Jessica DuLong, SAVED AT THE SEAWALL: Stories from the September 11 Boat Lift
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:06]I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology,
[0:12]which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to Accarantine Anthology.
[0:16]I'll proceed to that book, go to COVID-19 Vaccine Research.
[0:20]And I'm the editor-in-chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write, a new publication on Medium,
[0:24]and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there.
[0:29]And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram, at Zivi Owens, and my website is Zivi Owens.com.
[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:37]Jessica D'Long is the author of Saved at the Seable Stories from the September 11th boat lift.
[0:43]And let me just say right away that we are doing this episode, releasing it on 9-11.
[0:48]We recorded it just a few days ahead of time, and for those of you listening,
[0:52]my thoughts are with you, and I'm going through this at the same time.
[0:56]I lost my very best friend and college roommate, Stacey Sanders, and 9-11.
[1:00]And I think about her every single day.
[1:02]And that event, for me, not only changed my city and country,
[1:06]but my own personal life and sort of approach to living,
[1:10]I was 25 and realized at a very young age that life was not permanent,
[1:14]that every day and every minute was a gift and could be snatched away momentarily.
[1:19]And so I changed the way I live.
[1:23]And I don't know, this day is incredibly emotional for me and meaningful.
[1:27]And I was honored to get to talk to Jessica D'Long about her experience.
[1:31]And if you're listening to this on 9-11,
[1:34]I'm doing a bunch of Instagram lives throughout the day with different authors.
[1:37]So I hope that you start by listening to this podcast in full,
[1:41]because it's amazing and moving and really important in so many ways.
[1:46]And then you can check out Zivi Owens on Instagram for the other Instagram lives I'm doing.
[1:52]And I will be thinking of all of you today
[1:57]and hoping that we all turn a new page.
[2:00]And I don't know, there are no words.
[2:02]But anyway, okay, back to her bio.
[2:04]So Jessica D'Long is a Brooklyn-based A-S-J-A award-winning author,
[2:09]journalist, historian, ghostwriter,
[2:11]political collaborator, proposal doctor, editor, and writing coach.
[2:14]She's collaborated on a wide array of narrative and other nonfiction books,
[2:18]including memoir, history, trauma, psychology, and neuroscience,
[2:22]health and wellness, racism, equity, and justice,
[2:24]gender, parenting, law, and personal finance.
[2:26]I mean, what hasn't she done?
[2:28]She's taught writing with voices from war and the second street writers workshop.
[2:32]Her first book, My River Chronicles, Rediscovering the work that built America,
[2:36]a personal and historical journey, explores the value of hands-on work through memoir,
[2:41]history, and reportage.
[2:43]Her journalism has been published by CNN.com, Newsweek, International Rolling Stones,
[2:48]Ecology Today, New York History, Half Post, News Day, Parenting, Cosmo Girl,
[2:53]and Today's Machining World.
[2:55]Her media appearances include Spike Lee's forthcoming HBO,
[2:58]Multi-Part Documentary, and YC epicenters 911 to 2021 and a half,
[3:04]which I can't decide if I can handle watching or not.
[3:07]The Today Show of CBS Sunday Morning, USA Today, History Channel,
[3:10]New York One, WNYC, Martha Stewart.
[3:13]She also appears as Jessica, who stands at the controls
[3:16]in the noisy engine room in Myra Coleman's picture book, Fireboat,
[3:20]the heroic adventures of the John J. Harvey.
[3:23]I'm actually interviewing Myra Coleman soon for this podcast,
[3:26]so I'll talk to her about that, too.
[3:28]Jessica is a D-O-N-A certified postpartum doula,
[3:31]and a USCG licensed marine engineer who served aboard retired 1931,
[3:38]NYC Fireboat John J. Harvey for 20 years, 11 of those as Chief.
[3:43]And my guess is she is the only person in the world
[3:46]who was also a doula and a marine engineer, but I don't know.
[3:50]That's just my two cents.
[3:52]Okay, listen to this episode.
[3:53]I really hope you get something out of it.
