9/11 Memorial: The Sound of Healing

The design of the 9/11 Memorial is called "Reflecting Absence." The buildings are absent. So, too, are 2,983 human beings who found themselves at the WTC buildings, the Pentagon or on those three ill-fated flights that beautiful, awful day a decade ago.

What remains present is the cacophony of noise that combines into the dissonant first movement of a Lower Manhattan symphony.  It's layers of talking, jack hammering, singing and honking compressed with subways screeching, vendors selling, and sirens blaring. It's a soundtrack ebbs and flows throughout the 24-hours of each day, day after day, decade after decade. It's a bit like a radio station with John Cage as the music director.

On September 11, 2001, I imagined that Lower Manhattan's soundtrack had gone terribly off-key, starting with the roar of low-flying jetliners descending on the city's skyline and culminating with the screams of those who jumped and the crash of the Twin Towers.

So when I visited the 9/11 Memorial yesterday, I was under the misconception that the city's soundtrack had been paused at the very moment when the towers crashed yet the remaining screams had yet been vocalized. A memorial for the dead demanded, after all, requires respectful silence.

I was wrong. New York's soundtrack never paused. It simply developed by way of the strum und drang of 9/11 and the decade that followed.

Today, Lower Manhattan's soundtrack is in recapitulation. It's theme remains recognizable, taking into itself a new, refreshing sound layer - that of falling water. The reflecting pools that now occupy the footprints where the towers once stood provide a continual soothing of both the ears and the soul.

If you have the privilege of visiting the new 9/11 Memorial, take a moment to reflect upon that which is not absent. Close your eyes and feel the vibrations of the music pulsing through your ears. That is the music of recovery, rebuilding and forgiveness.

That is the sound of healing.