"I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth."--Henry Miller

Stepping carefully around the old theater, I breathed in the smell of decay.  The dusty smell of a building that is dying a slow painful death at the hands of nature and neglect.  A building that, like a very old person, slowly marches to the end, inching closer with each turn of the Earth. 

Is it trespassing if no one cares you're there?  Is it wrong to wander through a door created by crumbling bricks and a wayward tree?  The curious part of me can't help but jump through the hole in the wall, a bit like Alice stepping through the looking glass, expecting a surprise on the other side.  And, oh, the surprises.  Urban decay does not disappoint.  Remnants of colorful facades, bright graffiti and a raggedy screen hanging above the stage.  And behind the screen rows of old chairs.   My heart leapt.  My eyes flickered over the possibilities, scanning for natural light and composing shots.  Snap.  Snap.  Snap.  There may have been a squeal. 

My brain rolled through the past decades, imagining the history of those seats.  Knowing that the theater originated in 1910, the possibilities seemed endless.  People discovering the wonder of the first movies.  Young men sliding their arm around a date.  Teenagers necking on the back row.  Does anyone say "necking" anymore?  Kids riding the range with Roy and Dale.  Adults following the happenings on far away shores during World Wars in MovieTone shorts, and hippies riding high with Easy Rider.   Imaginary images clicking through my head like pages flipping in a book. 

Who sat there?  What happened to those people?  What stories do those seats hold?  Truth, as they say, is always stranger than fiction, so the tales they could tell are likely more incredible than I can imagine.  But, oh, what fun to imagine.  And how sad that those memories will fade as those seats rot.         

The date brings the usual "where were you when it happened" memories each year, and yes, those memories for me are vivid since I was working in the news business at the time.  But early on, I realized there are two very distinctive filters for Americans when it comes to those memories.  There are the filters of those who lived in New York and DC at the time, and then there are the shades everyone else wears.  While it was horrifying for our entire nation, it just wasn't the same for those of us who weren't THERE.  For those of us who didn't lose a friend or loved one.  And for those of us who don't live with the painful personal loss of someone who literally disappeared from the face of the earth that day.  The terrorist attacks that September day affected us all, but most of us are a step removed from it.  We can shelve those memories for months and pull them out for examination on Patriots Day.  But others deal every day with loss.  They walk past visual reminders of what happened, and they live and work in the midst of ghosts.  I see glimpses of that rawness in my friends who were there.  I want to know what that's like in order to understand, and yet, I'm so thankful I can't fully understand. 

When we visited New York a few years ago, I was so moved by some of the displays inside St. Paul's Chapel at the site, a refuge for recovery workers after the attacks.  The items were so personal.  The sample of photos of the missing brought back those gut wrenching images on TV each night of people trying vainly to find loved ones, and while it makes me look closer, I know others turn away because it hurts to look.

The memorial panels on the side of NYFD Ten House were beautiful.  I wanted to capture the texture of them because I wanted to remember the cool roughness of them and the visual cue to "feel" the sorrow and recovery they represented. 

I understand why the 9/11 museum is controversial.  For those close by, it's too much.  For those of us at a distance, it's not enough to truly know the devastation dealt to thousands of Americans.  We can watch specials on TV.  We can read pictures.  We can look at pictures, but it's never really enough.   

For a while now, many of us have expected the old Ledbetter Bridge to go tumbling into the Tennessee River, but the results were still shocking to see when portions of it finally gave way this past weekend.  And I think most folks who used to drive over it on a regular basis stopped with a “Whew, that was close” attitude to marvel at just how close we came to the end of its life before getting traffic off of it.  I think we pushed it about as far as we could.

Earlier this year, I kept telling myself to get by there and get a few pictures before they demolished it.  I finally stopped one April morning at sunrise to snap off a few shots on my way to work.  It was very quiet and breezy out in the middle of that empty bridge on a crisp Saturday morning.  What a view!  I didn’t have but a few minutes, so I didn’t stay long.  Today, these shots seem as serene to me as it felt standing out there that morning, but that feels very odd given that a large chuck of the bridge is now sitting in a twisted pile of rubble on the ground.