[3:56]I find it to be incredibly important,
[3:58]and this book should be considered a crucial part of history
[4:02]and should be assigned everywhere far and wide.
[4:05]Welcome, Jessica.
[4:05]Thank you so much for coming on Moms.
[4:07]Don't have time to read books to discuss saved
[4:10]at the seawall stories from the September 11th boat lift.
[4:14]Thank you so much for having me such an honor.
[4:17]And I know we're recording this ahead of time,
[4:19]but this will be airing on the 20th anniversary of 9-11,
[4:22]which is such an emotional day for so many people
[4:25]and for the country and everything else.
[4:26]So thank you for being the voice and bringing the stories to us from that time
[4:32]so that people can adequately sort of mourn and connect to the day
[4:36]through this conversation.
[4:39]This book, I mean, I did not know.
[4:42]I feel like I've learned a lot about 9-11.
[4:44]I lost my best friend that day.
[4:46]I've spent a lot of time watching footage and, you know,
[4:50]I've been down that rabbit hole many times,
[4:52]and yet I had never learned the things that you described.
[4:56]And I didn't even realize this whole scope of the rescue,
[4:59]and I'd always wondered what had gone on down there that day in this detail.
[5:03]So I am so grateful for this story
[5:07]and for the answers to some of the questions I had.
[5:10]So I just wanted to say personally thank you for all of your reporting
[5:14]and the amazing stories you love in here and detail and facts and everything.
[5:20]So I'm just personally super grateful.
[5:22]That really means the world to me.
[5:24]I just, it's so interesting to be to live in a city that supports city
[5:28]that grew up around its ports and so little information.
[5:32]So many of us have about what's going on in the water.
[5:35]And so yeah, you're not alone.
[5:38]So many people are hearing about this for the first time,
[5:41]every time, you know, something new comes out.
[5:43]And it's just tremendously remarkable history
[5:45]and I'm so so honored to be able to share it with the world in this way.
[5:49]And I'm so sorry to hear about your fact.
[5:51]Thank you.
[5:52]Tell listeners a little about this point of view
[5:57]why you're such an expert in the Serena
[5:59]and this story, you know, in general of the seaport
[6:03]and what made it so critical that day.
[6:06]Maybe for people who don't live in New York City or whatever.
[6:09]Yeah, well, even if you lived in New York City,
[6:11]very often people forget that Manhattan is an island.
[6:14]And the fact that Manhattan is an island played such a huge role
[6:17]in the outcomes for so many individuals that day.
[6:20]I think a piece of the history that ends up being really relevant
[6:25]throughout the story and really had critical life or death impacts on people
[6:30]is that this was a port city.
[6:33]And so New York City grew up around its waterways.
[6:35]We used to have along the Western Shore of Manhattan
[6:38]all these fingerprints that were like stretched along the seawall
[6:43]that pointed out and it created 76 miles of usable frontage.
[6:47]That's now basically vanished at this point.
[6:50]And so much of that had already been dismantled on September 11th in 2001.
[6:56]And that actually that the lack of facilities
[7:00]for large boats to be able to load passenger safely
[7:04]to be able to tie up along the seawall to provide firefighting water.
[7:07]All of that has really played a huge role in what happened that day.
[7:11]And the fact that the boat lived was so tremendously successful,
[7:14]which it was, was in spite of many of the obstacles infrastructure-wise.
[7:20]So I think that's important for people to realize.
[7:23]For me, I came to this book and this story very reluctantly, to be perfectly honest.
[7:29]I had served at Ground Zero working aboard,
[7:32]as a marine engineer working aboard Fireboat John Jay Harvey,
[7:35]which is a retired 1931 New York City Fireboat
[7:39]that was called back into service,
[7:40]out of retirement, back into service, to pump water.
[7:43]So Fireboat John Jay Harvey was called back into service
[7:46]to pump water at Ground Zero because when the towers collapsed,
[7:50]all the hydrants were buried and the water mains broke,
[7:54]which meant that the only firefighting water that was available for days after the attacks
[8:00]was provided by fireboats, active duty,
[8:03]and retired Fireboat John Jay Harvey, it was river water.
