9/11
I was going to write up a big memorial post, but I just don’t feel either philosophical or creative enough right now.
Let me say this though: September 11th, 2001 is probably the only day in my 21 years on Earth that I can remember as vividly as yesterday - probably even better then most yesterdays. I remember that my friends and I went out the night before to see “Rock Star” - the only Monday night we ever went out on throughout senior year - because we thought we were bigtime seniors and could go out on school nights. I remember sitting in 2nd period AP English and hearing about the attacks. I remember leaving school 3rd period to walk to my friend Jon’s house to watch the news on TV. I remember sitting on his couch and watching, horrified, as the first and second towers fell. I remember being worried about my father - he works/still works on Hudson and Dominick Streets right on top of the Holland Tunnel ventilation systems - and calling my mother on my cell for updates throughout the day. I remember sitting on the floor of the gym talking to my mother on my cell phone, an action that was not even given a second look by teachers. I remember coming home from school, picking up my father from the train, planting myself on the couch, and watching the news for hours. Days. I remember staying home from school the next day because I stayed up most of the night watching the news and I just could not handle leaving the house.
Ironically I was supposed to be in the Mariott Hotel that was in the World Trade Center the night of September 11th, 2001 to visit a college fair for performing and visual arts schools. I was in the World Trade Center unfortunately only once in my entire life, when I was in the subway station below it on my way to a concert at Pace University. I remember standing in the street near the towers for an hour trying to hail a cab and looking up in awe at their majesty. My mother worked in 4 World Trade Center as an executive assitant in the Research and Development department of the New York Mercantile Exchange, which still had trading floors there on 9/11.
Sometimes country music can best express my feelings:
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And we vowed to get the ones behind Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?
I haven’t. Have you?