Flight 1407 - 12/08/2002

Written on Flight 1407: returning to Oakland from NYC. 12/8/02

There are two ways to enter a new world: Either to be terrified or to decide to be eaten whole and to become enlivened by it. To be moved and changed and to see and feel things that one would never have guessed or even imagined. To be thrown, hurled, tossed, turned inside out and yet never feel that it is not pleasant.

This is the transformation that began in New York for me. To think that a boy who had always thought that he would have to return to the country to find safety and community and instead realizing that I had found in a city of 8 million strangers, all of whom are my brothers and sisters, as well as my cousins, my mother, my father, my grandmother, and my grandfather.

This is what I’ve found to be me:

Upon arriving I was filled with a slight apprehension. “New Yorkers are rude and in a hurry.” I could not have found this to be further from the truth. Strangers immediately helped me find my way and were gracious about it even though it was a Friday night and they were obviously on their way to something important in their own life. The open smiles, the many languages, the unlimited races and cultures all living in one place. It was both perfect and peaceful. It is hard to explain gracefully what New York means to me. Suffice it to say that I cried almost everyday because of the beauty, the love and the unbeatable spirit of the people who had been through such horrid times.

I have traveled to many places and have never felt the love that I felt in New York except one place: Hiroshima, Japan. It is my belief that the people of these two cities experienced the worst humanity can do and decided that love and kindness can stop it from happening again.

In New York, I saw the play “Our Town.” It is about a town much like Healdsburg, my hometown. The play is about a small place where nothing happens except life and how each second of it is important: birth, marriage, death. Everything passes quickly and if you don’t make the most out of each second, you miss life. Three seats from me Christopher Reeves sat in his wheelchair. I could not imagine what he must have been thinking after being on top of the world and then having that taken away. However, he, like New York and Hiroshima and hopefully each one of us, sees at that moment, that, no matter how simple and basic what we are doing right now is, it is of the utmost importance. My eyes well with tears as I tell you this and hope you understand what you all mean to me.

Love,

Aram