[8:07]And there's this amazing story that the person responsible for calling
[8:12]John Jay Harvey back into service as a friend of mine, Tommy White.
[8:15]He was then lieutenant since retired FTNY captain.
[8:19]And he actually is the one who put out the call and said,
[8:23]hey, Harvey, can you pump and come back?
[8:25]Drop out those passengers and come back.
[8:28]And he told me the story about firefighters
[8:31]doing a typical thing that's so
[8:33]to be induced, clouded, right?
[8:35]And so people are firefighters.
[8:37]They're trying to use the water from the hose lines to wash their faces.
[8:41]And they didn't expect that it was going to be salt water from the river.
[8:45]And so just that incongruence is just really interesting to think about.
[8:51]So that's how I came to this story or that's the reluctance
[8:56]that I brought to the story, which is basically that I have my own psychological fallout
[9:01]from service at ground zero.
[9:03]And I was very reluctant to immerse myself in the stories they needed to be told.
[9:10]And what eventually overshadowed that was that I realized that I had a responsibility
[9:17]as a mariner, as a writer, a journalist, and someone who could speak both languages,
[9:22]you know, vote and layperson to collect this history because 10 years ago I and no one had
[9:28]collected it. And I felt the responsibility to bear witness and to do my very best to get the
[9:35]story out there. And it has been a very, very long slog and two decades in this material is
[9:42]too long. And I'm really hoping that this is the anniversary where I can
[9:46]start to let some of it go.
[9:47]Well, I'm sorry. I'm making you'd like talk about it again.
[9:50]But I know it's very much on your mind right now. And you know, this new narrative, if you will,
[9:55]about such a worldwide phenomenon is such an interesting way.
[10:00]I have to sort of sail into it, if you will, right?
[10:03]For these for this time.
[10:05]Can you tell me a little more about your own experience?
[10:09]And you don't have to go into like the nitty gritty
[10:11]of all of it, but you craft the whole, not craft,
[10:16]but you bring in so many different individual stories
[10:20]and you make it like a chronological, like through the day.
[10:23]Here's what this person is doing.
[10:24]Here's what's happening on this boat.
[10:26]Here's this guy on the turning around at 995.
[10:29]And here's this nanny in a townhouse
[10:31]with holding her baby running.
[10:33]And here's like, right, so we see it
[10:35]through all these different points of views
[10:37]around the city, in on the water and all around.
[10:41]So bring in your own experience now to it, like for that day
[10:46]and maybe the next day and when you got involved yourself.
[10:51]So I got involved myself at ground zero on the 12th.
[10:55]So what it happened was I was very brand new
[10:57]as an engineer.
[10:59]I had only been doing this job for six months.
[11:02]And I didn't have the same inclination
[11:04]that most mariners had, which was connecting the dots
[11:08]immediately that they had a unique skill set
[11:12]and a unique equipment that could be called into service
[11:15]that day.
[11:16]And in fact, I was actually also informed by this now
[11:20]about the story that the new purchasers of the fire boat
[11:25]which was purchased at a scrap auction.
[11:27]None of these folks were firefighters.
[11:29]They're subsequently where many volunteer firefighters
[11:32]or firefighters who worked in other areas
[11:35]with the exception of our beloved pilot
[11:37]who's no longer with us, Bob Lenny,
[11:39]who had served aboard the boat as its pilot
[11:42]for many, many, many years.
[11:44]And then she retired and he retired
[11:46]and then they came back together in their retirement.
[11:48]And so what this is all he means to say
[11:52]is that we had no business being at a fire
[11:55]and we were informed very clearly just right before this happened
[12:01]and was somebody made a passing joke about, you know,
[12:03]hey, and if you ever need our help kind of thing
[12:05]and the FDA and why it was just like to be clear,
[12:09]you are not to be anywhere near anything like this.
[12:11]And so what that meant was I was trapped in Brooklyn
[12:15]and I was wandering around trying to donate blood
[12:18]trying to, you know, looking at people,
[12:20]building stretchers and wanting to help with that
[12:22]and stuck on the wrong side of the island.
