Everyone in New York City that day has their own 9/11 story, their own version of how
beautiful the weather was that morning. Mine was my first day of high school, the first class of
what was supposed to be the start of the rest of my life, building blocks to college, etc. It was
World Civilization I and our teacher had started us on the cycle of Buddhism, listing the process
of death and rebirth. The only reason I can recall it so clearly is that it was a jarring thing to
attempt to grasp at 8:41 on a Tuesday, at the same moment when the first plane flew into the
tower. It took several hours for the school to fully concede that both a national tragedy and
emergency occurred and scrambled to dust off a protocol probably not updated since the Cold
War. There was the keening of children in the lobby who couldn’t reach their parents and our
teachers whose stoicism I now recognize as a form of shock. My dad and sister, who lived above
us at that time, emerged from the haze of 3rd Avenue. My dad clutched our transistor radio to his
ear, his face was completely poised and focused as he raised the volume as loud as it would go.
The stations had all erupted in everyone asking the same questions of how many, who, why. My
sister was in a shock of her own, having been due at the Trade Center that morning to correct
some insurance issue, and running late had saved her life. The dust visible from all the way down
the street was partially from the downfall of rubble and the sudden dissolution of two
monuments believed to be immutable, but also from the trudge of people covered in said dust as
they moved uptown in a stream of beige-colored forms. Each step, bump of the shoulder, toss of
a head or wringing of hands caused a plume to rise. The only noise I can remember hearing aside
from the radio was the thousands of feet that marched in battered unison to destinations likely
unclear. I kept looking at dad to signal what we should do next but our only communication
between the three of us was to clasp hands so that we would not be separated.
My father had been to war—he had been to The Great War—where his service role he
downplayed as lifeguard but was something much more significant. He was there immediately
after Paris and Germany were leveled and described war orphans scrambling to beg soldiers for
food, for shoes, for money. I am sure he had seen that kind of dust before, the kind that sinks into
each line of the skin and surface. None of us knew what the “after” was going to look like, but I
am sure the images of the European cities were at the front of dad’s mind. Some artists delve into
darkness, but my father instead produced a body of work that was almost blisteringly beautiful.
He had a reserve of images in his mind that he must have retreated to when things in front of him
became too much. Places that my mother never suspected had made an impression, such as her
aunt’s farm in Ohio, or the patterns of blades of grass. Viewed against his larger body of work, it
is clear what period of time he made the works during. There is a spectacular continuity,
especially in the emerald shade of green that the grass pieces vibrate with. In the face of hideous
destruction, where the news images grew worse and more dire everyday, my father chose to
make beauty where he could find none. The grass piece is so textural and evocative, it’s easy to envision stepping through the
frame that is of the grass itself, and into something unmarred by tragedy and wreckage. There is a portal-like nature to that body of work in contrast to his other paintings; it is a depiction without his signature snark or glance of surrealism. They are beautiful for the sake of beauty, for an artist’s belief that beauty can heal, surge forward, propel movement in moments of paralysis.

- Misa Kobayashi