina victims, your experience was not so bad - get over it".  And then today, I gave myself a break.  Everyone responds to tragedy in different ways.  For whatever reason - I am wired to really really be affected by this stuff - I am pretty passionate about whatever I do and take a lot of it very seriously (working on that) - so rather than fight it, I have decided to embrace it.  I havent yet figured out how to practically commemorate this day,  so I planted some flowers, took a long walk and reflected on how lucky I am to have such an amazing Father, have a roof over my head, and have had the privilege to meet and work with amazing volunteers, firefighters and policemen.  I remembered those who died and said aprayer for Katrina victims and their family's.  Finally - I placed my annual called to Ernesto (my compatriot at Ground Zero) and we caught up on each other's lives and promised again to not let an entire year go by before we check in on each other again.

What I learned this year is that I need to learn how to accept that September will always be 'the cruelest month' for me.  It will always be a milestone against which I measure my life and my year as well as a mental check of whether I am living up to the promises I made myself. It is weighted and heavy with emotion but it also forces me to stop and be thankful.  And so I am.

 

 

Tribute in Light

Still gives me shivers. Thanks Ernesto - almost as good as being there.

September 11th - view from the West

I woke up excruciatingly early this morning—it’s as if my internal clock was pulling me back to New York. This is my first year being away from NY on September 11 – it is a bittersweet transition. Staring out into the tranquil pines of the Berkeley Hills – “The City” seems so very far away, and I simultaneously miss the cacophony and am content to commemorate from afar. CNN is maudlin and the US open is showing tennis clips—life goes on. I can hardly believe it has been three years. It feels like yesterday, it files like another lifetime ago. I have changed so much, NY and the world has changed even more. Innocence lost, lives lost, a constant dull drumming. My friend and colleague Anil Dash has also recently relocated from NY and he has very eloquently summed up my feelings. If you haven't lived through it - you never can truly understand it. Every year I see the faces of the people I connected and bonded with on the days and weeks following 9/11 and I relive some of the most difficult images, moments, and conversations from my volunteer stint. I wrote about it two days after the event and I re-read it every year.

September 11th will also always be linked to the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. At a time when I would have started to move forward and look ahead it yanked me back into that strange emotional limbo of loss and mourning. September has always been a month of change and renewal – Rosh Hashanah, a new school year, the smell of autumn in the air. Before 2000 it was a softly bittersweet month. Summer was over, but a new year was beginning. Now that soft transition is gone—it is a wrenching jarring reminder.

Only now, three years later – with perspective on both events, do I realize the deep impact this linkage has had on my life. My father was a man who believed in community first. He believed in doing the right thing and he demonstrated this daily. I dealt with my shock that day by volunteering at Ground Zero and although my intense daily volunteer work ended a few weeks later - I did not emotionally leave for months. I see now that in some strange way it was a way to stay connected to my father and climb out of the depression I felt after his death. I grew up twice on September 11th – no longer Daddy’s little girl, no longer an innocent protected American.

So, from across the country – I send each of you my thoughts and prayers. Take care of yourselves, I may be in California but my heart and soul is in NY.

From Ground Zero

These are my initial thoughts on the events of the day.  This was originally sent in the form of an email to a private list group.  At the time, Peter Merholz's asked me if it was ok to post it to his blog.  In some way, I consider this my first "unofficial blog post" and for that I will always be thankful to Peter.

Peter's intro:  

All week, I'd been too busy and scattered to think too deeply about the tragedy--other factors about my work and personal life (client demands, preparing for conferences, ending a romantic relationship, having two stranded Austinites staying in my house, etc.) left me little time for reflection. Yesterday morning was my first stretch of time alone since the hijackings, and the following email was sent to a small list I'm on. In it, Deborah Schultz relates her graveyard shift participation with the Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle team. The combination of simple human encounters over things like Cracker Jacks with the description of the enormity of the damage touched me deeply, and for the first time since the misery that befell us Tuesday morning, I cried. Deborah has given me permission to reprint it here.

My post:

I am one of the lucky few who has been able to channel my shock into action by being in the first group of Red Cross volunteers to be quickly trained and deployed. On Wednesday evening I worked with a great group of volunteers setting up one of the largest shelters for 70 displaced elderly. Last night I worked on the scene. Both events extremely emotionally impactful in different ways. Being on the scene, however is something truly indescribable.

I haven't processed anything yet, but after finally getting a good night sleep last night, I will give it a try. It somehow feels strange to write this all down, very ego-centric. But people have been asking me what it was like, so I am describing the scene not because I think I did anything special, but to let you all know what I saw and felt. Doc please feel free to post.

