Like most people, what I remember most about September 11, 2001, before the towers were attacked, is the beautiful crisp, clear, fall weather with the perfect blue sky. It really was the most gorgeous day. And I sat in Queens that morning, just beginning work on my dissertation while listening to the radio. Mama had gone to work in midtown, as usual.
A report, an early report, came over the airwaves, that a little plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. I was reminded of a similar event, way back in the 1930s or something, when a small plane hit the Empire State Building. Curious, I called my dad at his office to tell him that it had happened again, just to share the news and say hi, but no worries, Mama didn't work anywhere near that. But then there was another plane, not long after I got off the phone with my dad. Something was wrong. And I left my study and went to turn on the tv in the living room.
I can't remember when I first got hold of Mama on the phone, which now was permanently in the big pocket of the black jumper I was wearing that day. She had taken a different train that morning, actually on the F, which was turned around in lower Manhattan without any announcement why. No doubt, if there had been an announcement she would've just come home, but she continued on to her office up on 53rd and 3rd. She'll have to tell you how the day unfolds for her.
By then I'd spoken to my dad again, knowing something terrible was happening. We agreed to not talk to much on the phone. It had already become hard to connect to Texas, if memory serves. I did talk to Aunt Banana, once, in Chicago, where they were similarly evacuating areas of downtown. I remember her crying, "what is happening?"
Like almost everyone else, I watched tv that morning, horrified. I spoke to Mama and told her to come home, as we were talking I watched one of the towers collapse. I remember shrieking and begging her to get out of Manhattan. She was on one of the last cabs to cross the bridges before they were closed. Which if you look at chronologiess, the bridges were closed long before the tower collapsed; perhaps it took awhile. Because I know she was on the phone with me in her building when the tower collapsed. And then she got a cab and came across the bridge and came home.
We worried about her brother, Goo, in high school right under the Towers. She was ashamed that she hadn't gone down to get him, terrified that he would be hurt. He, with his classmates, were, I believe, walking up the West Side Highway; I think he wouldn't get back home until that evening. Ma was stuck in NJ, where she works, unable to cross any bridges or tunnels to get back to Queens; she spent the night at a friend's and didn't get home until sometime the next day.
We watched tv, heard the sirens all over the city, couldn't believe what was happening. That night, an extension of the day, I couldn't sleep and insisted on leaving all the lights on in the house, thoughts of people in dark stairways seared in my mind.
I had only been to the World Trade Center a few times, mostly when giving tours to out-of-town visitors. See, I don't like tall buildings. And really, if you want to enjoy the skyline, why enjoy it from one of its best features? But I had gone up to the observation deck at least once, though never to the Windows on the World. I much preferred the Crystal Palace-like space below, with its arched window. And the best grilled hot dogs in the city were sold from a cart in the plaza. What I really liked about the area was its colonial-era feel, with Fraunces Tavern, winding streets, St. Paul's and Trinity churches. When I left NYC to return to TX in 1994, it was one of the stops on my goodbye to the city tour with Mama. But visitors always seemed to want to go up in the Towers. My favorite picture of the Towers, at least of the ones I took, is from the Staten Island Ferry, with the Statue of Liberty and Towers together in it. It's in a black frame somewhere here; we have it out occasionally. It's pre-digital and I don't have the negatives and it's not scanned in yet so we're careful with it.
I don't remember when Mama went back to work. I think she was at home at least Wednesday. At some point, we went to the top of the parking garage over a store and sat and watched the smoke billow from Ground Zero. We picked up all the papers that week, but wished we'd saved the one from that morning, a last glimpse of our innocence before the attacks. I had a conference at which I was giving a paper that Friday and, trying to follow the directives to return to life as usual, the conference went on as scheduled. And so, on Friday, a sympathetically rainy and dark day, much like today, we took a bus into the city. Never has a city bus ride been so somber and quiet. What was there anyone could say?
