Sep 06 2011
Remembering September 11: My Story
(Looking down Church Street at the intersection of Chambers a few weeks after September 11, 2001)
Forgive the random post, but I thought it would be helpful and cathartic to hear different people’s experiences of 9/11–both those who experienced it in New York and those who were other places–and I thought I’d start the conversation by posting my own. Please post your story in the comments section.
Some anniversaries sneak up on a person: We’ve been married how long? Others are seemingly impossible not to remember. The tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks falls into the latter category for me, for most New Yorkers, and–I’m guessing—for most Americans. Here is my story.
I was not in New York on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was in Atlanta, having picked up my car at the dealership after a dent repair (ah how every tragic day seems to start with something mundane). I then drove to a job I’d started the week before. During the short ride between dealer and job, I turned on the radio.
The station I chose was known for its alternative rock playlist and team of morning DJs. The morning DJ crew often pulled pranks, and at first I thought what was coming over the airwaves was a very bad joke, but I kept listening.
I soon understood that it was no joke. Horror crept over me I realized that the DJ had no idea what was going on, he was simply narrating what he saw on TV. Though unbelievable, his words had the ring of truth. I arrived to an office full of people watching the images that we’ve now come to know by heart.
I called my parents and told them to turn on their TV. Sat my desk and tried to work. Got in touch with an old college friend living in New York. Watched the same images on TV again and again and again. I think we all went home early that day, although I don’t remember.
What I do remember are the tears, the awkwardness of being with people I then barely knew, and the idea that something so much greater than all of us was happening somewhere that seemed both so close and so far away.
A few weeks later, I traveled with friends to New York on a previously planned vacation. During that trip, we took the subway as far down as we could and walked as close as we could to the World Trade Center site. We couldn’t see a thing, but we decided that that was the point–absence.
Despite our distance, the scent of burn hung heavy in the air. We walked the streets, saw the makeshift memorials, and were both happy and sad to find what seemed to be the one of the few places open in the vicinity: a Starbucks. We bought coffee and pastries and ate and drank without much talking. Then, we turned and walked back the way we came.
I wish I could say the visit was somehow transcendent or revelatory. Mostly, I remember being torn between the desire to see and feel and in some way understand what had happened in lower Manhattan and my desire to not be a tourist at that very same place. And yet, I was gawking. I was an outsider. I did not belong.
