It's been 12 years and I still hate this day.
I don't like switching on the TV to see those images played over and over again.
I don't want to see it or relive it. It's still fresh in my mind.
You see, I didn't only see it on TV that day. I saw it right in front of me. Heard all the sirens and I was in a transportation hub that connected to the World Trade Center as it was happening.
"Service to the World Trade Center has been suspended due to police activity." I remember hearing over the loudspeaker in Jersey City's Journal Square.
I remember what I was listening to on the bus to Journal Square. Veruca Salt's Blow It Out Your Ass. "Shimmer Like a Girl" was the song I was listening to on my old Sony Discman when I first saw the Twin Towers on fire. My friend Ima who coincidentally was on the same bus as I was at the time pointed over her shoulder and said something to the effect of "I can't believe that someone did that!" The entire bus gasped in horror as we looked at the smoke billowing out of the towers at around 9:15 that morning.
I remember also being at Journal Square about to board the bus to Bayonne, where I was working at the time, and overhearing two women talking...
"When the first one hit, I thought it was an accident. But when the second one hit I knew something was wrong. That ain't no accident!"
What was weird was this whole time, I said nothing. All I did was observe what was around me. I find that I often do this when I feel I can't offer any comfort and/or I do not know what exactly the weight is of what is happening.
When I finally arrived at work I saw my boss crying. She hugged me and told me to call my mother. I was guessing that she had probably called my job to see if I had arrived there yet. I didn't even own a cell phone at the time.
My boss then told me to go home and that I wouldn't be working that day. Her eyes welled up with tears as she hugged me again. The whole time going home I didn't even listen to my music, which is extremely odd for me when I'm riding public transit. I listened to the people, what they were saying, who they were saying it to; most of what I heard was fear and concern for their loved ones. The anger didn't start until the day after.
I still don't understand exactly WHY that happened that day. I don't think I ever will.
What's weird is I never actually liked that section of Manhattan. Not Battery Park or the Financial District per se but the Towers themselves. I always felt an errie sense of panic and an ache in my heart whenever I was near them, little did I know, they would fall upon people having the same feelings for much more severe reasons later on.
Back in May, when my cousin was visiting from Maine, I went to the 9-11 Memorial because she wanted to see it. I still didn't like going there but I must say when I arrived I found the Memorial beautiful and peaceful.
I am always interested in hearing where people were when they heard about 9-11 or, like me, where they were when they witnessed it first hand.
Either way, when people say "Never Forget" on this day, I respond inside my mind.
"I couldn't forget it even if I wanted to. Its hard to forget seeing something like that with your own eyes."
I don't think I could ever recover having seen that live in front of my face. I was not here yet. I moved here almost exactly a year later.
ReplyDeleteI was laid off at the time, and was actually asleep when the first one hit. My boyfriend called from his work and woke me up. We both thought it was an accident, but he wanted to give me a jab because he knew I had an irrational fear of flying. He had a pilot's license, and we were both discussing "what kind of jackass just runs into a building like that?" I went back to sleep.
Not long after, the boyfriend calls me and wakes me up again. "This is not an accident....go turn on the TV now!" As the morning progressed, and the news of other planes crashing and one still in the air, I felt a sense of panic because no one knew how many more there might be. After the Pentagon, I started thinking about Fort Knox, and my friends who were stuck there without a vehicle to get out. I almost had to go get them!
I had, and still have nightmares about it all the time. I've had some that involved seeing HUNDREDS of planes in the sky all at once, just start crashing into things. Building, bridges, the river...It has certainly messed with my psyche. I can't imagine having had been here to witness it in the flesh!