It is the evening before the nine year anniversary of 9/11, and we are stepping up the stairs near WTC shortly after passing by this mural. We walk up to be greeted by mass amounts of security, police barriers, etc. A+ asks the cops what’s going on. They tell him that there are protestors against the idea that they will be building a mosque near Ground Zero. They definitely have the right to, but is it right to do so? I’m obviously not a contender to even contribute to the conversation so I just make the note that they look much smaller on tv and move on.
As I walk down Church street towards Ground Zero, I remember where I was on that day. Skipping school, like I usually did on Tuesday; the night after helping Soto with his school project on what are people’s thoughts on the church. Not wanting to give a bad answer, since I was pretty anti-church since the parental split; I told him I thought it was a great place to go in times of crisis and a great support to the community (or something in high school dialect). I was then awoken, face down on a cartoonishly blue couch, probably drooling, to my mother saying “Mary if you are there you need to turn on the television. Something has happened”… And, well, I can’t remember the rest. I just remember stumbling up to our grey Panavision television in the living room and seeing a still screen of the twin towers. I was familiar with them, since I was already planning to go to NYC that Thanksgiving and dance in the Macy’s Day Parade. “So what?” I thought; just as a plane entered from the right side of the screen, slamming into the first building. I was stunned. I was 17, and this was the first major crisis I’d ever been exposed to. My first, initial thought, is to the Presidential Classroom listserv, because a handful of kids I met that summer were currently seniors in high school or freshmen at NYU. I immediately typed up something that said “Just saw the news. Probably can’t do much here in Texas, but if we can do anything from across the United States let us know…” (which had at least a dozen replies saying “Yes, agree with Mary, anything we can do”. Our response back was a heartfelt thank you to the handful of students who had to bear witness. Some talked of all the phone lines being down, the entire area in a panic. Others said they could see people jumping to their death from their dorm room windows.
Damn. I can’t believe I didn’t save that email all these years.
We stroll down Church street, around about half of the perimeter of the construction site and the city is all alive. Alongside the (what I seem was the usual) hustle and bustle of people getting to where they are going. Lots of people are taking pictures. The world seems grey; both in overcast, gloomy weather and in the solemn morale of the people around us (or so I interpret). I’ve brought my Nikon DSLR but refuse to take pictures. I don’t want to remember this. The more I think about the orchestrated planning of a handful of individuals, concentration on the national destruction over such a long period of time. The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. I snap a picture with my phone, just for good measure… But I don’t take pictures to give it any glory of being deemed appropriate, approved, or any sort of the matter.
I didn’t take a picture of my grandma’s headstone. I don’t want to remember that. Same theory. Okay, well, that, and seeing my name on a tombstone kind of freaks me out.
We settle into Starbucks and discuss 9/11, the uncivility of mankind, the Black and White cookie… I’m more inspired than ever to get a degree in digital forensics (which A+ likes to laugh, “oh, wow, that IS a real major!”) (Psh like Journalism is?!) I dream up this fantasy that someday I would be a veteran roller derby chick who could outrun bullets – because busting up a big, secretive, covert opp of destruction is so worth getting shot over in the runaway…
We stroll back near the subway and get to the 9/11 Preview Museum. There’s a red, white, and blue motorcycle in the window, and flat screens displaying animations… That we are meer minutes to viewing. They had just closed. Rats.
No matter, you can find more about it right here.
