So tonight between chores, we watched a film,’Man on Wire,’ and it was wonderful, and funny and moving.

And somehow, I can’t explain how exactly, but in it – in the image of Phillip Petit kneeling on the wire between the Towers – something in me shifted. It is difficult to say this, but that image is just the antidote I need to neutralize the image of the Falling Man which I carry with me every year at about this time.

We are species of horror and brutality, to be sure.

But we are also a species of wonder and joy. And sometimes those happen at the exact same place.

If, like me, the image of the WTC curtainwall brings you directly to 9/11, watch this film. It won’t make it go away – nothing ever will. But it will – forgive me for this – balance it.
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