Five Years Ago

Last Tuesday, I found myself perusing a news stand at the Gar du Nord in Paris, waiting to catch a train back to London. I picked up a copy of Time magazine dated September 11, 2006...the cover touting a serene photo of the New York City skyline at night -- the late Twin Towers twinkling in the distance under the watchful eye of a gargoyle perched high atop the Chrysler Building. The headline, "What We Lost."

Home. September 11th. Five years ago.

Without even being conscious of it, my eyes welled with tears and I started to cry -- a guttural reaction that started in the stomach, rushed upwards swelling my heart, and found release in my eyes -- all in a split second.

Those two towers, every time I see pictures of them, have the effect of seeing an old, beloved friend after a great deal of time. The way I’d feel if I saw my Grandfather again.

It’s a bit of an emotional jumble. If I don’t think about NYC or see a photo, it’s somewhat out of site and out of mind (ok, most the time). Yet any visual cue whatsoever makes me ache with missing it. One glance is all it takes to remind me why I think it’s the best damn place in the entire universe. I can’t explain or rationalize it, it’s just a feeling...a reflex.

But the Towers make me remember more than just New York. They remind me of what is lost and gone forever -- in the city, in America, in the world, in my life. They also make me ponder "home"...the word, the place, what it means.

I entered a new phase when I moved to NYC from Washington, DC...just 6 short months before the Towers fell. I remember the pre-9/11 New York City -- a bit wilder and hedonistic, a bit more carefree...or maybe that was just the high I was on in a new place I had always dreamt of living, and I was finally living that dream. I had a boyfriend I was smitten with, a challenging new job, good friends, a new apartment, an optimistic and hopeful feeling about everything. Life was good and I was extremely grateful -- I guess you could say my rose-tinted glasses were deeply shaded.

Chris (my boyfriend at the time) and I spent many nights those first 6 months on the balcony of his 43rd floor midtown apartment -- relaxing on green plastic Adirondack chairs with a bottle of wine while gazing at the Towers and talking half the night. He had the quintessential panoramic view of the city -- an up close view of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, vistas down the narrow streets across to the West Side, the glow of Times Square, a full cityscape that started at the bottom of Central Park and continued all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge, and (from his kitchen) a sweeping view of the East River, complete with all the illuminated bridges that cross it. It was magical.

But my favorite part of that balcony view was the Twin Towers, as plain as day, 50-some blocks south, towering over the city and dwarfing everything else. Their sheer, unapologetic enormity anchored the skyline. At night, scattered interior lights remained on after hours, floor upon floor in random patterns, creating the illusion of suspended white rectangles floating free and high in the black night sky. I jokingly called it the “Death Star” because it looked like the Star Wars mother ship...a floating city in outer space. How I regret that analogy.

Five years after it all changed, on the Eurostar to London, I remembered what my life was like back then, and on that day in particular. I remember how blue the sky was when I walked out of my apartment on East 78th Street that morning. It was so brilliantly crisp and sunny, flecked with white puffy clouds, I remember Chris and I commenting on it as we walked down the street holding hands. I remember getting off the subway at 23rd Street and seeing the black plume of smoke in the sky (I was underground when everything hit). I remember the chaos inside as my colleagues were trying to make sense of what was happening. The phones were down and there was no information. We were watching it all unfold on TV with no accompanying words to explain what we were seeing. A few people walked over to Broadway to get a view of the Towers to make sure what we were seeing on TV was real. Then the confirmation came that it was indeed a terrorist plot, and not limited to New York -- the Pentagon had been hit as well in Washington, DC. We were all stunned as the reality set in that we were being attacked.

I remember the frantic calls from Chris on his mobile phone, who worked across the street from the Towers and was watching everything unfold from the street below in a combination of panic and disbelief. I remember the worry in my sister’s voice when she finally got through to me. I remember the heart-stopping fear when a coworker told me the Towers had “fallen” -- I was confused, not grasping how that was possible. I remember wanting to run but realizing there was nowhere to go where I would feel safe. I remember walking home many hours later with Chris. He was in a state of shock having fled the area when the towers fell. I felt numb. We walked 20-some blocks home in an eerily silent Manhattan, with the exception of the sirens. We stopped at Grammercy Park, which is normally closed to the public because it is a private park for residents who live around the square, but all the gates were propped wide open (I guess it takes something like 9/11 to make people realize that there is no good reason to shut others out of something beautiful). We walked through the Park, stopping to sit on a bench for awhile. I watched a squirrel, going about it’s day with no knowledge of what was happening. I remember sitting there, blinking my eyes really hard, again and again -- a trick I taught myself as a kid to wake myself up from nightmares once I realized I was in them. It usually worked, but not this time.