[12:25]And the next morning when I finally reached one
[12:28]of my crew members on the boat and I said,
[12:30]where are you?
[12:31]And he said, where do you think we are?
[12:32]And I said, how do I get there?
[12:33]And so I, pilot Bob Lenny had also arrived on the 12th
[12:39]and he had just come over via the Brooklyn Navy Yard
[12:43]where that's the FDA and why marine division headquarters.
[12:46]And so I was able to catch a boat and head over and be there.
[12:50]And I'll never forget the experience of rounding the tip
[12:55]of Manhattan and as you probably recall,
[12:57]the wind, the way that the wind was blowing for kind of some days
[13:01]was straight towards Brooklyn.
[13:03]And so just the visual of that column of smoke rising up
[13:09]and coming around the tip of Manhattan
[13:12]and wearing this PFD, this life jacket
[13:14]that was like adjusted for somebody much bigger than me.
[13:17]And you know, I'm 5'5",
[13:18]and you know, did not take up that much space.
[13:22]And this thing is just flapping in the breeze
[13:23]and I just felt like it was such an apt metaphor
[13:28]for how I felt, which was just completely ill-equipped
[13:31]and not big enough for this, not big enough.
[13:33]And just knowing that everything was going to change immediately,
[13:35]there was no going back.
[13:37]And then being there, I just, there was no place in the world.
[13:40]I wanted to be more.
[13:41]I just, it was such an honor to be able to be there
[13:45]and to help do this job of coming to water.
[13:48]And, you know, and it took its toll as well.
[13:52]How have you coped with that?
[13:53]Like, what have you done that's helped?
[13:56]All kinds of things that have helped and not helped.
[13:59]I wish I had better answers.
[14:01]And in fact, I think that's part of why
[14:02]as a journalist, I write all of these stories
[14:04]about grief and trauma.
[14:05]And as a book collaborator,
[14:07]I helped lots of people with memoirs and other books
[14:10]that have to deal with trauma.
[14:12]And I've learned, I've decided that in my next life,
[14:14]I'm going to be a neuroscientist
[14:15]because I find that really, really fascinating.
[14:17]And so there's definitely not time in this life.
[14:20]But I try to learn as much as I can
[14:23]about how this actually works.
[14:25]And I'm really interested in remembering,
[14:28]reminding myself and sharing more with the world
[14:31]about the fact that these are physiological responses,
[14:35]that it's not like someone is choosing to have PTSD
[14:38]or choosing to have, it's not a weakness.
[14:42]It's literally something that lodges in your body.
[14:44]And so then it's about management.
[14:46]Like, how do you manage it?
[14:48]And so I think there are a lot of good options out there.
[14:51]And as I'm writing about it a lot for CNN.com,
[14:53]people can actually go to my website
[14:55]and find tools that I try to say that I'm using.
[14:59]But they're out there.
[15:01]And hopefully others will be better than I am
[15:03]at actually putting into play.
[15:04]But honestly, mindfulness practice is hugely,
[15:07]hugely, hugely helpful for me.
[15:10]And I feel like mindfulness, to me,
[15:13]means just like refusing to think past,
[15:16]much past the moment.
[15:18]I don't know if that's even really what it is.
[15:19]It's like just like keep looking down, right?
[15:23]Like, keep looking, like I start to worry.
[15:24]And I'm like, I can't go there.
[15:26]And I have to stay here.
[15:28]Like, I'm gonna keep looking down
[15:29]and like get through this day and get through
[15:31]what I have to do next.
[15:32]And not what I have to do.
[15:34]Not like what might happen in the next five years
[15:36]or six months or whatever else.
[15:38]I don't know.
[15:39]Oh, I mean, that's really valid.
[15:40]And in fact, one of the very core,
[15:43]and it's almost throughout any modality of treatment,
[15:46]one of the very first steps when you're spiraling
[15:49]into some kind of trauma or worry or panic
[15:52]or anxiety is to feel your feet on the ground.
[15:55]Yes.
[15:56]And so that's a very grounded approach.
[15:58]You're spot on.
[15:59]You're doing good.
