You’ll excuse me please if I don’t want to watch a BBC special reliving how “America’s day of tragedy” unfolded minute by minute. Nor am I particularly interested in watching a documentary on twins that were separated as the iconic buildings fell. I’m not interested in the NY/ Region section of the New York Times today, replaying countless stories of the “The 9/11 Decade”. It’s disaster porn, and as much as I love a good tsunami just like the next person, this one I’d really rather skip.
I know some people will say that it was 10 years ago, but some things are just.. . I don’t know… you know? Our media are in a frenzy reflecting on the decade of terror or the “9/11 Decade” as the New York Times has branded it. It’s not that I don’t care. Maybe I’ve just hit my saturation point. Maybe it’s too late to reflect on 9/11. It has been 10 years already. Maybe… maybe it is still too soon. It still feels so raw, emotion hovering just below the surface. How do you make sense of a day, a day 10 years ago, that was that day?
I get a call from my Mom every September, “Where are you going to be on the 11th? I’d like to know your plans please. I am your Mother.” What follows is a sincere plea to please stay away from buses, trains, subways and all public places. “They don’t tell us everything. There are still very real terror threats. They will target public places, you are not safe. Please tell me you’ll stay home.” She says that even though the anniversary is a Sunday this year, that doesn’t mean anything. I remind her that we go through this every year, “It’s been 10 years Mommy!” Don’t go into the city, she says, “I wish you would have moved to New Jersey”. Fine, I tell her, I won’t. It’s a Sunday anyway.
I remember very clearly going to work on Friday, 8th September 2006. I was working in Mid-town Manhattan and there was talk of people not coming into work on Monday, (out of respect or fear?) but no, it was time to move on. We had a staff lunch on Fridays and gathered in the conference room for Chinese take-away. My boss – who was in London at the time – was holding court at the table and said something, I don’t even remember what it was but a couple of girls sprung up from the table abruptly and ran out of the room crying. It turned out they both had siblings in the towers. We learned that our office building had been evacuated that day. Everyone around us walked down 32 flights of stairs, except me and my boss. Nobody said anything. What do you say? For five of the last 10 years, I was right there, but I wasn’t there. But I was finishing my last year at University in 2001 and my University was 200 miles north of New York City.
Anyone who tells you that they remember that day minute by minute is lying. Memories are fragmented, sporadic and come in bursts. Everyone remembers the weather, funnily enough. It was simply gorgeous. I was Managing Editor of the student paper at my University and Monday night was production night for the Tuesday edition. We published twice a week. I drove the paper to printers at 3AM and managed a few hours of sleep but rolling out of bed for English Lit II. My first class of the day started at 9:05AM. I remember pausing along the path that leads from the senior dorms down into campus to admire the cloudless sky. We were reading Jane Eyre in English Lit II and though I was exhausted from the night before, I was rather looking forward to that class. I mustered but the energy as if inspired by the glistening sun and walked into the liberal arts building and down the hall toward the stairs. That’s when I noticed the gaggle of students crowded outside the registrar’s office window at a TV just beyond the glass. My freshman roommate was there. “What’s going on?” I asked. She only pointed at the TV screen. We stood there together in complete silence watching the North tower burn.
I don’t remember exactly how or why, but I went upstairs to the classroom and switched on the TV. Others piled into the room and quickly sat down thinking they were late and we were already watching a movie. We simply shook our heads and pointed at the TV. We watched live as the South tower was hit. The next 20 minutes or so are a mash of memories of classmates seeing the events unfolding and the stricken look on their faces as the reality of the events settled in. My University was only 200 miles outside of New York City; a top school in the State University of New York (SUNY) system, most of the students were from the City. There was the girl whose father worked in the South tower and the guy whose brother was a firefighter. She cried inconsolably right there, in English Lit II, with 30 or so strangers. Our professor watched with us before encouraging us all to go, be with your friends, call your families, “There is no point staying here, “ she told us.
