last week i finally returned to Ground Zero for the first time in more than 25 years. it was difficult & the constant use of selfie sticks made the visit to the museum harder because of the lack of respect people showed. i remember the day as clear as any other day. i remember the shock that turned into sadness.
the museum is beautifully done, & the memorial room is quiet filled with sadness & compassion.

NYC is not what i remember-it was commercial & where the galleries used to be on every street corner has given way to designers & Starbucks. sad. how i used to love downtown NYC. & now that part of the city is gone. forever homogenized.

the same with with New Haven where i went to college-Apple is there & where i would have lively conversations with my graduate friends has turned into a clothing retailer. it’s sad how corporate environments destroy neighborhoods. making them unfamiliar & weird. i miss the simple independent places. i was relieved that Claire’s was still on the same corner as i remember & the food was just as a good.

i walked for miles in my parents town-sad at all the changes. i bought local when i was there & made sure to spend money in the businesses that were still around. i have an old picture of myself on top of the world trade center, forever grateful that i got to experience it. much like old Soho. cemented in my memory of what downtown was.

the UCI championship came to Bergen & i was lucky enough to volunteer for it. which was a blessing & a curse. on one side i got to meet the PM of Norway on the other i was lucky if i got to go to the bathroom more than twice in one day.

i think the take away was that they didn’t have enough of us volunteers so we where stretched pretty thin for the duration of the week. something that was sad because the people that i worked under where also over-worked & tired.

the dress code confused me, for the week i got a jacket(great!) & ONE t-shirt & a bulky backpack that was hard to manuever with when i was dealing with the public. the t-shirt was great but they where unclear what we could wear as a bottom piece, jeans where okay but for the duration of the week i wore hiking pants that where black.

we where given radio’s but no one but the main people used them us small people communicated by cell phone to our boss by text or voice. we got complaints & people where for the most part good both to us & the other volunteers.

i think for me what would have made it better was if we volunteers got actual silver wear & real plates after 9-12 hours worth of work instead of paper plates & fancy slop. i was not impressed with our food choices or how it was served. so i ate at home & brought my lunch when i worked out in the field.

the streets have been re-opened & there is an exhaustion in the city but i am proud of the work i did it was the second big sporting event i did after the 94 Olympics. this was pretty epic.

i was thinking about that today. how people have to listen to music or the radio when outside. i listened to the leaves rustling today & it was wonderful sign of Fall. the steps of people walking around the city, the different accents & countries gathered for the championship here in Bergen. i can’t write much more because we have a social media black out for the next week.

i have come to enjoy silence even though it took me many years to do so. but when i have to get somewhere i listen to music. when i have the time i just enjoy listening to what’s happening.

silence is something i got used to when i was alone for 4 months. in the beginning it was uncomfortable like an itch i couldn’t scratch but in the end i liked it & got used to it. i enjoy hiking in the woods & mountains listening to the trees or the sound of my boots hitting the ground. it’s my version of a church.

see ya’ll on the flipside after the 24th.