You Are Alive

September 11, 2009 1:14 AM 8 years later, living in a different city, but I still can't get over it. Maybe that's for the better? So it goes...

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September 11, 2009 8:48 AM Eight years ago today I was awakened by the incessant ringing of a cheap plastic telephone. It was mum.

September 11, 2009 8:50 AM I should say I was already half awake, though I didn't know why. I stretched out in bed, annoyed, before finally grabbing the GE handset.

September 11, 2009 8:58 AM "Do you have any idea what's going on down the street from you?" she asked. "I guess I hear some sirens, yeah."

September 11, 2009 9:01 AM Then I made a decision illustrative of the times, or of my age, I suppose. "Mom, I have to go. Someone on the other line." We wouldn't speak for 12 hours.

September 11, 2009 9:03 AM A wrong number. And then a second plane. People asked me later if we could hear the explosions. No. We felt them. Silently.

September 11, 2009 9:24 AM We clearly didn't grasp the gravity of the situation, and passed the time wondering how long it would take to fix those gaping holes.

September 11, 2009 9:40 AM I remember this image so clearly, TV next to a window facing north, and the contrast between the two skylines, one burning, one bright blue.

September 11, 2009 9:55 AM When the first building came down, our furniture moved. Not as in an earthquake, more like a haunting, quietly, almost imperceptibly.

September 11, 2009 9:57 AM And the air pressure changed, almost popped our ears. The similarity to being in an aircraft cabin was not lost on me.

September 11, 2009 10:16 AM We were speechless for a time, before we started saying stupid-college-student things to each other to fill the dead air.

September 11, 2009 10:17 AM Of course, we knew everything, so we knew we were right. Everything was going to be ok.

September 11, 2009 10:17 AM Things like, "I bet the South Tower will be a park, but the real estate is too valuable to close the North one. They will repair it."

September 11, 2009 10:35 AM When the ground shook a second time, we were told we needed to evacuate.

September 11, 2009 10:45 AM I went down to the street to look for some friends who lived further south, to offer them a shower or a change of clothes.

September 11, 2009 10:49 AM Because I always plan ahead, I went outside in my underwear. When I turned back to enter my building, a police officer stopped me.

September 11, 2009 10:50 AM "Head north," he said. I explained that I lived in the building and at least needed my wallet. "North," he repeated. So I went.

September 11, 2009 11:12 AM The journey was surreal. There was no race, no gender, only gray silhouettes aimlessly wandering amid the silence.

September 11, 2009 11:20 AM Silence was an odd but apt feature of the landscape. Nobody spoke, save for the tearful shrieks of loved ones reunited there in the haze.

September 11, 2009 11:50 AM The walk seemed overlong. All the blood and all the tears were caked with ash. I met a man who saw his friend disappear under the rubble.

September 11, 2009 2:30 PM We didn't know where we were going but we finally got there midmorning. Gathering at an apartment on 3rd Ave, we tried to find our friends.

September 11, 2009 4:01 PM I don't remember anything from that afternoon. Not sure how we passed the time, cowering in a room full of dirty people in borrowed clothes.

September 11, 2009 5:19 PM We watched Tower 7 fall from the antiseptic tranquility of a bedroom window. We knew all day it would fall, so we watched and waited.

September 11, 2009 9:32 PM Later that night we all became delirious. It was sick, but I've never laughed so hard. What else can you do, honestly?

September 11, 2009 9:33 PM We garnered some dirty looks as a serving of dry macaroni clattered to the floor. What was so funny? How could we laugh at a time like this?

September 11, 2009 9:36 PM Eventually we quieted down and settled into borrowed clothes and foreign beds. But we did sleep, and soundly. It was a beginning and an end.

September 11, 2009 9:45 PM For days we would continue to be rattled. A bomb scare. A fire on 12th street near the apartment. And the smell that blanketed the island.

September 11, 2009 9:51 PM I was 19. We all grew up that morning. Not over a period of years, but hours. We would later become adults, but we ceased to be children.

September 11, 2009 9:54 PM Later would come the adult things. Ugly and achingly empty. A silent vigil in Union Square. Angry war protests and jingoistic rallies.

September 11, 2009 9:55 PM Classes canceled by professors who didn't want to cry in front of strangers. No electricity and no water, and no phone service for months.

September 11, 2009 10:00 PM I remember two things. A banner unfurled from Washington's statue: "Our grief is not a cry for war"

September 11, 2009 10:02 PM And these words scrawled in black in a rainy, brick alley, perhaps the work of some traveling artist: "You are alive."

September 11, 2009 10:10 PM The fire burned for 99 days, and it's become apparent since then that it is forevermore within us. A thick shackle that won't permit escape.

September 11, 2009 10:12 PM But then again escape would bring guilt, so we acquiesce. Nobly, because we want to be noble. We need to be. It's the least we can do.

September 11, 2009 10:15 PM Even so, I'll keep telling my story, selfishly. And it is selfish. You see, I have to hope that when we speak, we are set free.