[16:00]Thanks.
[16:02]Well, I didn't have, you know,
[16:04]that was not my experience during that time
[16:06]of 9-11.
[16:07]I was at business school.
[16:08]I had just left and I had lived with my friend Stacey
[16:10]on and off for seven years.
[16:12]And she was in the north tower right on the 93rd floor.
[16:15]So I like to believe that she was there
[16:17]and didn't know what happened.
[16:19]But I actually have no idea.
[16:20]And this media my spoke to once said that that wasn't the case
[16:23]and that actually she was with a colleague on a staircase.
[16:26]So I don't know what to believe.
[16:29]But I, they had said don't travel or all that stuff.
[16:33]So I was in Boston waiting for everything,
[16:35]like watching on the news and talking to all our friends
[16:38]back home.
[16:39]And I went to class the next morning
[16:42]and the teacher said, you know,
[16:44]if anybody needs to leave, we understand.
[16:46]And I was like, I have to get out of here.
[16:48]Like I can't do this.
[16:49]And I got in my car and I was the only one on 95 driving
[16:53]from whatever the roads, you know,
[16:55]from Boston all the way.
[16:56]I stopped at my friend Stacey's family's home
[16:59]and saw her parents.
[17:00]And then I was like, I'm going to try to find her, right?
[17:02]Because remember everybody's trying to find everybody.
[17:04]So I was still sure, like she was wandering around
[17:07]with him, Niger, or something like in a movie.
[17:09]But I remember just how eerie it was driving.
[17:12]Nobody on any of the roads and like hoping that I would be
[17:15]allowed in the city and like, you know,
[17:17]driving down to Lower Manhattan
[17:19]and getting stopped everywhere and passing tanks
[17:22]and just craziness.
[17:23]So I remembered that September 12th in the city very well
[17:27]and all the days after and just the loss.
[17:30]And you know, I feel like at the time
[17:32]I coped mostly by crying and eating and not good stuff.
[17:38]But, you know, for me, it was crying is good.
[17:41]Crying is good.
[17:42]Eating, you know, whatever, you know.
[17:44]But for me, it changed my entire life.
[17:47]And I feel like it has for you.
[17:48]I mean, I'm looking at like the work that you have done
[17:52]on this is monumental, truly.
[17:54]I mean, you are historian.
[17:55]And you deserve some sort of like prize.
[17:59]I don't know what those prizes are.
[18:01]necessarily, but this reporting is really amazing.
[18:05]And I feel like this should be on everybody's shelf.
[18:08]Like this is like serious reporting here.
[18:10]So, oh my gosh, it's like, you know,
[18:13]the show of 9-11 essentially, right?
[18:16]This collection of stories.
[18:18]Anyway, I'm rambling.
[18:19]But anyway, I just found that whole, you know,
[18:22]personally for the city, for the country, you know,
[18:26]as a New Yorker, as everything.
[18:29]You know, I have lived my life completely differently
[18:31]as a result of this.
[18:33]And, you know, sometimes I wonder what like, you know,
[18:36]the sliding doors of it all, you know,
[18:38]where what would have happened to everybody, you know,
[18:41]not just me, but anyway.
[18:42]No, I'm right there with you.
[18:43]And definitely there was a turning point
[18:46]where, as you say, the sliding doors,
[18:48]it's like their doors that just closed
[18:49]and doors that opened that would not have happened otherwise.
[18:53]And you know, it's I'm not, you know, a policy wonk
[18:56]and I don't have that depth of knowledge,
[18:58]but it's really interesting to me to see the analysis
[19:01]by people who really are informed about that.
[19:03]And just to see all of the changes that have happened.
[19:06]And just on a more, I mean, I'm thinking like, you know,
[19:09]global political scale, but I think it was a somebody tweeted
[19:13]who I think was in, was really young when it happened.
[19:17]And it just, it's something that really stayed with me.
[19:19]And I probably should have saved it, right?
[19:20]And so I could call it up, call it back again.
[19:22]But it was something to be the extent of,
[19:25]I was, I think she was three on that day.
