Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504731
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 29 pervisors in the world, does it both- er you that you were forgotten? SSS: I feel to this day that there are people who just cannot handle 9/11. They can't handle Ground Zero. They can't handle the atrocities of mankind. They can't handle what really happened. And at that time, it was so severe and so extreme that no one wanted to hear about it, and no one wanted to talk about it. The farther west you go, the less you talked about it. When I'm in New York City, I'm connected. I am there. When I am in Los Angeles, I have no one to talk to because no one has a clue what I'm talking about. People don't want to be reminded of it. I wear my Ground Zero cross neck- lace every day as a reminder. BF: How much did it affect you when you got back? SSS: It affected me profoundly and in a very negative way. I could not understand why this happened in the first place, why 2,800 people were murdered that morning. When the planes were hijacked, where was the Air Force? Why weren't they deployed to wing these hijacked planes? What took so long? It was so confusing. There is just so much that needs to be explained. Every year when I go back to New York City for the 9/11 Memorial, I go to the muse- um and spend hours day after day trying to figure out what happened. It has consumed my life. It is a major element in my life. And I was pretty much done after I got back from 9/11. I felt like I didn't need to be around anymore. Nothing that big is ever going to happen in my life. It made me question why am I still alive? In 2004, I found the answer in teaching. Teaching feeds my soul. I absolutely love teaching. That's what brought me back. BF: Life slowly came back on track but there was another incident that happened in your life a few years later… SSS: I've been living in Lake Tahoe since 1989, and I was doing the com- mute thing. When I was on a movie, I would be in Los Angeles working on a film, and when I was done, I'd be up in Lake Tahoe. In 2007, I was in Los Angeles work- ing on a movie called The Invasion with Nicole Kidman. I got this phone call from my friend that the street I live on in South Lake Tahoe was on fire. I packed the car and drove up to Lake Tahoe to find out that 245 homes burned to the ground in a 3,100-acre fire, started by a camp- fire that wasn't put out correctly. In fact, it wasn't put out at all. It was still burning. The day of the fire, there was a windstorm and it picked up that campfire and threw it all the way into one neighborhood and then brought it back into another neigh- borhood. Four days later, when they finally let us in, I saw all the trees were green, and all the houses were standing, and everything looks great until we turn the corner. And there was my house burned to the ground. There was nothing left but founda- tion, twisted metal, and ash. It was hideous. My jeep, my mattresses, my furniture, my chimney, all of my belongings, everything was just burnt. Everything behind my house was destroyed. It was my Ground Zero. Now it's personal. Solange on a trail in Burbank with her Border Collie Annie and her Chihuahua Bijou in the pouch, 2015 "Teaching feeds my soul. I absolutely love teaching. That's what brought me back."