Filed under: Thoughts
Six weeks before the planes hit, I stood atop the North Tower. I remember the amazing view of the city, and eerily, I remember seeing a plane fly over the harbor below. I remember thinking, “Wow, I’m looking down on a plane.” A month and a half later, both towers would lay in ruins.
That September, as a college senior, I was in a Children’s Literature class when the first tower was hit. It wasn’t until I reached my car and started the ignition that I heard on the radio what had happened. I remember rushing home to see the second tower fall. The rest of the day is a blur, but I remember spending it with various friends, eating lunch at Cici’s (who had ESPN on and couldn’t figure out how to change the channel — as they were scrambling for the manual, ESPN switched from their coverage to ABC News), going to my next class, which functioned as a prayer meeting, and attending the emergency Convocation that was called after classes had been canceled.
Planes used to fly over my apartment building all the time, so it was especially eerie that night as I looked up at an empty sky and reflected on how quickly things had changed. Like most people, I would be glued to the TV for the next several weeks. On September 12, local businesses would start installing televisions because nobody wanted to hear background music anymore. They wanted to watch the towers fall again and again and again while they ate. They wanted to see President Bush with a bullhorn in downtown Manhattan while they ran errands.
Every year when I look back at the events of September 11, I remember standing outside my apartment at the end of the day, reflecting on what I had seen and heard, knowing that this was the beginning of a new era, realizing that war was right around the corner, wondering how everything would unfold. And in that moment, suspended between the chaos of that day and the uncertainty of what might happen tomorrow, for just that moment, I felt peace.
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