Last night (Thursday), I spent a 12 hour shift from 6PM - 6AM on a Red Cross ERV (Emergency Response Vehicle) with two other Red Cross team leads and 3 other regular folks like me. The ERVs are the red and white trucks that hand out supplies to the men and woman on the scene - the fireman, policeman and construction workers etc. Driving downtown in the van in the dark from the Upper West Side felt like a descent into Dante's Inferno. The further south we got the quieter and eerier it became, first checkpoint at 14th street, then below canal, then pulling up to the corner of Church and Duane. The smell was strong and memorable, bringing me back to a school fire I lived through when I was in fourth grade. 

All around us were national guardsman, army personnel, HUMVs, police, firefighters, con ed andconstruction workers and media vans. There was even a group of Franciscan friars walking the scene along with religious Jews helping to comb the wreckage for bodies. Most people where wearing masks of all types. Red Cross had told us to be prepared, but it is impossible to prepare someone for entering a war zone. I found it hard to get my bearings..nothing looks the same. The landmark I always used was gone. Only the street signs let me know where I was standing. The area was lit only by floodlights. There was white ash everywhere. It was surreal.

We parked the truck and set-up shop. Loaded with coffee, power bars, sandwiches, juice, water and treats, as well as t-shirts, socks, gloves etc. We opened our doors and turned on our lights and spread the word where we were parked. We had heard that the fireman need to be encouraged to eat. So rather than wait around for them to come to us, we loaded two boxes with supplies, put on our goggles and respirators and walked down the street. At first we went up to everyone asking them if they wanted anything. Often we used hand signals as the masks impeded speech. 

It is amazing how quickly you become sensitized to who is too tired or shocked and who can be approached. The men are exhausted and sometimes don't know what they want. So we tipped our boxes forward to show them what we had, and I watched the eyes of the individual workers to see if they registered interest. If I saw a flicker, I walked over and asked them if they wanted something. 
Surprisingly, the biggest hit was the box of Cracker Jacks and Oreos. Somehow the simple pleasure of a bag of cracker jacks brought smiles to the faces of these larger than life workers. We joked with a number of them and they always asked if there was a prize inside. Every single one of these men and woman thanked us for all our hard work. When we handed them food they put a large hand on our shoulders, looked us square in the eye and said a simple but impactful "thank-you". I was humbled. I answered over and over - "thank- YOU". One fireman, tired and cold, amazingly said to me, "We are paid for this, but you come here on your own". Can you believe these guys?!

A fellow volunteer and I walked one or two blocks further south. I stood on the corner of Church, by the Millennium Hotel/Century 21/Borders (the east-side of the WTC) and stared in disbelief at what I saw. The two dimensional photos cannot communicate the carnage. I couldn't tell which pile was what bldg. I won't waste words describing it.

Then the wind shifted and the precautionary Evac was sounded...everyone started jogging north...no time to think..we ran back up the block-- back to the safety of the van and we pulled back to a safer zone. Headquarters called and asked us to relieve another van, but by the time we got to the new spot another van had arrived, so we decided to ride around to find a spot that was not being well serviced. There are plenty of ERV's and Salvation Army vehicles in the center of things but we decided to find a corner a bit further away. We pulled up in front of a group of con ed workers and they swarmed us for supplies.

Suddenly there was a crack of lighting that lit up the sky..This electrical storm added even more to the surreal and other worldly nature of the scene. We turned around to look at the sky and were amazed by what we saw...the shadow formed by the smoke and remaining buildings etched a phantom WTC tower in the horizon. It was shockingly real looking. 

Then the sky opened and one of those torrential NY storms brought a deluge of rain. We took shelter in the van. Our first thought was that once the rain let up our coffee, socks, towels and t-shirts would be a big hit. We prepped. Once the rain subsided we found a new location on the corner of Greenwich and Duane. Greenwich is the main convoy route for trucks going down to the scene and back as well as the walking out route for a lot of the guys coming off duty to go back to their cars.
The rain started again and as we got the word out --cold shivering and wet workers swarmed our van. We handed out t-shirts, socks, underwear, gloves and lots of coffee and sandwiches. When we ran out of t-shirts we made scarves out of four pairs of socks and handed them to the men to prevent the pouring rain from running down their backs. We got our hands on a bunch of ponchos from another Red Cross van and handed those out to the inadequately dressed construction workers as well. 

The convoy drivers stuck in their trucks began backing up in front of us, so we ran down the convoy in the rain taking orders for coffee and food. The six of us got a system together and started collecting orders and delivering it down the line. Cold and wet the fireman arrived at our van, some of them looking dazed, some of them just tired. We smiled, we flirted and joked..."latte anyone, shot of bourbon, champagne?" A unit of firemen walked by us stoically carrying a body bag, we can only assume they were carrying out one of their own.

We continued like this till 6AM when we finally ran out of coffee. Then we packed up and headed back to headquarters. I exchange phone numbers with my new friends and we hugged and kissed as if we had known each other for years. I now have a small understanding of how my friends who have served in the army feel about the buddies in their unit. 

There are many scenes, and images and sights and smells that are engraved in my mind. I feel privileged and lucky to have been able to serve these brave men and women. I am touched to the soul by their courage and spirit.