{"id":3231,"date":"2017-12-09T20:31:18","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T04:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/147.182.248.240\/?p=3231"},"modified":"2018-12-05T08:46:34","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T16:46:34","slug":"grab-a-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/?p=3231","title":{"rendered":"Grab A Hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was in the shower, one Tuesday morning, in my Oakland, California warehouse, where I lived worked and played, when my neighbor, Adam came barging in. “They’re bombing the World Trade Center!”, he said, trying to catch his breath.<\/p>\n

Of course our collective breath was continually sucked out of us all that day as we watched events unfold. Of all the images of that day, and perhaps the one seen least often since, were people, nowhere left to turn, often hand in hand, eighty stories up…. jumping.<\/p>\n

Damn.<\/p>\n

Is there any witness to that day that wasn’t overwhelmed by the rawness and complexity of emotions and the surfacing of the human spirit faced with unfathomable circumstance.<\/p>\n

I wrote the lyric “grab a hand, don’t let go” knowing that humanity perseveres together, not in fearful or isolated groups. What I didn’t know until that fateful day is that we also, sometimes, grab a hand in order TO let go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

 <\/p>\n

GRAB A HAND<\/span><\/p>\n

I was lying there
\nwhen I heard the news
\nI was getting my rubdown
\nfrom a new masseuse
\nalmost left her there
\nin my underwear
\nshe grabed my shoes<\/p>\n

I grabbed her hand
\nwe flew down the stairs
\nthe lines on her face
\nsilently said she was scared
\nwhen we got to 4
\noh how we prayed for 3
\nat 3 we prayed for floor 2<\/p>\n

CH:
\nthe faster you run
\nthen the further you get
\nbut you can’t out run rain
\nonce its gotten you wet
\nnow we know pains that everybody have known
\ngrab a hand and don’t let go
\ngrab a hand and don’t let go<\/p>\n

there was nothing there
\n‘cept smoke and ash
\nleaving nothing but love now
\nleft for us to grasp
\nwe didn’t feel safe
\nwe had to find our place
\nI’m still holding her hand
\nCHORUS<\/p>\n

we headed north
\npast the tappan zee
\nup the hudson river
\nto saratoga springs
\nshe had a cousin there
\nshe loves very much
\noh but she never sees
\nCHORUS<\/p>\n

thought the world had changed
\nbut I was wrong
\nseems most of the world
\nis singing the same song
\nI have dignity
\nDon’t hurt my family
\ntogether we are strong
\nCHORUS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was in the shower, one Tuesday morning, in my Oakland, California warehouse, where I lived worked and played, when my neighbor, Adam came barging in. “They’re bombing the World Trade Center!”, he said, trying to catch his breath. Of course our collective breath was continually sucked out of us all that day as we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3231"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3453,"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3231\/revisions\/3453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsiegel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}