On Waking Up
Sep. 11th, 2004 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
in_the_blueA very loud fighter-jet flew low over my house just after 9:00 this morning. And through my barely-awake confusion, my very first thought was well, of course, it's September 11.
I was born in Manhattan. I grew up in and around NYC; I'm a transplant to the west. I went to the WTC site in November of 2001. Dust and smoke and solemn people, and crying people and laughing people, and tourists with street maps, and workers. New Yorkers who were taking their first daring steps back there still in shock. People going about their everyday business, but all in hushed voices and all respectful and polite. Typically brusque New Yorker behavior had no place there. Didn't want to get as close as I could because I felt like a voyeur but at the same time it was something I had to see.
The enormity of it was overwhelming; we walked away across the Brooklyn Bridge and looked at the gap in lower Manhattan. Empty.
I was born in Manhattan. I grew up in and around NYC; I'm a transplant to the west. I went to the WTC site in November of 2001. Dust and smoke and solemn people, and crying people and laughing people, and tourists with street maps, and workers. New Yorkers who were taking their first daring steps back there still in shock. People going about their everyday business, but all in hushed voices and all respectful and polite. Typically brusque New Yorker behavior had no place there. Didn't want to get as close as I could because I felt like a voyeur but at the same time it was something I had to see.
The enormity of it was overwhelming; we walked away across the Brooklyn Bridge and looked at the gap in lower Manhattan. Empty.
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Date: 2004-09-11 10:04 pm (UTC)People tend to compartmentalize the things that make sense to them. Very few can compartmentalize what happened on 9/11 because it's so far outside the scope of anything we know how to deal with.
I got a lot of phone calls that morning. Two sisters and their assorted significant others and kids working and attending schools in Manhattan. I know a lot of people whose ability (or inability) to cope got stretched that day.