Back at Chris’ apartment hours later, we stood on his balcony, fixed on the angry black cloud of smoke that mushroomed over downtown from the fires that continued to burn. We watched Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapse. It seemed the whole downtown area might just successively topple like a row of dominos. I had a sick feeling in my stomach that lasted about two months. I remember the sleepless nights and the reoccurring nightmares. And I didn’t even lose anyone close to me.

I had to travel for work a week and a half after 9/11. I remember flying back in, over the city at night. Ground Zero was illuminated 24 hours a day, as search and rescue efforts were still underway. The whole downtown area, from the plane, was smothered with ash and debris. Everything was gray, as if someone had laid a wool blanket over it. Where the Towers had stood there was now an angry, ugly, gaping hole of rubble....it looked like two teeth had been pulled. It was shocking to see from the sky and a hellish mess on the ground. The city air smelled like an electrical fire for the next two or three months. It permeated everything, as far up as Central Park. You couldn’t get away from it.

Mostly, I remember the thousands of flyers that wallpapered the city months after with faces of the lost peering out. On every free wall of concrete they were plastered -- people were searching for friends and family who had vanished and disintegrated as completely and quickly as the Towers. There was desperation for any information at all -- a last sighting, a last word...anything that would bring closure ... closure that would never be found. I volunteered one night in the armory where people were waiting in lines to provide information and DNA samples for identification purposes for those who were lost. I felt spared for not being one of them.

I still loved New York after 9/11. I loved it more, actually. The city changed, the people in my world changed, but it was still home and I was fiercely loyal. New York made a miraculously fast recovery, all things considered...everyone banded together in the most amazing and inspiring ways. Mayor Giuliani became a bona-fide hero. The city is, in itself, a force of nature, and being part of that force was something I was proud of.

Context. After traveling around Europe this past year and learning more about WWII, I guess 9/11 is a taste of what it must have felt like for millions of Europeans every day of their lives -- only the magnitude of their loss, tragedy and suffering was much greater (e.g. 1940s Russia: It doesn’t get much worse than 30 million people needlessly dying of starvation, cold and genocide at the hands of soulless tyrants while the rest of the world stood by and watched). I think about all the innocent lives that have been lost since and as a result of 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq...the consequences of our reactions (for better or for worse) still continue to affect people in all-consuming ways. I think of the Lebanese and Israelis...trying to rebuild after so many homes, families and communities have been recklessly destroyed (the Israelis have lived in a state of war and terrorist attacks since their state was created...so our shock on 9/11 might be considered a day in the life in many other places). I think about the people who have been forgotten, still suffering and homeless after Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami. It can go on and on and on. It’s all relative I suppose -- disaster and loss have always been part of life and will continue to exist in the world for the rest of time. But as history proves, human resilience has no limits -- though despite that resilience -- I can’t help but feel there is a very fine line between whether or not the human spirit is ultimately lifted or crushed by the pressure, and whether that’s a choice we make for ourselves or that’s made for us.

Maybe we Americans had been naive before 9/11 in our isolated world as the critics say, but that’s not the point. Disasters of any kind, regardless of size or cause, are made up of individual people made of flesh and blood whose lives have been shattered, and that’s equally devastating, despite the circumstances. As members of the human race, we have a responsibility to be compassionate for that individual humanity, no matter who we are or where we live. It’s so simple yet so elusive. If we respect nothing else, can we not at least respect our shared humanity? Can’t it be that simple and clear-cut? As history would prove, I suppose not. Maybe as humans, we just don't have it in us, but it would be nice to beleive it's a higher state we could one day evolve to.

9/11 has come to mean many different things to many different people. Everyone has their own stories, their own set of feelings, and everyone learned something different about the world and themselves from it. We all have our own ways of remembering and reflecting on that day and what it meant. I certainly have new opinions from a political and cultural standpoint, but I need not go into that here.

Today, more than anything, 9/11 brings me home. To New York City and my home in Maryland where my family is. And to Washington, DC where I also lived for several years. A great thing about living abroad is how it enhances your patriotism and love of/respect for home (even though I was born an outspoken and unapologetic American and that won't ever change). When a place is your home, you love it and are proud of it, and no one can convince you otherwise, no matter where you go or what you do in your life. It will bring a tear to your eye when you see a photo of it from thousands of miles away and carve out a longing in your heart. It’s the place you want to return to, again and again. A place you want others to respect and love as much as you do. There has never been an instance where I have returned home to my family, or back to New York City and I wasn’t happy about it -- where I didn’t say a little prayer of thanks as the green fields of Mechanicsville or the Empire State Building welcomed me back. I wish for everyone that same feeling about their home.

As far as NYC goes, New Yorkers love to bitch about the place, but don’t be fooled, it’s a convoluted form of bragging. They wear their grievances with the city like a badge of honor (Traffic! Dirty! Times Square! Pressure! Work! Noise! Crowds! Expensive! Shoebox Apartment! Subways!) -- the truth of the matter is there’s nowhere else they’d rather be. Except maybe on a little break in London. But not for too long.