(This blog is dangerously beginning to teeter on normal, non-themed journaling, but indulge me as I diverge from the IF realm for a bit…)
Over the course of the morning I’ve been engaging with colleagues and students about their memories of Sept. 11th, 2001. The most shocking revelation was when speaking with one of my student staff, she said she was in 6th grade 8 years ago! I was a college sophomore at the time… boy, do I feel old now!
Anyway, in doing so, I’ve found it therapeutic, and from a history buff standpoint, quite fascinating hearing stories of a shared, collective experience such as this.
I remember the day vividly, and I’d like to share my experience as I remember it:
I was a college sophomore, at a school in central NJ. I woke up early, put on this hippie-style top I had at the time, did my hair and makeup (a rarity before a 9am class in college). It was the ONE morning I deliberately chose not to turn on the TV to CNN that morning, as I did every other morning. I had a small breakfast and headed to class. I took a midterm at 9am; our prof was a few minutes late, and a couple of students mentioned about a plane crash in NYC. He thought it was a small aircraft, and said the midterm was continuing as planned. At 10:50am, I left my class and passed a friend of mine in the hall, hysterically sobbing. She had interned at Morgan Stanley that summer. She was the first one who told me the Towers had fallen. I still hadn’t seen a TV yet, and headed to my 11am midterm.
My professor was sitting at his desk, sobbing. He waited to make sure all the students had shown up, and then canceled class. I was still pretty clueless as to what was going on. I didn’t have a cell phone at that point, so I had to find a payphone to call my parents in southern NJ; I used my emergency calling card I kept on me. My mom explained everything, and was hysterical b/c my dad, a photojournalist for a major newspaper, pretty much left for NYC to cover it as soon as he saw it happen live on the morning news. I walked back to my dorm, sobbing to myself.
I congregated in the lounge, with its giant big-screen TV, watching replays of the footage that morning over and over and over, most of the res life staff sitting there, shell-shocked. I remember feeling weird about going up to my room on the 9th floor of my dorm, as I lived in buildings dubbed as the Twin Towers of our college – two adjacent 10 story high-rise freshmen buildings.
I remember TVs being on everywhere, and if there wasn’t a TV somewhere, projectors and screens had CNN going on in the dining halls. I called Larry at some point, and we talked about all sorts of stuff, including what would happen if there was a draft. I remember feeling like a zombie for days.
I remember the ban on air travel, and how quiet it was outside, esp. since there was a small airport with regular traffic that practically buzzed our res halls on a daily basis. It was strange to walk outside and not hear air traffic. I still remember the first plane I heard outside after the ban was lifted, and the sinking feeling in my gut.
I still remember all of this with crystal clarity, and yet it was 8 years ago, today.
I think keeping the dialogue about what we remember is important, and quite honestly, fascinating. What do you remember about 8 years today? Feel free to leave comments about your memories.
As a Canadian living in Canada's capital, I was sitting in my living room that morning, having breakfast, preparing to head downtown because we were on strike at that time (our contract had expired more than a year prior to that) and we were supposed to get together for a group protest sort of thing at our Parliament buildings. However, as I sat there watching the news, I got the breaking news story and then I saw the footage of the first hit. As I watched it all unfold, I saw the second plane hit as it happened. I remember the goosebumps that I had just sitting there in my living room in tears. I went to wake my husband (he was home that day) and he came to join me in front of our TV and we we glued to the footage for much of the day. I didn't go downtown to the Parliament buildings after all. I figured that a group of protesters gathering at the centre of Canada's capital might not exactly be the safest place for me to be, so I stayed home instead. Later that day, I heard about all the planes that were diverted from American airspace to my home province of Newfoundland and to this day, the open arms of the welcoming Newfoundlanders have been the subject of a number of documentaries. Friendships were forged and people were drawn together in grief and shock. We all knew that nothing would ever be the same again.
I am not an American and I was not in the US when this happened…but I remember watching footage of the planes crashing in the towers and close-ups showing how people were jumping out of the windows to certain death, hoping to be saved from the fires within…and I remember the dust that rose from the sinking towers….
I was not there, but the media globally picked up everything…and just looking at what was unravelling, I knew that this was a horrible thing to have happened, and something that would dent US's sense of security forever.