I went back to my dorm. None of my roommates were around, so I turned on the TV and called my Mom. We watched together on the phone as reports turned to United 93. “Are you watching this?!” I said to my Mom. “Oh, of course we are! Daddy didn’t go to work. We are watching CNN.” When the Pentagon was hit, I called my best friend in Virginia. Her mother had been working at the Pentagon last time I saw her. “No, she’s okay; she works at the Federal Courts now. Are your parents OKAY??!!” She remembered that my parents lived in New York, but wasn’t sure were. “No, they are fine. They live in upstate now”. I got calls from a several childhood friends. “Don’t you go to school in New York? I thought of you as soon as I heard the news. “No, I’m okay. I’m Upstate.”
Gaps in memory are a funny odd thing. At some point in the afternoon, I must have decided that I didn’t want to be alone so I left my dorm and went to the offices of the student newspaper – Pipe Dream – to seek solace in my editors desk and the comfy green sofas littered with news editors, staff writers and left over pizza from the night before. I guess I ran into a couple of members of the editorial staff because at some point we decided that the best thing to do would be to put out a special edition for the next day. I would have phoned the printer and set to work purchasing images from Getty, but I have no recollection of either of these tasks. I set to work planning the issues, blocking the stories and assigning reporters to cover angles of the story across campus. We had a very large Muslim community on our campus and a large Jewish community so University administrators were instantly worried about any clashes. I sent a reporter to go talk to the Muslim Student Union. I phoned the President’s office to get an official comment about violence reported against Muslims on other University campuses. The editor-in-chief, a pompous Philosophy, Politics and Law student, set out to write the Op-Ed piece.
I recognize now that we were all stuck in a parallel universe of sorts. Safe and sheltered from the events of the day on a closed college campus, painfully aware of what was unfolding thanks to the 24 hour news, but also frustratingly far away from family members and friends who were there and dealing with very real personal tragedy. The University swiftly cancelled classes and asked students with family members directly affected to come forward for counseling and help. Students turned up at the Pipe Dream office seeking community and something to do. Student groups organized a candlelight vigil that evening. I turned up, not with a candle, but with a camera. They don’t teach you how to cover traumatic national events in journalism classes. One of our professors got in touch to ask if we were all okay and we just said, “Yes, Ma’am, we’re putting out a special issue tomorrow and are all over it”. In retrospect, I am not sure that is what she meant.
When we put the paper to bed that night, fears over violence toward Muslim students and the growing rift between the Jewish student population and everyone else were still emerging. In the days that would follow, I think I must have gotten very little sleep. We had the Thursday paper to get out next and I’m sure I was focused on capturing the unfolding political sentiment right here on our doorstep. I also had to keep our advertisers happy that we would still put out a paper. “Would we run the Thursday issue without advertisements?” Papa Johns wanted to know. Yes, because it felt it was the right thing to do. Instead, we would allow student groups to publicize counseling sessions, student vigils and chartered busses for free. I was making it up as went.
Ten years later, I feel that I must have summoned great maturity on that day. As journalism student, a sociologist, a newspaper gal; I set my own feelings aside and took my job very seriously. There was an absolute flood of conflicting reports in the 24-hours that followed and questions; were there other targets, where were the missing planes, where was the President, who was behind this, were we safe? That weekend, the campus emptied out as students from the City went home in chartered busses. I drove to my parent’s house in Update New York. There were fears of a water shortage. The government threatened to shut down the Catskills water supply amid fears that the terrorists would poison the reservoirs that watered New York City. We bought bottled water and settled into the rhythm of 24 hour news; MSNBC in the Kitchen, CNN in the family room and 1010WINS in the shower. News media turned their attention to the personal stories and tragedies. Everyone has a personal story about those minutes; we were all there, every single American, but few of us were there. 10 years on I think very few of us have figured out how to make sense of a day of tragedy, a day that was that day.
So no, I’m not really interested to watch the BBC special. But, you go ahead.
