never say never

I've been wondering all week what to write.  A political rant?  A philosophical discussion starter? It would be easy to succomb to anger.  To criticize that we are more isolationist, less knowledgeable about the world around us.  That we are as likely if not more so now to turn our backs on the humanity of our fellow citizens.
But today can't be overtaken by anger. 
I have said many times that I want this blog to not only document our little urbansuburban existence, but to be something Mathilda will read someday to get a glimpse of how things were.  So, I decided to just write what happened, as I remember it.  I found the photos that I took that day, and some from Reggie, buried in a bin deep in the closet of my childhood bedroom. I don't think I've looked at them in 10 years. I've definitely never shared them.

I won't say never forget.  I don't have to.  I remember so well.
I lived on Union Square West at 15th St.
It was a Tuesday and I had an Anatomy and Physiology course that morning. The first plane crashed.  I thought it was a glitch. An air traffic control error.  Then the 2nd plane hit.  I went to the street.  I can't believe that I thought to bring my camera.  I wasn't scared.  I was confused.  I had no idea what to do.  There wasn't a script, no protocol to follow.

looking south. Im not sure what street I am on here, but I think Broadway, right by my apartment

again, south from our block

Incredibly, I went to class. We were dismissed after about an hour.  An entire hour.  Not learning.  Wondering what was going on outside.  Not knowing what to do.  When the crowds began rushing past the classroom window, our professor couldn't keep up the facade of normalcy, and told us to leave.  I walked northward towards my building with hundreds covered in soot and ash.  I searched the southern Manhattan sky for the towers but saw only smoke. I zig-zagged the blocks, trying to figure out why I couldn't see the buildings.  It hadn't occurred to me that they could fall.  I didn't realize the ash was the building.  The ash was desktop computers, toilet paper, elevator controls, coffee cups.  The ash was people.  In the days that followed we had to keep our windows shut, or the ash would cover our beds and desks.  We had to wear scarves over our faces in the street so we wouldn't breathe it in.

my corner

after the fall (I must have put black and white film in my 35mm 200 speed camera when the color ran out?).

9/12. View from Washington Square Park.

I passed a girl on the street. Probably a student. She had long dark hair.  She sat screaming on the curb.  Her father was in those buildings.  Strangers tried to soothe her, brushed her hair back as she cried.
Cell phones stopped working.  Lines formed at pay phones.  My mom couldn't get through to me.

I went to NYU's Coles gym with my dear friend and roommate, Bridgette, our backpacks full of bottled water and granola bars.  It was to be a triage center.  I think I might have also packed bandaids and neosporin.  Maybe they would be needed.  But no one arrived.  We left the supplies.  We heard there was a blood drive at St. Vincent's hospital.  The roads were closed- to keep them clear for the ambulances which would be bringing the injured any moment.  The subways also were not running.  So we ran to the hospital.  I handed out water with the MTA police.  The blocks were full of people in lines.  Type A, AB, O positive, negative.  We organized.  Because surely blood would be needed.

blood drive lines at St. Vincent's

St. Vincent Hospital

The National Guard and NYPD set up on our street.  We had to show ID to leave our block.

NYPD barricade at 14th St.

My new Resident Advisor, Reggie LaFond, was posted at the entrance to our building. Counting residents, assigning rooms for those displaced from the dorms located only steps from the World Trade Center.

I heard that a plane went down in Pittsburgh, and suddenly I was terrified.  I knew that I was ok, but hearing that my home town had possibly been attacked and I couldn't get through was too much to handle.  I learned soon about flight 93 and the field in Shanksville, PA.

A kid from across the hall, whose name I now can't even remember, a theater major, gay, skinny, with dark hair, shared my bed with me that week, not wanting to be alone.  People slept on our floor, unable to get back to their own rooms.  We watched Sex and the City DVDs. I made tuna noodle casserole.

That night, the discussions began.  I remember that I had heard that as far back as the civil war, people would gather in Union Square park to debate.  I stayed up very late in the park.  I remember starting to feel a part of something very very big.  I remember thinking, my children will ask me about this moment.

crowds gather in Union Square Park to debate the attacks and the appropriate response

By nightfall, makeshift memorials had been erected.  They would be elaborated on for weeks.  Posters searching for loved ones.  Signs decrying Al Qaeda, our government, too.  Us and them.   I remember thinking- who would attack us?  I mean, we have The Bomb, surely any country would be asking for certain decimation for attacking us!  And then, as war with other nations, or "terror" became imminent, I knew that no other 19 year old girl should have to experience what I had experienced that day.  Sadly, I know that for many 19 year old girls, 9/11 is an all too frequent occurrence. 

Re-telling the story, there are things we will always say.  "It was a day not unlike today," for example. Which is true most years.  A sunny warm day after a cool almost-Autumn night.  And of course, we say, always remember.  never forget.
But I will never say never forget.  I won't buy a t-shirt, a bumper sticker, a flag pin.  I won't post dramatic images of the towers or the pentagon on facebook.   The memory is too strong for a poster, a t-shirt, a slogan.  I cried today for the kids who won't know their parents, for the spouses, for the people on those planes and the sheer terror they must have felt.  We were all New Yorkers that day.
I'm glad the 10th anniversary has almost passed, and I'm sure I'm not alone.  It's a heavy memory but one that deserves to be told frequently and with feeling.  I hope I never forget that.