9-11-01

From 1983. The phrase "Never forget" has traditionally meant don't forget the holocaust, but it applies to 9/11/01, too.

I wasn't blogging when the towers fell. I didn't have a place to discuss my fears when I heard a plane had hit one of the towers (one of my staff told me when she got to work, having seen it happen). I knew it was terrorism, though I had a much smaller plane in mind. By the time the second plane hit, and we heard about the Pentagon and that another plane was missing, I was a bundle of nerves and fear.

We were able to get news on the TV at work and watched obsessively. The library was a polling place and we had a police officer on guard, which gave me some comfort. Voting was halted and the branch never opened for public service that day. Most of us couldn't leave because subway service was stopped. We watched the TV and saw the towers fall with a mixture of disbelief and horror, then started straggling out as transportation options opened up. Around 2 p.m., we heard on the news that there was subway service to Queens and I left with another staff member.

We walked up to Penn Station. Traffic was blocked off once we hit 30th Street and Fifth Avenue, or therabouts, but pedestrians were able to walk west and get to the train station. We joined the throng in the station and I managed to get onto a train that would get me to my train via a transfer in Queens since my train, the R, wasn't running in Manhattan.

We work about 35 blocks, maybe, from the WTC site and were able to see the smoke a bit when we left the library. The train to Queens is elevated on the Queens side of the East River and as it did a U-turn on a tricky part of the tracks, we could see the thick cloud of smoke and dust that we now know was truly toxic.

The train was packed with shocked high schoolers and college students. Everyone was asking questions, fear in their eyes and in their voices. I stayed home the next day, mostly out of exhaustion, because I hadn't slept at all that first night, and a fear that had taken hold of me deep down and wouldn't let go. For almost 24 hours, I obsessively watched the news, horrified yet unable to turn away from the horror.

By Thursday or Friday -- though the memory is strong, the details have blurred a bit -- the wind had shifted, sending the remnants of the smoke and dust cloud northwest across Manhattan. At lunch time on nearly deserted streets, I could smell the burning that was unlike any fire odor I'd ever smelled before. On the news, they said it was the odor of burning flesh. I am grateful I can't recall that smell now, though most everything else remains vivid in memory. I bought lunch at a local deli, then hurried back to work to eat at my desk. A beautiful, warm, clear September had been forever soiled by a cowardly terrorist act.

I don't really have anything else to say today. I did the laundry. I cleaned a bit. I uploaded photos to flickr. And tried to keep myself distracted because I know the date on the calendar for tomorrow is one I don't like to think about. Tomorrow at work is going to be difficult. I can't wait for it to be over.

Reposted on: The View from Here.

Feeling: and worried and a host of other emotions.

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: 9/11/01