Wow. I really have to look at those tonight. That looks beautiful.aaBy the way, the lights are being monitored carefully in case there should be a problem with bird migrations. aaThis sight is a welcome antidote to the plume of smoke, lit by the Ground Zero floods, that was all you could see right after the event. At the time I said "a pillar of smoke by day, a pillar of fire by night: leading us into a new land, but one none of us ever wanted to live in."

Oh, and: wouldn't "Making Light" be a great title for a weblog? Oh, right... :-)

Every picture I've seen of the Tribute of Light has been beautiful. I'm very glad that they are doing it.aaSome of the early news stories I read said that the work had been renamed; it was changed from Towers of Light to Tribute of Light, on the request of some of the families of the dead, who feared that the people who died would be forgotten and only the buildings mourned. I'm still struggling to find a way to react to that.aaI've no interest in comparing griefs, or competing for attention, most especially not against people who have lost loved ones. I don't begrudge them a cent or a tribute or even the occasional less-than-noble responses that have been reported in the news. What I don't know how to say, without ending up in the comparison game, is that I lost something, too. I lost the World Trade Center. I lost the New York City skyline I know best. I lost those lovely-ugly towers (the building and the box it came in is one of my favorite sarcastic descriptions) and I am burdened with images and knowledge that I would rather not have. aaCities are not people; neither are buildings. But the texture of people's lives is strongly affected by where they live, and by the way that place is built. My friends who live in the City talk about the weird feeling they get when they look for the reliable landmark that was the WTC, and cannot find it. I think that it must feel like stepping off that step that isn't there. The loss of the Twin Towers matters, even if they were "only" buildings. aaI don't live in New York City. I didn't lose anyone in the attack. The face of that tragedy, for me, is the towers, burning bravely, and then falling -- inconceivably collapsing into themselves in a sacrifical plunge which doomed anyone inside the buildings, but which may well have saved many people in the adjoining areas. They stood for almost an hour, the number of people who escaped greatly outnumber the people who didn't. That's a pretty noble thing, for a building.