That night, on our return, we picked up two white pillar candles at a local bottega and lit them in our windows every night for a few hours until they were burnt out. There were so many people on our main thoroughfare that night, a night of quiet community support, many with tapers burning.
We did connect with friends, in the city and further away, those first weeks, mostly via email though I'm not sure if I still have those. No one we know was lost that day, for which we are grateful. But many of our friends were affected.
I didn't go into Manhattan much but Mama told me about the missing fliers, the evacuations, the drills, the sirens, the firefighters lost at "her" station. I didn't get much work done, watching it on tv a lot. One night, we saw on CNN about a woman who had been on a working vacation in the city with her "friend." The friend was desperately looking for her, for she had been visiting an office at the Towers that morning. We connected to her story and discovered much later that we had a friend who worked with her (the "family" can seem very small at times). We later sent money to the foundation set up in her honor.
The one time I did go in, to do some paperwork at school, a warning that a bomb was in the Empire State Building came through and the several blocks around it in Midtown were evacuated. I walked all the way uptown to Mama's office, using the new cellphone, my first, that I'd just gotten the day before for such emergencies, to tell her I was coming and why. It didn't even make the news, so common were such things those weeks.
And then there was that Cher song, "Song for the Lonely," with the video about the city and September 11, though the song was never supposed to be about that. I still tear up when I hear it, can't help remembering that fall. "Let the River Run," the anthem by Carly Simon sung today at the memorial, I had always associated with the city because of the movie, Working Girl, but not specifically with September 11.
That November, the 9th, I think, when we went down to register as domestic partners, having finally lived in the city for 6 months--we'd just moved from Chicago that April--the smell of the fires were still strong in Lower Manhattan. We have never specifically visited Ground Zero, though we've watched memorials on tv, and especially were touched by the rays of light--so beautiful, so clear, so transcendent, that we could see from our living room window in Queens. I remember being devastated when they turned off those lights.
It was deja vu on November 12 that year. I heard on the radio "Belle Harbor," where Ma and Gong and Goo lived and turned up the radio. There had been a plane crash not too many blocks--4 or 5?--from their house. Was it another terrorist attack? We thought so. And all the sirens of emergency vehicles peeling past our apartment sounded the same . . . that night, Ma and Goo, maybe Gong, who couldn't yet get home, came and ate gumbo, then our standby comfort food, and waited for news.
I don't remember when the exhibition of everyone's photos of the Towers started in some small space, in the Village, was it? But we went. And cried. And bought copies. And later the book. The image indelibly etched on my mind? A tattered "missing" poster of a pug, photographed lying with other debris on a street, obviously ripped from its post when the Towers fell. We also read the NYTimes obituaries most days, in honor of the victims. I think we have that book too. Not that we filled our apartment with September 11th memorabilia, just a few books, the papers we'd saved, the photo I had taken. But I think, looking around the house now, none of those items is visible. Time has passed; we don't need them as touchstones for that day as much anymore. But we don't forget. We dedicated September 11 a family day, even before we had you kids, and have tried to spend every subsequent anniversary together, sometimes leaving work, sometimes just setting aside the evening. In honor of the fact that we are the lucky ones, in memory of those who weren't and the family and friends who survived them.
Oddly, we were grateful to be in New York City then. It was our city; we loved it. It was a bond that had grown stronger during our recent hiatus in Chicago. Having not experienced any personal loss, we wanted to be there for the city, in our own way. Though, we moved to Connecticut more than a year later. Not because we were scared. We wanted a house, our own place with a yard, a home to share with the cat, Morgan, who found us in July 2002. And we couldn't afford that in the city. But we still think of ourselves as city girls, love NYC, try to go back when we can, though crossing the bridge and seeing what we consider the empty skyline always hurts some. I think we sometimes wish we hadn't moved. Which is why we take you, Bud and Sis, back when we can. And when you're older, maybe we'll all go to Ground Zero, or the new building they'll build there, and tell you about that day.
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