The reason for living

It makes you re-think your life.  When someone you know dies, it makes you re-think your life. When someone has lived an exemplary life, it should make you question what you will do with your time left. I don't think it matters how young or old you are when confronted with this, except that it's more pressing if you are older.

How much time do you have to make a difference in the lives of your family and friends, and the strangers you encounter in your neighborhood or the ones you never see who are in need of help? It's not about how you'll be remembered after dying, but what you think of yourself before that happens.

I heard the most intensely beautiful remembrances of someone today. Two took my breath away and the others were so deeply personal they painted a complete picture of a person. The solid values his parents instilled, the importance of education and philanthropy in his life, and the career that was golden.

But what took my breath away were the touching examples of him as a husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend. I kept wondering how my life measures up to the passion, thoughtfulness, kindness and care he showed for people. And I came away knowing this will make me re-think my life.

I remember...

It's four days until the 10th anniversary of the day it all changed. Ten years can feel like such a long time ago, but in a moment I can be brought back to that morning.

I can remember every moment of the day and the days to follow.

I remember...dropping Zach at day two of kindergarten.
I remember...walking down Park Avenue to work and thinking the sky never looked this blue.
I remember...my friend Tanya calling to tell me the Trade Center had been hit by a plane.
I remember...not having a radio or CNN newsfeed, and only wanting to watch the Today Show.
I remember...Tanya calling back, now screaming the other Tower was hit by another plane.

I remember...being happy that I hadn't gotten the job at One World Trade Center the year before.

I remember...stepping outside to smoke a cigarette and someone yelled, "the Pentagon has been hit."
I remember...deciding to pick Zach up from school and us going home to be safe.
I remember...being glued to CNN, as Zach watched cartoons in the other room.
I remember...my breath being taken away as the first Tower fell.
I remember...Zach's school receiving bomb threats.
I remember...feeling so anxious of what was going to happen next and when.
I remember...the wind changing, and the smell of downtown lingering on my terrace.
I remember...how I couldn't stop crying and still today cannot think about that day without crying.
I remember...watching this video over and over and feeling unimaginably sad.

But what I want to remember, is the kindness and good I saw in the people of New York. 

In memory everything seems to happen to music.*

I know I'm a creature of habit. As much as a new something or someone can be exciting, I find so much comfort in things and people I've known for a long time. I've worn the same perfume for 20 years...Annick Goutal's Gardenia Passion, and before that either Bal a Versailles or Lumiere. And every now and then, a little Jo Malone thrown in.

Stay with me. I'm bringing up these perfumes, not to show you how limited I am, but because in looking for something this weekend, I stumbled upon an unopened bottle of Lumiere. I sprayed it on and was immediately taken back to my 20s, on a plane to Paris and smelling this fragrance for the first time. It amazes me how scents and sounds produce such vivid memories.

Making out to The Who's Tommy or Jeff Beck's Blow by Blow...if I hear a song now from either, I'm brought right back to high school. I still get why Jeff Beck, but for the life of me cannot figure out why anyone would want to make out to Tommy. Pinball Wizard... maybe we skipped that one. Or, maybe it sounded different back then.

This Labor Day weekend was going to be mine alone, and even maybe a closet or two would get organized. It turned into one of book reading, TV watching and walking Lucy. I think I may have glanced in a closet and thought that it really didn't look so bad after all. I finally read The Help and watched several old movies. By old I mean the 80s. By the 80s I mean the ones with great music. You remember those.

Even though I'm trying to break myself of routines and glamorizing the past, the truth is I feel safe with what I know. But with fall right around the corner, I feel changes coming.

* Tennessee Williams