9/11: Healing, Reflecting and Destiny

Reflecting today on 9/11 with Kelsey Patel

Reflecting today on 9/11 with Kelsey Patel

Where are you reflecting upon 9/11 today? This is where I am. On a rooftop in downtown LA with this one. This is Kelsey J Patel. She is the most magical, loving and inspirational person I’ve ever met. She is a renowned healer, here in Los Angeles. And, she is also someone I am proud to call my dear friend. She will be hosting a 9/11 guided meditation on Periscope (as @KelseyJpatel) at 4 pm PST today to bring some peace and healing to everyone who needs it. Today, Kelsey brought in 2 of the most beautiful crystals – crystals that heal, protect, cleanse & promote love. After our session, I told her I felt compelled to take a picture of her and her Labyrinth’ish matching crystals and dress.

We went outside on her downtown penthouse balcony,and we felt such an energy in regards to 9/11. At that moment, a plane flew overhead. That’s where I am today.

But, where were you on September 11, 2001?

I was in LA, where it felt like a ghost town – like a chapter from Stephen King’s The Stand. There was so much sadness. So much pain. So many prayers. So many lost souls just wandering around. I watched the news come in with my friends Sarah & Ned Brower at our friend Craig Weaver’s apartment.

That night, I went to my new roommate’s boyfriend’s house in Laurel Canyon, where I ended up meeting what would become my band – and my family – for the next four years, Hawkeye. We all listened to my bandmate singing Fire and Rain, and I knew we would never be able to think of that song the same way again.

When I recall that heartbreak of a day, I remember both how empty the world felt and how full my heart was.

I had found my people.

And yet life as we knew it would never be the same.

Many lives would never be the same.

On 9/11, people were brought together forging destinies they never even knew they were meant to have – some destinies being brutally taken away and other destinies being discovered.

Today, as I reflect with @KelseyJpatel, I pray for all of those who lost loved ones on that fateful day.

I pray for those who will never heal. And, I also pray for those who have yet to find their destinies.

But, most of all, I pray for purpose, for patience & for peace.

xoxo,

I remember.

Today. September 11th. It never gets easier.

 

Our recovery comes in our remembering. And our peace comes in our memories of the ones we lost. Here’s what I remember.

I remember being woken up by frantic phone calls from my mom and ex-boyfriend, Chris Telles, in Texas. It was still dark out here on the west coast and the sleep in my eyes would barely let me make out the horror that was playing out on the television. It was right before the second tower was hit. It felt like it was the acopalypse and at that age, I don’t know if I really even knew what that meant. I just remember thinking it. With these two calls, I remember feeling both loved and very, very alone.

I remember needing to get out of the house and desperately needing to be with other people. I did NOT want to be alone. It was unbearable. So I went over to Ned & Sarah Brower’s apartment on Spaulding. There, we sat in Craig Weaver’s apartment watching the footage. I realized I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be alone. And I am still so thankful for those people.

I remember LA felt like a ghost town that day. I had to go grocery shopping so I went to the Whole Foods on Fairfax and Santa Monica where I exchanged sad, gentle smiles with strangers to whom I felt instantly bonded. I don’t go back to that location very often because it will always remind me of that sad, scared, empty feeling.

I remember going to meet my new Hawkeye band members, Jeff Bell and Kalai King at their apartment with my roommate at the time, Lauren Kahner and her boyfriend – and our amazing piano player – JK Morrical. We sat there and talked for hours, listening to music and drinking wine – and I knew that I had found a family of a sort.

Hawkeye at The Roxy

 

James Taylor’s Fire and Rain came on and we were all silent. That song would always mean that mournful moment to me.

 

 

I remember that I loved Ryan Adams’ Gold that fall and his song, “New York, New York” will always give me chills and take me right back to that sad season. Songs are powerful elixirs like that.

 

 

 

I remember that after that evening, I didn’t feel alone anymore.

These are my memories and they are as vivid today as yesterday and I didn’t even lose anyone.
Blessings, love and healing to all of those remembering their loved ones today.

 

xoxo,
BF

BF Asks: Where were you on the day the world stopped turning?

We remember 9/11

We remember 9/11

 

“The moment to spend with a husband who loves me, or a sick friend, or a delicious new grandchild is here and now. Not some time later …. The nation learned this lesson all at once that horrible day in September 2001. The pictures stay wi

th us — the fires and falling debris, and, most hauntingly, the faces. Look how young so many of them were, people who thought there would be much more time, a lot of ‘later’ when they could do all the things they really wanted to do. I grieve for their families — especially for those, like me, who haven’t found any trace of the people they loved. But I grieve even more for the people who died that day. They couldn’t know what we know now about the precious gift of time.”
Cokie Roberts)