Ground Zero

Started my first assignment today. The client was downtown in World Financial Center 2. This was also the coldest day this winter so far (12 degrees). I tried to sleep standing up on the E train from Queens after a fitful night of non-rest.

At the Chamber's street station, people streaming out of the subway stations converged with the PATH/NJ Transit commuters from across the river. At 8:50am, there was an intensity to this place that rivaled financial districts elsewhere.

There's one line I'll always remember from Henry David Thoreau's Walden: "The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation". This desperation was papable in the air - there was no joy in this teaming mass grinding their way to another week of cold and stress. And I found myself amongst them.

And yet in the center of these masses like ants circumambulating, there was this gaping, unnatural, negative space. As I rose out of the stairs, out of the subway at the Chambers street station, I was unprepared for the sheer scale of ground zero.

Out of our client's office, the large windows opened into a panoramic view of the WTC complex - and for the first time, I had a primal, ineffable experience of the message Al Quaeda has chosen to bestow upon this epicenter of world financial power. Throughout the day, when we would query our client about this source code or that legacy system, we'd invariably hear things along the lines of, "we lost that during 911. They told us it was backed up but it wasn't".

After work, on the way back to the subway, an african man with an african accent asked me, as he literally stood before ground zero, where the twin towers were. I pointed behind him and said, "There. Its all gone now". For a brief moment, the agony that was very local to the people of this city transcended cultures and oceans and this man wore a hollow, almost inconsolable look before moving on to pace the perimeter.

NY, gets cold

As I write right now, I'm listening to an album, to a song called "NY, gets cold" by a San Francisco band, For Stars. It brings back memories of my old life in northern california. You could say that in this New York winter, I'm California dreaming.

I went to a concert last night, an old friend who moved out here from San Francisco 2 years ago was performing. His band was called Bula Matari, which means "Breaker of Stones" in some african language. The E train line was cut midtown, I ended up running 30 minutes late and had a to take a cab for the last leg. My cab driver was from Sudan. Unsure what side he was on, I asked him what he thought about what was happening in Darfur. It turns out he was from there and his wife and children were still there. Friends, family, neighbors were suffering unfathomably there, he said in a matter of fact manner. I mentioned the Janjaweed, the government sponsored militia that was responsible for much of the burning of villages, murder and rape of civilians. I wonder how he made it to New York City.

The band was good, all old school hardcore punk. There was one song, called "I hate people", that in a joyous punk way, was very cathartic. I enjoyed the show, though hardcore punk is not my natural genre of preference. I was the only person there to see the band and the ride home was a nightmare and it took me 2 hours. Interesting enough, there was a strip club downstairs from the bandstage where the music was performed.

Today, I played music another friend from my old band. Unlike trying to write electronic music on my own, which is usually tedious and a bit like pulling teeth, the tunes just rolled off our guitars and in an hour we had a rough basis for 2-3 songs. There's something to be said for sitting in a chair, wintery cold outside, and just responding to what someone else is playing.

I started a new job 2 weeks ago. I was feeling restless and needed a little structure to my life eventhough I wasn't sure how long I'd stay in this city (and still don't). People at the office are nice enough but I can sense how things will get stressful, having to adjust to dealing with clients (unlike in the past, where I was mostly focused on building a product). Its never fun to deal with clients.

As my luck would have it, just after I took the offer over Xmas, literally a few days after, I was offered an opportunity to go back to Vietnam to do another volunteer project. And just last week, my volunteer organization wanted to know if I'd be interested in going to Casablanca, Morocco for another project. If I had just waited a litttle longer - my life would be different today. I could always quit now but I guess there's something to be said for making a decision and following it through, but I wonder if in this case, its foolish obstinacy vs. the courage to seize an opportunity. I guess on the bright side, some income would be nice after being away for almost 6 months.

I miss Asia still - as if I left a good part of me there, and a shadow of my self is here now, riding the subways to and fro, a ghost in New York City.