9/11...Paying My Respects...I Remember...Renewed

September 11, 2001... I remember waking up in my dorm room alone. Loneliness was a prevalent feeling that semester. My roommate, a good friend from home, decided to drop college last minute, so I was in roommate limbo until the university found me another. I stayed in my room a lot, behind closed door. I was often alone with my thoughts. The floor I was on was the same as last year; I knew mostly everyone. I was more reclusive though, didn't hang out with people on my floor much. I remember feeling desolate, very alone at night, watching SNL reruns from the early 80's with a lone light lit under my bunked bed. I sort of folded in on myself, like a dried autumn leaf (thank you, whoever you were that wrote that...Winterson?...Louise Erdrich?...I remember someone remarking how she liked it...quote is not verbatim, I believe). Call it melancholy.

I remember that's when I took my first Alison class, the one that would ultimately persuade me to change my major to English from accounting. I remember writing by lamplight, under the bunked bed, those seminal--very sophomoric--works and getting excited about writing.

I remember going to African American Studies class that September 11th morning, trudging to class not particularly excited about anything, half-awake probably. I remember getting into class and the projector screen was down. People were watching the news.

TERRORIST ATTACK...PLANES...WORLD TRADE CENTER...

I saw the first tower in flames, smoke billowing from its side. I remember hearing reporters speculating about whether or not it was an attack, and so on. Then I remember the other plane hit... The room was silent. Spine tingled. I remember the first tower crumbled in a matter of seconds, the skyline of a nation irrevocably altered. Couldn't believe what I was seeing. Then the second tower. We were told we could go home, classes were canceled the following two days. I went to Alison's class later that week. And we all found it hard to concentrate. We all talked a little bit about it. She let us go home. There was a stillness, a quiet, in those hours and days after what we all saw on TV in that wooded Podunk.

It's one of those Where-were-you-when moments of our generation.

So now, 7 years later, that NYC skyline is what I see when I stumble to the shower every morning. And now, having just celebrated my first NYC anniversary, something jerked at me to go pay homage.

I mean, I live in NYC, but so often it doesn't feel like it. I live in my routines, which are very removed from the typical NYC routines (i.e., Manhattan) and there's been a dearth of NYC-specific things on the weekends; I jetted around the country for a good portion of the summer. So I figured I'd join with fellow New Yorkers, the mayor, tourists, businessmen, survivors, families, families of victims, mourners, presidential candidates alike and pay my respects. It's just something I feel the need to do.

Talking to New Yorkers, it's interesting to hear their reflections on that terrible day. Someone said, when she found out what was going on, she cried even though she wasn't directly affected. And I heard that from many people here. It had a huge impact on people. Around the country, people watched in astonishment, there was a sense of unity as the nation collectively grieved, but it seems nothing compares to actually having been here during the attacks, sharing that experience with fellow New Yorkers, tragedy erupting in your own backyard...

So now, being fully immersed in New York, I'd like to pay my respects and, for what it's worth, share in that experience, even if it's just by showing up to that gaping hole in the ground on Church Street.

So I went after work, showed up at dusk. The air was heavy. Though there were throngs of people, still doing the same mad shuffle past one another, things just seemed...subdued a bit. There were flags with victims' names on them, pictures posted by families, flowers. There were plenty of cops, conspiracy theorists soliciting the ears of passers-by, prayer stations, musicians of varied creeds singing together, insoucient commuters on cell phones, people with big cameras taking pictures of everything/everyone, and globs of poeple who were just standing or sitting, holding each other, gazing skyward, taking in the moment. All this calm an odd contrast, of course, to the panic that engulfed the area 7 years ago to the minute.

I circumnavigated most of the enclosure, peaking through holes in the blinded fence. Wrenching thoughts of what happened that day, in the very spots I tread, took hold. Hair on my arms stood erect at moments. I didn't have a camera, but I probably wouldn't have snapped any pictures anyway. Didn't seem appropriate.

Hunger began to set in, so, in stillness, I took it in a couple minutes longer, and left for home.

Night fell. And from my livingroom, I saw the two ghostly light beams shooting up, piercing the belly of the heavens, illuminating the firmament.