I Said I'm All Alone
New York City was two-thousand miles away.
I was barely seventeen starting my senior year of high school and I was thinking about how this year was going to be a good year for me. I woke-up late, my mom was in the shower and we had the television sets filling in the background chatter of our morning routines.
Two-thousand miles. A lifetime of movies, t.v., songs, books, and two-thousand miles stretched out over and around me like a quilted blanket, hugged tightly to my body so the cold didn't seep in: I [heart] NY, yellow cabs, sky-scrapers, everyone famous, Marvel Comics, Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, Subways, Wall St, High Art, homeless, the BIG Apple, et cetera.
I was amazed and excited at the coverage I saw of the first plane's crash into the north tower. I remember yelling out to my mom, who was still in the shower, that a plane had "hit a building in New York City". A few seconds later, my eyes caught a glint of the sun's reflection off of something in the sky near the towers and then the second plane hit. The local news station must have been a little late getting to the story.
This was planned.
What a comfortable blanket I had. This wasn't awful. It was incredible and didn't even touch on tragedy, yet. My mom's first words after seeing the wreckage in the towers were, "They're going to collapse." Her voice just hung there in between us and New York City until we moved to get out of the house and into the truck to continue in our mostly uninterrupted lives.
School was already in session. Walking in through the doors was like idly moving through a ghost town, gawking at the stores and houses left to the dust-devils, dirt, and tumbleweed. As I passed him, Mr. H let me know another plane struck, taking out a side of the Pentagon.
Ms. A kept her room dark when it was hot, although, I think her lights would have been off regardless. There was a little debate between Ms. A and the students about the validity of keeping the idiot box on and tuned to the news. This was the case in most of my classes, looks like I'm not the only one with a quilted blanket.
I remember drinking a lot water. Later, I counted how many times I had refilled my bottle and found out I had downed a gallon of water in under four hours. I had one of those sixteen ounce bottles which I would suck out the contents until the strained creaking of a vacuum imploding molded plastic reminded me to refill. More water please. Now, I can see I was obviously very stressed.
Six years. So much has happened since then.
New York City is no longer two-thousand miles away. 'Ground Zero' is thirteen miles away. I'm glad I'm here and a part of NYC, having given up many of the fluffy fantasies of what this untouchable city means; the blanket didn't seem to fit anymore once we got here, no matter how hard I tried to hold on to it.
I was barely seventeen starting my senior year of high school and I was thinking about how this year was going to be a good year for me. I woke-up late, my mom was in the shower and we had the television sets filling in the background chatter of our morning routines.
Two-thousand miles. A lifetime of movies, t.v., songs, books, and two-thousand miles stretched out over and around me like a quilted blanket, hugged tightly to my body so the cold didn't seep in: I [heart] NY, yellow cabs, sky-scrapers, everyone famous, Marvel Comics, Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, Subways, Wall St, High Art, homeless, the BIG Apple, et cetera.
I was amazed and excited at the coverage I saw of the first plane's crash into the north tower. I remember yelling out to my mom, who was still in the shower, that a plane had "hit a building in New York City". A few seconds later, my eyes caught a glint of the sun's reflection off of something in the sky near the towers and then the second plane hit. The local news station must have been a little late getting to the story.
This was planned.
What a comfortable blanket I had. This wasn't awful. It was incredible and didn't even touch on tragedy, yet. My mom's first words after seeing the wreckage in the towers were, "They're going to collapse." Her voice just hung there in between us and New York City until we moved to get out of the house and into the truck to continue in our mostly uninterrupted lives.
School was already in session. Walking in through the doors was like idly moving through a ghost town, gawking at the stores and houses left to the dust-devils, dirt, and tumbleweed. As I passed him, Mr. H let me know another plane struck, taking out a side of the Pentagon.
Ms. A kept her room dark when it was hot, although, I think her lights would have been off regardless. There was a little debate between Ms. A and the students about the validity of keeping the idiot box on and tuned to the news. This was the case in most of my classes, looks like I'm not the only one with a quilted blanket.
I remember drinking a lot water. Later, I counted how many times I had refilled my bottle and found out I had downed a gallon of water in under four hours. I had one of those sixteen ounce bottles which I would suck out the contents until the strained creaking of a vacuum imploding molded plastic reminded me to refill. More water please. Now, I can see I was obviously very stressed.
Six years. So much has happened since then.
New York City is no longer two-thousand miles away. 'Ground Zero' is thirteen miles away. I'm glad I'm here and a part of NYC, having given up many of the fluffy fantasies of what this untouchable city means; the blanket didn't seem to fit anymore once we got here, no matter how hard I tried to hold on to it.
Labels: New York City
posted by Forrest at 10:04 AM
4 Comments:
I didn't even go to work that day. I woke up, turned on the TV and started to get ready. Which was weird, because at the time, I didn't watch TV as I was getting ready in the morning. I noticed the news, and couldn't get up off the couch, except to "call in sick". I stayed there, and before I knew it it was 6pm. I finally roused myself to answer the phone and chat with my mom about the events. Certainly a day to remember.
before i saw what happened on the TV i was in bed and my mom told me and my first reaction was...what kind of idiot would be stupid enough to crash into a sky scraper you know like he couldnt see where he was going.....but then i turned on the TV in my room and saw what it really was i had to turn my head away when it sunk in. everyone was very quiet that day all over the city and the skies were eerily (sp) quiet as well. i had to go to work that day i still worked at making car reservations around the country....it was a busy stressful day no cars were available due to everyone renting them because they couldnt fly anywhere and were stranded....in some ways i feel i was directly invovled in helping those people that day.......only in some ways and i dont mean people at ground zero and im not giving myself airs either. it was interesting to hear your account of it....alex told me his last night we practically had the same thoughts at first.
On september 11th here, we had a memorial of september 11th, 1973, the day salvador allende was killed in a coup in chile.
i love this school, but i am struggling to not trivialize.
i was 11 on our september 11th. my only thought was "i've been there!"
i really like the way you use words.
Sometimes I forget how much this event effected people outside the city. Because I was here to see and hear and smell what was going on it can be easy to claim this as a solely New York experience. But this scarred us all. Much like an earthquake rippling outward, devastation was felt far beyond the epicenter.
~Ben M
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