It's a scorcher today, which feels just right. On any other Wednesday, I'd be hoping for a clear, crisp September morning. But this is the weather that would've seemed fitting 12 years ago on this date.
The desolate contrast of those plane catastrophes and the gorgeous crystalline weather seemed insulting in the rawest of ways, as if Mother Nature had played the cruelest slight of hand. Here! Imagine the most crystalline, sparkling September day and then layer onto that image the most horrible devastation New Yorkers have ever lived through.
It seems in equal ways like a distant nightmare as well as like something that happened yesterday.
I fondly remember our gym friend Michael Rothberg, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. He was a great guy. Michael was a front row fixture in my Saturday morning class, and we always teased him because he was so germaphobic. He'd wipe down his bike before and after class, and this was back in the days before antiseptic gym wipes were even invented. He was the guy who patented the bathroom germ-free getaway technique of wiping your hands on the paper towel and then before throwing the towel out, using it to open the bathroom door, and while propping the door open with your foot, making the big toss of towel to trash can. Voila! No germs.
My lesson from him (thank you, Michael) is that no tomorrow is promised.
If there is a thimbleful of good that came out of the truckload of devastation from Sept. 11, not that it would be worth it in any way, we all did snap out of our zombie mode and realized, even if only briefly, that our life is right now. And that's what I want to say today.
Our life is not later. It's not when we retire. It's not when our kids grow up. It's not when we get our bigger house or more money or lose those last 10 pounds.
Our life is right now. It'll always be right now.
Our challenge is to decide to start enjoying your life right now, because it's not ever going to get better than right now, until it gets better right now.