Last week a parent in our dying city drove her four babes into the freezing waters of the Hudson, one escaped.
In a past life, in the first minutes of the year 2000...full of hope for the millenium, I brought my babes to the same boat landing and set floating candles on the water. To make it a memorable evening for all of us, we brought a little boom box and played Loreena McKennit as we watched our candles float down the river.:
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
At the time the song was meant to create a touchstone for our little family, to a time when life seemed peaceful and significant. It was the turn of the century, before 9/11, before the wars, before the recession. There was something about being alive to see the new century.
On my way to and from work each morning there are a few views that lift my soul. One is of the Hudson from a crest that I travel over. The other is the waterfront view in Newburgh, with its glistening waters, or its morning fog.
I moved here in 1995, and bought into the idea that the city was on the edge of a Renaissance. As the years have passed, it has become more and more apparent that the city is systematically imploding. I have diaried about these issues at other times, and about my experiences with the embattled youth of this city.
This city, the people within it, including myself...we're all stuck at numb now. I imagine that is what much of our nation is right now...I don't know. The sirens don't matter, the signs don't matter. There is an ennui that we're all buying into. We're all kind of beyond shock anymore.
On the morning after the deaths I received a text message about a drowning tragedy from a parent I volunteer with. I drove to school and asked my colleagues, "Was it one of ours?" This year alone we have had the murder of two parents of our kids in our school. Arrests, fires, homelessness, negligence, abuse..our children experience these every day. I had not heard who the children were, but I had in mind four different families that it may have happened to. As it turns out the children were not from our school, but two others in the district. This, of course, made things no better. And still, we went about our day without much talk of it. The teachers went through motions, each of us with our own four or five families that are falling apart in our classes, each trying to hold onto our ideals about education.
But this isn't about teachers.
When you drive by the waterfront there are two odd traffic spaces in which the flow of traffic seems entirely interrupted by two stop signs. The first on my drive home forces a stop at the lucrative two blocks of waterfront. At this stop, if you peer to the east, you will see the expensive restaurants that people drive their cars or yachts to and from, avoiding the inner city. At the second stop , if you look a little south along the river you can see some industrial places creeping up with a smoke stack and the like. The very last restaurant before this area is a floating one that has been there for years, where locals can get a burger and a margarita at reasonable prices. It is here that a man we all assume is homeless appeals to passers-by, sometimes with a sign asking us to remember the homeless almost year round. It is only on the coldest days that he is not there for the most part. Although it was a pretty warm day, there was no sign of him.
At the river there were various white vans from television stations, and some balloons and people milling about. I knew there was a makeshift memorial happening there, but out of respect I could not go there, feeling it should be personal and for the family...although the media did not relent. Everytime I thought about the river I could not let go of the idea of the cold water. There are only so many layers of numb I can experience in a day.
The next morning, I drove to work again. As I often do, I was inventorying the state of affairs for my students, many at risk, mostly at risk. I hoped none would ask me about the drownings. I am not proud of this. I personally have no tools for this and the counselors are only afforded for the two schools in our district who experienced the loss. The grief counselors, well they're overloaded I think because they haven't had words either, like the Child Protective Services, like the teachers.
We say we can help, but at some point it is so large. People ask "Why?" and "Why not?" about this woman, about the services she did not receive, about the signs people did not react to. And yet, it is apparent on every corner of our city that things are not right and even moreso that we are doing nothing, nothing at all about it. We have some upstarts, some concerned citizens, some champions for the poor, but our system is too broken. The mayor said, "We're talking about a tragedy in this city that is second to none." I do not understand what he means by this. We are not talking about the tragedy. We are not talking about any tragedy, and there are so many around us, every day. Most people are numb, and some people are continuing to profit from the dysfunction. Every day I see a continued system of deflection. Mismanagment, negligence, and corruption have become so obvious to the inhabitants of this city that people barely muster the strength to look up anymore. The good will feel twangs of guilt, at best. The bad will continue to cover their tracks and justify their actions. And yes, I break it down that simply now. This is the place that we hide our sins in the streets.
It was a bright morning and I looked for the "homeless" guy at the corner again. I would like to say I was worried about him, but the truth is, there are so many things to worry about. I don't really know how this is happening to me. I can only explain that there is a separation from reality that falls. I had this feeling though, born more of cynicism than of concern, that I get now when things happen that I should notice.
For the very first time ever there was another man there cleaning up the street corner. There was raking of last fall's leaves in front of the old brick building. There was no evidence of the man's usual chair/trash/junk.
That afternoon, as I drove home again, I finally saw the man.
He was without his trash bag, box, or sign. He was dressed in clean khakis, with a button down shirt under a blue sweater.
There are tragedies every day and I do not know how the mayor, or why the mayor, has taken to ranking them. Perhaps that is the only response we have now. I don't know why our daily desperate man appeared in a new outfit on a cleaned up corner, or how much that had to do with the news vans in residence nearby.
The surviving son told the woman who stopped in the line of cars at the "lesser" stop sign that he wished he'd taught his baby brothers and sister to swim, that his mother said, "I made a mistake."
Everywhere there are people judging this family and analyzing their actions. I can't bring myself to do that. It is the thought of the cold water, and shock as a way of life here. It is because it is so huge that I cannot fathom the hopelessness around us. I offer no answers, just observations. I imagine this is how it happens, this is how societies fail. People lose their senses, lose their words, lose their will. Others fix appearances until we accept the veneer as a way of life, and learn to ignore the desperation. It is a weakness, setting in.
This city is haunted by the living.
Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Please remember me
"I'm so sorry everyone forgive me please for what I'm gonna do.... This Is It!!!!" http://www.cbsnews.com/...