She grew up in the country, a little red-haired thing. Her family had deep roots in Missouri, her great, great, great, grandfather had trapped in the territory and married her great, great, great, grandmother, a Native-American. She was always told that her great, great grandmother was the first white child born in the county, even though she was obviously only half-Caucasian.

Her grandparents were farmers and slaughtered hogs each fall on the day after Thanksgiving, when the weather was cold enough that the fresh meat wouldn't spoil if left outside. Even the children were expected to work on slaughtering day. She and her cousin would join the women in a cramped wood shed to clean the hogs' guts so they could be used as sausage casings. They'd try not to gag from the smell as they scraped the slimy, white translucent organs with a butter knife. Later the casings would be filled with ground pork that her grandmother had tasted raw to make sure the spice was right. And she would watch as her aunts and great aunts would tie the sausages into small paired links with quick twists of their wrists.

She felt that the last few months had aged her a lot. At the beginning of the summer she thought she could pass for 26 or 27, but now she looked well past 30. Haggard.

She was mourning a lot these days, with the rest of the world. She dreamt of family gatherings where everyone was happy. She'd catch the eyes of her father, grandmother, and grandfather and think how wonderful it was they were all together. Then it would hit. They are dead now. All dead. And in the dream she would cry until she was sobbing uncontrollably.

She had gone to New York City last weekend, after a three-day visit to Philadelphia. In a Goya-esque dream, she saw a huge brown bat hanging from a dead tree. She was lying down, so she turned over onto her stomach and covered her head to protect herself, in case the bat flew off. She heard the bats screech, as its wings unfurled. She heard it approach. Suddenly a heaviness landed on top of her. Warm. Furry. The bat had settled on her back. She was horrified.

In real life, she visited PS 1 and took in the Janet Cardiff survey. She entered a room there that housed the work Forty-Part Motet. It was a room set up with a circle of 40 separate speakers. Each speaker played a recording of a single voice singing a haunting choral song (based on the music Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis). The forty voices sing in unison, but as she walked around she could hear each different part, as if the singers surrounded her. The music coursed through her, it was healing.

As the initial impact wore off, she noticed that there were groups of people already in the room. They were listening so intently, meditating, soaking up the power of the work. She watched as others entered for the first time. Their faces would change as they came in, like a burden lifting for a moment or a pleasant memory that had escaped them for sometime bringing a light to their faces. It was possibly one of the most powerful art experiences she had ever had.

"'The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.' --Samuel Beckett

My grandmother died early this morning."

"So should I tell you that here I sit waiting for the subway, three weeks from my last trip to NYC, but in a new New York with a reconfigured skyline? It looks old fashioned now--you really notice the buildings on the southern tip of the island without the World Trade Center drawing your eyes up. It's a beautiful skyline still, but I miss those damn towers.

The hardest part of the trip was going in through Staten Island. We got to Arthur Kill and you could tell the landfill was active again. I looked up to the top of the landfill--made from years of NYC rubbish--and there sat crushed cars and pieces of metal and a fire engine, red and smashed. Suddenly, it was fresh again. The sight of that red fire truck on top of the Kills made the whole attack real again. Kim and I were both silent for several minutes after that, even though we'd been talking about our love for NYC and our desire and need to move back home. It stopped when we saw the top of the Fresh Kills.

And then on the BQE an old man, my parents’ age, with a missing picture on his car of a young man, probably his son. The guy was beautiful and successful and had worked at Canton Fitzgerald. And I looked at the man to see if I could see the loss in him, because I've always wondered if people can see it in me, but I couldn't. He looked normal and everyday. It's possible that he did look older and more tired then he had before, but I wouldn't know that about him. And I wondered at how well our skin covers our pain.

I met Tats at Broadway and Houston and we went and had dim sun. Then we went and played a video game at a local arcade, then on up to Deitch Projects to see Michelle's show, then back downtown where I got closer then I wanted. There were signs at the Canal Street Post Office--pictures with young and healthy people who were missing, notes of best wishes, flags. Once you hit Canal Street things became noticeably strange. Everything was quiet and fairly empty. There were people doing everyday things, but there were too many police and the streets were cordoned off and there were trucks loaded with metal bars and tubes that looked remarkably unextraordinary. And then we'd turn the corner and find a firehouse with tons of people around with video cameras and signs. Sometimes while we were walking, Tats leading the way and me stumbling like in a bad dream, I'd lose by bearings because the towers weren't there--just sky instead.

And then Tats took me to J&R, which made me a little mad because I didn't want to go that close, but he was insisting. And it was so quiet. And there were lots of police around and the only vehicles were official cars, vans, and trucks and an occasional ambulance. And Tats told me he had a friend that lived two blocks away and wouldn't be allowed back in his apartment for at least another month. And then we hugged good-bye and as I went to get on the subway as tourist came out and asked which way was downtown and I said, "You are downtown." And he said, "I want to find Broadway." And I pointed in the right direction and he and his family went that way and I wondered what in the hell they expected to see.

And then I headed to Williamsburg. I met with Mark and Mike and I drank four beers, which is unlike me but I felt I needed them. What was I trying to wipe out? Everything, I guess. On the way back upstate I had a fit. It started out with being angry. I didn't want the towers to be down and so many lives affected. That new sliver of sky that you can see walking down Broadway came back to me and it hurt like hell. I realized that now millions of people were hurting as much as I did after Kelly's death and I got angry again over that because it is so painful and why should so many people be hurting so much? And then more raging and crying with only the explanation that our skin covers so much pain, until Kim tells me to get a hold of myself and stop."