Hello from London part II [View All]

[Plaid Adder]

Today I finally went to King's Cross station, which appears now to be where the bombers met once they got into the city. It's close enough to where I am that I could have gone earlier, but I put it off because I knew it would upset me, and it did. The Memorial Garden is basically a patio surrounding a tree that is fenced in with a railing; I don't know what they used it for before people started leaving the flowers there. There are now so many flowers, and so many cards, notes, flags, and letters, that they completely cover the patio, except for a path cleared by the staff they now have there maintaining it. In some places the flowers seem to be a couple feet deep. Even with the exhaust from all the traffic you notice the scent. Wide range of emotions on view in the notes, from "Our hearts go out to everyone who lost their lives" to "We will not be terrorized by these LOSERS." Several messages posted on the brick walls on behalf of Muslims and Islam, and messages from people representing different countries.

As soon as I got there I was basically trying not to let anyone else around notice that I was on the verge of crying. The worst moment, from that point of view, was when I saw the bouquet from the ambulance crew dedicated to "all those we could not save." I am apparently not the only one who has this reaction, though; one of the guards at the gate has a box of tissues always out and at the ready. There are signs up now asking people to refrain from smoking, etc., out of respect, and a separate sign that says, "Press must remain outside the railings."

Alongside the Boots that's integrated into the station they've set up a table where you can sign the book of remembrance. There was a long queue, and it moved slowly. Some guy who apparently hadn't read the 'press' sign, or maybe didn't think it applied to private citizens, was videotaping the whole performance. People sort of put up with it for a while, though I imagine nobody likes to be videotaped while they're about to lose it. Finally, when this guy actually leaned in over the shoulder of someone who was signing the book to get a close-up shot of the table, the security staff shooed him off.

While I was waiting I thought about what I was doing there. I never went to Ground Zero. I think I felt as if, since London was putting me up for a week at such a horrible time in its life, I should thank it somehow. But it's also at least partly because I know how destroyed I would be by losing my loved ones. I can't think about those families without having my throat close up. It was the same with 9/11 for a long time.

But then there is the fact, demonstrated all over the modern world, that when something like this happens we invent rituals because we just need them. Things like that memorial garden are not planned; they happen because people need something they can participate in, some way to act out their consciousness of being a part of the wounded world. It gives us a way to talk to each other, even if we still can't break down the social barriers. I can leave a message in a book, but I couldn't talk to the woman who came up to me in the queue while I was trying not to cry. There was so much traffic noise, and her voice was so soft, that with the accent on top of it I could barely make out one word in four. I think she thought I had lost someone, which embarrassed me; after the second time I said, "Sorry?" she left and went to the garden. Then again, she seemed a little out of it too; I don't know whether she heard me either.

It'll be a week tomorrow, and already they know a lot more about what happened than I would ever have expected. All those security cameras have finally come in handy. Last night's news was all about the possibility that the attackers may have been suicide bombers. Everyone else seemed to think this was very bad news. And I suppose it is, but at least if they did die in the attacks then these four individuals will not be blowing up anything else.

So, it is normal and not-normal here, on the same block and at the same time. It has even started raining, which makes it all that much more normal, and yet at the same time will go with the national mood tomorrow, when there will be a 2-minute silence at noon.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder