From a Stationery Store in the Heart of Boston, Remembrances of September 11th

I was not prepared for the events of the work day following 9-11. When you think about stationery, people tend to think letters, wedding invitations, birth announcements and other happy items. But paper plays an important role in all life occasions—including death.

The morning of September 11th, found me folding laundry and watching the CNN morning news on my day off from my job as a manager for Crane & Co. Paper Makers, a stationery store at that time located at the Prudential Center in the heart of Boston. As the first images of the devastation came on TV, I remember standing in front of the screen, a pillow case held mid-fold in disbelief, with the sinking sensation that something very serious was happening. Within minutes of the first tower being hit, the phone rang. It was the associate manager from the store, wanting to know if something important was going on as they had received a “stand-by for further announcements” automated message from the Prudential Center. It felt surreal to explain the stories coming in on the news and to tell them to hold tight and do exactly what the Prudential Center instructed them to, even if that meant locking up and closing the store for the day. Then, like everyone else, I was held a captive witness to the devastating images and news on TV.

For me, that was only the beginning of my experiences connected to September 11th. Strangely, by being in the stationery business, it was the days after September 11th that made the devastation and heartbreak human and personal.

On Wednesday, September 12th, I walked to work, like I did every morning, from the Fenway to The Prudential Center. The city was eerily subdued for a week day work morning. Sirens could be heard, which vividly evoked the sounds and images from the TV the day before. I felt filled with adrenaline. As I walked along the Christian Science Reflecting Pool, a fighter jet flew overhead toward the financial district, and in the fading of the defining and heart bounding roar, I remember thinking, nothing will ever be the same.

I was not prepared for the events of the work day following 9-11. When you think about stationery, people tend to think letters, wedding invitations, birth announcements and other happy items. But paper plays an important role in all life occasions—including death.

The first call I took that morning was from the newly widowed wife of one of the pilots killed in the hijackings. She was calling to order sympathy acknowledgement cards. Her voice held the contrasting notes of logical calm and bewilderment. Having lost my father only two months earlier, it was a combination I knew well from grief. At the end of the call, after giving me her address for shipping, she asked for all possible privacy to be taken with her information as so many people were contacting her. There are reporters in the front yard, she said. After the call, I walked quickly to the backroom, needing a moment off the floor, feeling breathless and holding back tears as I absorbed the reality, not of images on TV, but of the people whose lives were forever changed by the attacks.

The rest of that day, and the days that followed, were emotionally wrenching. Several of our corporate customers had lost employees in the hijacked flights that left Boston. We sold black leather bound guest books for memorials, black bound books for remembrances, black pens to sign them with, black bordered sympathy acknowledgements. There were many moments of standing in the backroom looking for a boxed product, trying to remember a SKU, and feeling heartbroken over the story of lost that you had just heard.

Each night that week, I would closed up the store and, beginning the walk home, marvel at the emptiness of the Prudential Center. It felt as though the city was under a self-imposed curfew. The beat of my shoes echoed as I walked through the empty corridors, which are usually always filled with a steady stream of people.

About two weeks after the attack, on the first day commercial planes were given permission to fly again, I was on my dinner break, at the long since gone, Sbarro pizza place in the Copely Mall. It was a favorite haunt of mine for the quiet, the pizza and the view of the skyline of South Boston. From where I sat, starring out at the cloudy twilight, I began to see the lights of planes lining up to land at Logan. This sight, and its normalcy, after so many days of horrific images, heartbreaking stories and uncertainty in the aftermath of the attacks, filled me with an overwhelming feeling of hope. To this day, I still remember how the line of planes coming in to land looked remarkably beautiful, like a loose string of shinning diamonds against the gray evening sky.

Summer Challenge Week Eight: Labor

Challenge #8: Labor. The word labor evokes a sense of dedication and focus that is integral to creative endeavors. This week, transition from summer to fall with a meditation on your own creative labors, as well as a celebration of your creative achievements.

In this final 2011 Summer Challenge, use this week to set goals for creative projects this fall, or even examine ways that you can integrate time to “labor” over creative projects into your daily routine. Also some points to contemplate: What are projects that you feel you labored over? What was the experience of laboring for you? Did you experience a state of flow? What could you recreate or change from that experience to create a better environment for dedicated work on creative endeavors? (Which no matter how frustrating should always be a “labor of love.”)

With the concept of labor as your touchpoint, whatever ideas you choose to explore, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

Labor Day arrives and with it, signs that these are the final days of summer. The holiday marks the last hurrah of summer with a long weekend, filled with final beach days and last barbecues. It is also a time when the newsstands suddenly sprout magazines about Halloween, and our thoughts turn to the new school year or the final months of work ahead.

I find it fitting that Labor Day is the US holiday that marks the transition from summer to fall. While the holiday has many political connotations, at its heart, it is a celebration of work and achievement. What better way to move from the care-free and casual mindset of summer, to the productive and focused thinking of fall, than with a day to meditation on your own creative labor—and, even more importantly, to take a moment to appreciate and celebrate your own creative achievements?

Labor Day became an official federal holiday during the heart of the Industrial Revolution in 1894, allowing members of labor unions to march together without having to take a day without pay. The federal holiday was a political concession after the violence of the Pullman Strike, but it originated out of the labor movement to eliminate the dangerous working conditions at the height of the Industrial Revolution. At this time the work day was twelve hours long—seven days a week—and many factories employed children because they were small enough to work inside the machines, they were quick, and could be paid less than an adult. More than a hundred years later, we are the recipients of the positive changes to our working conditions—and a structured work week—that is a result of the strife and violence that was part of the long battle that ultimately brought about this lazy summer holiday.

While labor means, on a basic level, to work hard, to be engaged in a productive physical or mental activity, it also means to toil, to strive towards a goal—which I think reflects the changes the laborers worked towards and advocated at the turn of the century—and also what we each experience in our own personal work and creative endeavors.

Labor, by itself, is an infinitely interesting word, especially where creative thinking is concerned. The word labor expresses a state of dedication and action towards an end result. To say that something is a labor of love means that even though the work is hard, it’s end result brings you pleasure. Or, if the work is strenuous, the word labor provides a sense of pace, of forward momentum, even if slow and plodding.

There are many other words for labor, especially in the language of the creative, but the bottom line is that no creative can escape the hard work of bringing an idea into reality. (So it is also fitting that the word labor also means the act of bringing a child into the world.)

Creativity is associated with joy and the free flow of ideas (similar to summertime). Labor is much more serious and somber (like fall). Yet, when you are in a good place with your work, labor transforms into something sublime that renowned academic Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow”, a state of mind of completely focus motivation, when both sides of your brain are working in harmony. When you are in a state of flow, you lose track of time, the work comes easily, you are engaged, progress is made. When you are not in a state of flow, you could literally say you feel like you are laboring (in all of its negative connotations).

We know though, that labor must come before flow and as Julia Cameron emphasizes, the most important part of creativity is “showing up at the page.” Or as the last stanza of Longfellow’s famous poem “Psalm of Life” tells us:

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

All of this is inspiration for the eighth summer challenge: Labor. The word labor evokes a sense of dedication and focus that is integral to creative endeavors. This week, transition from summer to fall with a meditation on your own creative labors, as well as a celebration of your creative achievements.

In this final 2011 Summer Challenge, use this week to set goals for creative projects this fall, or even examine ways that you can integrate time to “labor” over creative projects into your daily routine. Also some points to contemplate: What are projects that you feel you labored over? What was the experience of laboring for you? Did you experience a state of flow? What could you recreate or change from that experience to create a better environment for dedicated work on creative endeavors? (Which no matter how frustrating should always be a “labor of love.”)

With the concept of labor as your touchpoint, whatever ideas you choose to explore, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.