[19:28]And she said, it never, never occurred to me
[19:30]about the shoes of the airport that any of this was new
[19:33]or like, so just think about all the talk about doors
[19:36]that closed, like all of the sort of freedoms
[19:39]that we took for granted in this country,
[19:41]that those doors just closed.
[19:42]And it was like on a temporary basis
[19:44]and they never reopened.
[19:46]And so I think it's, there are so many reasons
[19:50]why this history is important.
[19:52]And, you know, I could rattle on and on and on,
[19:55]but one of them is just so that we have the power of hindsight
[19:59]to see what...
[20:00]where things began, like how did this trajectory take place?
[20:04]How did it happen?
[20:05]And really, it's important to me to mention
[20:08]that one of the most just crystallized powerful pieces
[20:13]of this of spending this time with this material
[20:15]on all of this reporting and crying with my sources
[20:19]as they walk through their most harrowing days.
[20:22]Over and over again is first,
[20:24]I've gratitude that they shared their stories with me.
[20:26]And some of them told the story in its entirety
[20:29]for the first time when we were having these conversations.
[20:32]And they did so.
[20:33]I think out of that same obligation that I felt,
[20:35]which is feeling the need to bear witness to history
[20:39]and to make sure that this history isn't forgotten.
[20:42]And particularly at this time in our country
[20:44]where there's such a powerful reckoning that's happening,
[20:48]where we are reevaluating and drawing new attention
[20:51]and having new lenses on old history
[20:54]that we've been taught over and over again.
[20:56]And there is such brutality at the heart
[21:00]of the founding of our nation.
[21:01]That is absolutely true.
[21:04]And this is a piece of our heritage that we also have.
[21:09]And we need to keep that in mind.
[21:11]I mean, what you have is you have more than 800 mariners
[21:16]all spontaneously rising up to say,
[21:19]okay, people need help.
[21:21]There are people stacked handy
[21:23]along the sea walls of Manhattan,
[21:25]depending on which moment it was in time,
[21:27]they're discovered, they're injured, burned,
[21:30]clothing melted onto their bodies.
[21:32]I mean, just horrific situations.
[21:34]And these mariners went, got people onto their boats
[21:38]in ways that are not standard at all.
[21:41]People climbing fendering like ladders
[21:43]that were horizontal because that's the way
[21:44]they could bridge the gap.
[21:46]I mean, all of these details that I recount.
[21:48]And the thing that is just so overwhelming
[21:51]every time I think about it,
[21:52]it's just moving all over again,
[21:54]even though I've had to sort of consciously numb myself out
[21:57]to do this work.
[21:59]When I picture that these mariners went over,
[22:03]loaded their boats up, overloaded beyond like
[22:05]beyond Coast Guard regulations,
[22:07]bringing on injured people, triaging them,
[22:10]giving them first aid, whatever they needed to do,
[22:12]whatever they could do, giving them water
[22:14]to get the debris out of their eyes,
[22:17]they bring them to safer shores in New Jersey,
[22:20]Brooklyn, Staten Island,
[22:21]any place that people needed to go.
[22:24]And then they disembarked passengers
[22:26]at unfamiliar docking facilities with sub park equipment,
[22:30]not what they needed for a normal operation.
[22:33]And they turned around and they looked at the island
[22:36]on fire and it was on fire for months after this.
[22:40]And they went back over and over and over again.
[22:44]They went back.
[22:46]Everybody else was running away.
[22:49]And they said we have this incredible opportunity
[22:53]to help we can do something that no one else can do.
[22:56]And so there is just tremendous honor in that choice.
[23:02]And the big thing that I'm really,
[23:04]where I've landed after 20 years
[23:06]and I just wrote a piece about it for the daily beast
[23:08]is that we got stuck in these narratives of heroism.
[23:12]And like there are the heroes
[23:14]and we should applaud them.
[23:15]And then there's all the rest of us.
[23:17]And that is so dangerous and so not the whole story.
[23:21]Because actually, these were just civilians.
[23:23]They were mariners.
[23:24]They had boats.
[23:25]They had training to be able to run a boat,
[23:27]to be able to like, you know,
[23:28]there was serious professionalism.
