It was a Tuesday so very much like today.
Breathtakingly blue skies, crisp air, and just a hint of fall.
Even more than two hundred miles away in Boston, where I was a freshman in college, the weather was the same. I heard the news in the student center as I stopped there after my early class. It was 9:15am. People were crowded around the big TV, and no one spoke a word as the reports rolled in from New York City. There was a girl next to me furiously trying to make a call on her cell phone. Over and over she dialed, but the call would not go through. I was fixed in place, unable to move. Unable to leave to walk back to my dorm. Unable to do anything except watch the events unfold. I was still standing there when the towers fell. When one collective gasp rose up from the room, from the campus, from the country. When for, perhaps the first time, we understood panic, fear, struggle and loss.
I have made my home in the city I watched on TV eleven Septembers ago. And while I sometimes have complex feelings about Manhattan, I don't today. Never on this day. On this day, I am proud to live here, and to work here. To create memories, and to build a life here. To experience the grit, the boundless energy and the ceaseless exuberance that make this city unlike any other.
This is my city now.
That day eleven years ago is an indelible part of our story, but it's not the whole story. So today. Today, I look back. I look back and I remember a day filled with darkness, and ending, and heartbreaking loss. And I look forward. I look forward towards hopeful beginnings, and happy days, and a bright future for me, for all of us, and for this city.
Breathtakingly blue skies, crisp air, and just a hint of fall.
Even more than two hundred miles away in Boston, where I was a freshman in college, the weather was the same. I heard the news in the student center as I stopped there after my early class. It was 9:15am. People were crowded around the big TV, and no one spoke a word as the reports rolled in from New York City. There was a girl next to me furiously trying to make a call on her cell phone. Over and over she dialed, but the call would not go through. I was fixed in place, unable to move. Unable to leave to walk back to my dorm. Unable to do anything except watch the events unfold. I was still standing there when the towers fell. When one collective gasp rose up from the room, from the campus, from the country. When for, perhaps the first time, we understood panic, fear, struggle and loss.
I have made my home in the city I watched on TV eleven Septembers ago. And while I sometimes have complex feelings about Manhattan, I don't today. Never on this day. On this day, I am proud to live here, and to work here. To create memories, and to build a life here. To experience the grit, the boundless energy and the ceaseless exuberance that make this city unlike any other.
This is my city now.
That day eleven years ago is an indelible part of our story, but it's not the whole story. So today. Today, I look back. I look back and I remember a day filled with darkness, and ending, and heartbreaking loss. And I look forward. I look forward towards hopeful beginnings, and happy days, and a bright future for me, for all of us, and for this city.
Sigh, what a sad day to remember.
ReplyDeleteWell-written tribute to your city. I especially like your second paragraph and the way it flows. To experience the grit, the boundless energy... Nice. Hopeful, that is surely what we need to maintain, that hopeful attitude.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Stephanie, I like the hope in this.
ReplyDeleteWhat a day. I was on the west coast but now live just outside of NYC. The stories people here tell, wow. This was a nice tribute.
ReplyDeleteYou really honor the city so, so well. What a terrible, terrible day. But, you're right. It's not the whole story. There is hope. Always hope.
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