So, today is 9/11. I am not in New York right now, but I was there eight years ago on this day.
My friend, Heather, and I tend to call each other up on this day. She was in New York as well, but we both live in LA now. We call each other up, not to remember the gory details of 9/11, but just to check in. There is something about that shared experience that will always bond us with the friends I had in the city at the time, something that our fellow Angelenos may not understand. When Heather calls me, we remember that one of her most pressing thoughts that day was, "Why don't I eat more chocolate cake?" If something like this could happen at any time, she thought on that day, why was she denying herself something she loved? We laugh about it now, the crazy things you think about in the face of disaster, but I know we both remember her insight from time to time - how important it is to enjoy the moment, how easy it is to let the little things slip away unnoticed.
For some reason, the anniversary of this day is more poignant this year. Maybe because I feel even more removed from it out here, maybe because it seems like there might be a chance that the war and devastation that started with this day could come to an end with this current administration. I'm not sure exactly why, but today I feel the need to truly focus on my experience of this day, to remember - not just where I was and what I was doing at the time - but more specifically, the vast amount of love and support that ricocheted across the city immediately after the planes hit. I think this is the connection that Heather and I are looking for when we call each other up. I think this is what I am missing most about New York.
On that day, I remember immediately heading home to my apartment in Hoboken to call my family, trying to get out of Manhattan before all transportation routes shut down. But I had friends that immediately headed for St. Vincent's Hospital on 12th Street to see if they could lend a hand. Over the next week, that hospital asked for blankets and food, and the supplies came out in such masses - so many that they could not even use them all. We all eagerly awaited instructions from anyone telling us what we could do to help out. As I walked through the West Village in the days after the attack (I can still smell the air - do you remember the acrid smell of the air?), I would read the poetry and song lyrics and see the artwork that people had posted to lightposts and the sides of buildings. There was so much to express that New Yorkers were literally pouring out their emotions into art and putting it up wherever they could, for whomever to see in the hopes that they would somehow make a connection, somehow give words to the current of emotion running through the city.
Having now lived on the west coast for four years, I am missing my connection with New York. As I look at the status updates of my facebook friends, I see I am not the only one. Many of those that shared that New York experience with me on this day are now in other cities, and all of us are reaching out on this day. But I don't think it is the shared experience of this disaster that we are trying to embrace. I think it is the feeling of being a New Yorker on this day - not the victims of a tragedy, but a people bonded by overwhelming emotion who could do nothing but try to express it, experience it, and reach out with others to try to identify it.
So today, I will remember. I will be spending the morning with my mother, who teaches second grade. Her class has learned a poem which they will recite at their morning assembly. They are also going to sing "Proud to be an American," which they have been practicing all week. A local firefighter is going to attend the assembly, where they will present him with a book of letters they have written to him and his colleagues, as well as a giant canister of red vines and other treats for the firehouse. I am excited to experience this day doing something positive and heartwarming because, despite the chaos of 2001, that is still what I remember most about being in New York.
To my current New York friends, know that there is so much love for you out here. We are thinking of you today, and of each other, and by God, we are eating chocolate cake.
