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John Updike

MESSAGE BOARD Following the attacks on September 11, many people have looked to art, in all its forms, for consolation. Did any piece of art help comfort you following the attacks?  VISUAL ARTS Jean Holabird of Cambridge painted "10-3 - Murrary and Greenwich, 3 p.m.," a watercolor scene from Ground Zero. Many artists responded visually to the September 11 attacks. See artwork  LYRICS AND POETRY Read the song lyrics and poetry that helped many cope with the grief they felt after September 11: 'Across the Universe', Lennon/McCartney 'America the Beautiful', Katherine Lee Bates 'American Tune', Paul Simon 'Change the Day', Alex MacDougall 'Colors of the Wind', Vanessa Williams 'Leap', Brian Doyle 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother', The Hollies 'Jesus, etc.', Wilco 'Love and Mercy', Brian Wilson 'Lucky', Radiohead 'Memorial for A City', W. H. Auden 'Musee Des Beaux Arts', W. H. Auden 'One', Cheryl Sawyer Chorus from 'The Other Side', Joie Scott and Richard Wold 'The Other Side', Don Conoscenti 'Overcome', Live 'The Peace of Wild Things', Wendell Berry 'Rhymes and Reasons', John Denver 'Rockin' in the Free World', Neil Young 'September 1, 1939', W.H. Auden 'Show the Way', David Wilcox 'Song in a Year of Catastrophe', Wendell Berry 'The Summer Day', Mary Oliver 'Superman', Five for Fighting 'There You'll Be', Diane Warren 'Through Your Hands', John Hiatt 'Trouble of the World', Mahalia Jackson 'Try to Praise the Mutilated World', Adam Zagajewski 'Victory in Defeat', Edwin Markham

Her voice was a connection to a safe world, but it was entangling him, holding him back. “Listen. Marcy. In case I don’t make it. I love you.”

“Oh, my God! Don’t say it! Just be normal!”

“I can’t be normal. This isn’t normal.”

“Can’t you get up to a higher floor and wait on the roof?”

“I think people have tried it and there’s too much smoke in the stairways. It’s getting hard to see. Can you tell the kids how much I love them?”

“Ye-ess.” Breathlessly. She wasn’t arguing. It wasn’t like her; she was cowering. He didn’t like this whipped-dog voice of hers.

He tried to think practically. “All the stuff you need should be in the filing cabinet beside my desk, the middle drawer. Lenny Palotta can help you; he has the mutual-fund stuff, and the insurance policies.”

“God, don’t, darling. Don’t think that way. Just get out, can’t you?”

“Sure, probably.” People were moving toward the windows_it was the coolest place, the place to breathe, a hundred stories in the air, the height of an airplane tucking its wheels back with that little concussion and snap. “But, just in case, you do whatever you want.”

“What do you mean, Jim, do whatever I want?”

“I mean, you know, live your life. Do what looks best for yourself and the kids. Don’t let anything cramp your style. Tell Annie in case I miss it that I wanted to be there tonight.” Of all things, this makes him want to cry, the image of his plump little daughter in soccer shorts, scared and pink in the face.

“Cramp my style?”

“My blessing, for Chrissake, Marcy. I’m putting a blessing on anything you decide to do. It’s all right. Feel free.”

“Oh, Jim, no. How can this be happening?”

He couldn’t talk more; the smoke, the heat, the stink, were chasing him to the windows, where silhouettes were climbing up between the vertical ribs. He replaced the phone on his belt deftly; he instinctively grabbed his suit coat and sprinted, crouching, across the hot floor to his co-workers clustered at the windows. They were his family now; they had been his daytime family for years; they were problem solvers and would show him what to do. Like an airplane seizing altitude in its wings, he left gravity behind: connections were breaking, obligations falling away. He felt for those seconds as light as a newborn.