[23:29]They had first aid training.
[23:31]It was really helpful.
[23:32]And they were just people.
[23:33]And what we know over and over again
[23:35]throughout history that the first responders
[23:39]at a disaster are civilians.
[23:41]And over and over again, Rebecca Solnit
[23:43]wrote this beautiful book about it.
[23:45]Paradise Feltin' Hell.
[23:47]Over and over again, people use whatever they have
[23:50]at their disposal, the simplest skill sets that they have
[23:54]and they help each other.
[23:55]And we lose track of that reality
[23:58]because so much of the news we consume
[24:00]is about division, divisiveness,
[24:03]the wrongs that we do to each other.
[24:06]And so it's so important to me,
[24:08]especially now in the middle of a pandemic,
[24:10]that we remember that this is actually who we are as well.
[24:13]and we can be this.
[24:14]And all of us has the capacity to choose kindness,
[24:18]to choose compassion, to make a small choice.
[24:20]And usually it don't have to be on a boat
[24:22]coming straight for the island on fire.
[24:25]There are small things we can do.
[24:26]And so that's the thing that gets me
[24:29]all these years later that this we need this.
[24:32]We need to start coming together.
[24:35]Oh, so emotional.
[24:37]How are you gonna talk about this day after?
[24:38]I mean, this is so intense
[24:40]and you're so right about everything.
[24:42]and it's inspiring and upsetting
[24:46]and all of it all mixed together.
[24:48]And you're right.
[24:50]I mean, it doesn't take,
[24:52]there's so many little things that aren't so little.
[24:56]Telling a man who's laying down to get up,
[24:58]just get up, keep walking,
[25:00]ripping the t-shirt when the person was making masks
[25:04]and the people helping the girl
[25:06]with the scratch corneas and all these little things,
[25:10]the firemen who land on top of each other.
[25:12]Oh my gosh, it was just like a series of goodnesses.
[25:17]Kind of said, people didn't even think twice about,
[25:20]they did it instinctively without a second thought.
[25:24]And that's the magic of it, really.
[25:26]And that, I mean, you nailed it is magic
[25:29]and it's also utterly human, right?
[25:32]And so we have this image of like,
[25:36]when the plane's going down,
[25:38]not this particular plane,
[25:39]but like the plane's going down
[25:40]or you hit that patch of turbulence,
[25:42]you reach out to the hand of the stranger next to you.
[25:44]Why do you do that?
[25:45]Because in that moment, who they voted for,
[25:48]where are they lived?
[25:50]Like what their politics are,
[25:52]whatever other ways, these arbitrary ways
[25:54]that we have decided to categorize each other.
[25:57]None of that matters.
[25:58]What you see in that other person is their humanity.
[26:01]And that's what the Mariners saw.
[26:03]It was just about shared humanity.
[26:05]So there's this really powerful moment for me
[26:08]that keeps coming back,
[26:09]where I was speaking with the New York Waterways,
[26:11]Captain Michael McPhillips,
[26:12]who had run off to see, I think, at age 16.
[26:15]This was, he was a mariner, like he had it in his blood.
[26:17]And he, despite the fact that the health complications
[26:22]that he had as a result of his service at Ground Zero,
[26:25]that meant the end of his maritime career.
[26:27]And he still says that he was lucky
[26:29]to have had the opportunity to serve in that way.
[26:32]And he also says, well, you know, of course,
[26:36]we didn't have a choice.
[26:37]And then he stopped himself.
[26:38]And he said, well, I guess we did have a choice,
[26:41]but like it was never like, it was a non-issue.
[26:44]There was no, there was no pause.
[26:47]There was no hesitation.
[26:48]There was no, or if there was a hesitation,
[26:51]for example, Rich Verella, who you mentioned,
[26:53]to put those, you know, handkerchiefs that he made,
[26:56]sort of masks that he made out of his own t-shirt
[26:58]and handed them out to people.
[27:00]He, when he was heading back from safety,
[27:03]he lived in New Jersey, he heads back.
