this too
Thursday, July 14, 2005
  Quiet


click on picture to enlarge

The Mayor called a demonstration at 6 pm in Trafalgar Square, for Londoners to express their sorrow, unity and resilience a week after the bombs. It was really quiet and gentle. No one pushed. I almost wanted someone to jostle me, to make me feel normal. Like when you think you must be iller than you know because everyone’s being so nice to you. The evening sun dazzled. White plane tracks across the blue sky. Ben Okri read a poem. “What are all these people here for?”, asked a bemused tourist coming out of the National Gallery.





 
Comments:
Thanks for posting this, Jean. The quietness comes through. I sense a little of the stunned silence there was at times here just after 9/11, the sense that there was nothing that could be said. (And altogether too much said since.)
 
Heartbreaking. Thanks for being there & for posting these pictures.
 
nice, cozy place you got here :)..
 
Leslee, I could not agree more.

Jean, you have done a wonderful job of bearing witness to these sad events in a way that words, words, words cannot.

I have not yet been able to write much or talk much about 9/11, and it is clear to me that the impact of the London bombings is comparable in widespread loss of a sense of safety and wholeness in the world. Be well.
 
Karen, I was reading your blog while you were posting that comment - sometimes I feel a spooky (in a good way) sense of connection! Thank you.
 
Thanks for those calm and genuine comments; reading them was like being on the edge of the crowd. It was more meaningful to me than the bombast and drama that came with a lot the news coverage I've seen.
 
Very nice pictures and sense of the moment. Thanks.
 
Like leslee, I too, was struck by the way the quietness comes through in these pictures. The first picture had an epic qaulity to it, too, like a painting, poised to keep the moment and its significance alive beyond time, as it were.

Thanks for posting these so that we can see from the viewpoint of a witness.
 
I'm so glad you posted these wonderful photos, Jean. I would have been there too but was holed up at home, nursing this virus. Your pictures are so much more real to me than anything that was shown on the news.
 
(o)
 
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