[27:05]He could just go home and he looks at the second tower
[27:08]coming down and he looks at the faces of firefighters
[27:11]who have just watched that happen.
[27:12]And he sees that they need help and he says,
[27:14]I'm going back and he goes back.
[27:17]And in that moment where he's crossing,
[27:21]he says, I might die today.
[27:23]And he's like, this is what I need to do.
[27:27]And again, I mean, this is hero stuff.
[27:30]And I feel like more often than not,
[27:33]talk about mindfulness.
[27:34]The more we recognize our own shared humanity,
[27:37]we make these choices over and over again.
[27:40]It's when we get stuck in our small stories,
[27:43]our limited versions of ourselves,
[27:46]that we get stuck in these divisions.
[27:50]And I mean, talk about moments
[27:54]to realize our interconnectedness.
[27:56]We have a global pandemic.
[27:57]We have climate crisis that is unprecedented.
[28:00]We are in a crux point right now.
[28:03]And there are all these doors closing behind us.
[28:05]We have to come together.
[28:07]There's no choice.
[28:07]There is no other choice.
[28:08]We are completely interdependent.
[28:11]Our safety is absolutely contingent upon your safety.
[28:14]It's contingent upon your safety.
[28:16]Like there's no getting around that.
[28:17]And I'm praying that this is the moment.
[28:21]This is the moment.
[28:22]Wow.
[28:24]Jessica, thank you.
[28:26]Thank you for your conversation.
[28:28]No, I mean it.
[28:30]I am grateful for the service again,
[28:34]not just that you showed up when you didn't have to.
[28:37]And it wasn't even a choice.
[28:38]You just did it.
[28:39]But that you're continuing to do it now.
[28:42]And getting these stories out there,
[28:45]telling the story of the day,
[28:47]having us all sort of live through some of the minor moments
[28:51]that make up history.
[28:52]I mean, I don't know.
[28:54]I just found this to be the most powerful read.
[28:57]It didn't even feel like a book.
[28:58]It was like a immersion into, you know,
[29:02]I don't know, the darkness that was, you know,
[29:04]even under the cloud.
[29:06]It just, I love books that make me feel
[29:09]and this just didn't even feel like a book.
[29:11]It was such, it was so true to life.
[29:12]I mean, it obviously was true.
[29:14]Anyway, I was overwhelmed and on 9.11,
[29:18]which is being aired today and all of my own emotions
[29:21]and everybody else's emotions.
[29:23]Like I feel grateful to have had you take me
[29:26]for this ride down the path to this anniversary
[29:29]and everything.
[29:30]So thank you for your willingness.
[29:31]I mean, I think it's a hard ask to ask people
[29:34]to return to these really, really difficult moments.
[29:38]And but I think it's so instructive.
[29:40]I think especially now 20 years out
[29:43]if we can't do it 20 years out
[29:45]and take the goodness, extract the goodness
[29:48]and the meaning making that is absolutely crucial
[29:50]to trauma, survival and healing.
[29:53]I mean, that I thank you for your willingness
[29:56]because it's not, it's heavy lifting.
[29:58]So thank you.
[29:59]Now, it's important.
[30:00]That's what we all, we all carry it anyway.
[30:02]You know?
[30:03]It's true, that's true.
[30:05]All right, I will be thinking of you on Saturday
[30:07]and all of the characters in the book
[30:10]and what they're going through
[30:11]and all of it in addition to my own experience.
[30:15]So, thank you.
[30:17]You do.
[30:18]And let's just, you know,
[30:18]it's my hippie parents taught me
[30:20]let's just send out the good vibes.
[30:21]Yeah, send it out, good vibes.
[30:23]And stay in where a feeder.
[30:26]Okay.
[30:27]That's it.
[30:27]I like it.
[30:28]I like it.
[30:29]Thank you.
[30:31]Thanks for listening to this episode
[30:32]of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[30:34]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[30:36]at Zebie Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[30:39]Also, sign up for my newsletter
[30:41]at Zebie Owens.com
[30:42]and sign up for my virtual book club
[30:43]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[30:46]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact,
[30:48]Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[30:50]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[30:52]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.