Why bother to share another story of September 11 on this 20th Anniversary?
I realize how much that single day shaped my view of the world as a fragile, fleeting illusion. What I saw reoriented me, turned me inward, set my life on a spiritual path.
Which has me wondering: how are these strange days shaping our view and relationship to the world to come? After 9/11, I never looked at a skyscraper the same way; any second the walls could come crumbling down. So I wonder, in the face of destruction and this ongoing pandemic, how do we create? What do we build? The meaning is ours to make and where do we do it?
These are the questions I’ve been living with. I’ve come to understand that some things simply can’t resolve on this physical plane. I have scars on my feet to prove it. Maybe some types of resolution ring out on different planes—emotional, mental, intuitional, spiritual—all beyond physical reach but not beyond the realm of heart. Just maybe.
Here’s my story:
I wade through silken layers of dreams and lavender sheets to answer the phone, “Hello?”
“You’re being bombed!” my sister’s frantic. “Bombed!”
“What?” I’m not awake. “What are you talking about?”
“Go look. I love you. Call me back,” she hangs up.
I hear a blast and jump out of bed, throw my jean jacket over my jammies, and wake my boyfriend, “Rob, let’s go up to the roof. Something’s happening.”
***
I bartended late last night at Citarella in Rockefeller Center–my regular Monday night gig. The bar was packed with polished, sparkly people, sipping pink martinis, warm golden brandies, bourbons-rocks-splash of water.
Make that two–dozen. Servers called out beverages: wines by the glass, cocktail specials, after dinner drinks. Lights low, music thumping. I turned it up, tossed bottles, counted long, poured deep–I was dangerously good–what everybody wanted in their bartender. That and black leather pants. Check and check. I made a killing.
I finished my final shift drink at 4:00 a.m., sucked the lemon, kissed my coworkers goodnight and headed home. My boot heels clicked along the sidewalk, down subway steps, into the warm underbelly of New York. I kept my eyes down and myself invisible, just another shadow disappearing before dawn. I pulled out my walkman and pushed play. The CD started to spin, five descending notes into the new Radiohead album filled my ears: Everything, Everything, Everything–I leaned back and closed my eyes–In its right place, In its right place, In its right place.
The upswell of wind and screech of the subway arrived–Yesterday I woke up sucking on a lemon–I stepped in–Everything in Its Right Place. I lurched through stop after stop, stepped out at Rivington, up subway stairs, out the belly into the lower east side–There are two colors in my head. What was that you tried to say?–home to 122 Norfolk Street. Security door unlocked, up five heavy flights of stairs into my apartment, boots off, watered face, teeth brushed, clothes off, jammies on, face down asleep by 5:30 a.m.
Everything in Its Right Place.
***
“My sister said we’re being bombed,” I say to Rob. We rush to the top stair and step out on the roof.
I see the New York City skyline, a sight I’d seen a thousand times before but–I blink. Is that? Thoughts fragment. The Twin Towers are twin billows of smoke–is that smoke?–pouring toward the sky. A few neighbors have gathered. We look blankly at each other. No one says a thing. We stare. “I heard a boom, did you hear a boom?” I say, “what’s happening?”
Planes.
Flew into the Towers.
“But aren’t there people in there?” I’m confused. No one speaks. We stare silent, strange, vacuous. There is no air out here. My heart stops. No cabs run below.
No cars on the Williamsburg Bridge. No thoughts. Silence. Smoke fills the sky. Silhouettes gather on other roofs down the street. I hear the roar of approaching planes.
Get down! someone yells. We drop to the grizzled roof on our bellies. I roll to my back and look up. The sky is bright brilliant blue. We’re being bombed again. I’m about to die on this roof. I stare wild eyed and silent. I’m going to die here, I know this. The sky is so blue.
“Get up,” someone says, “they’re US stealth bombers. Probably defending
us.”
I climb to my feet, blown outside myself, looking down from a new distance. I see her quiver. Eyes blur. Are there people in there? Billows of smoke slither close. She stares, her joints separate, mouth open wide. My tongue feels too big in my mouth. I’m nauseous. I see flickers around the Towers. Are those birds? What’s flying toward the ground? Papers, white, caught on the wind, drifting. I focus on the papers. Floating, eerie. Something else speeds toward the ground. Is that a–? I see another person jump. I don’t look away. My eyes follow the bodies down and the smoke up. I can’t. I’m staring, unhinged. I hear screams and metal groans. The sky is so blue, not a single cloud.
I see Rob. He’s staring, wide eyed, mouth open. His hair’s a mess. He turns toward me. “What is happening?” He asks. Or was that me? No answer. My tongue is too big. I could choke. I look back at the Towers and take his hand.
We’re ghosts, hovering atop the roof of the world. We clench hands and watch the South Tower fall. Frozen, flying miles off the earth, can’t take it in, it doesn’t fit anywhere–until the North Tower collapses–miles off the earth–she thinks she sees ghosts, blue, beautiful.
“Water, let’s go get water.” Was that Rob? Was that me?
Down the stairs. Into the apartment. Get purse.
“Wait. I have to call my sister back,” I pick up the phone–the lines are
dead.
“The bridges are closed too,” he says, “We’re stuck here.”
“Let’s get water, and food, as much as we can carry. Let’s go,” she says. She didn’t say let’s go help, let’s grab blankets and run downtown, let’s go–I’ll have nightmares about this for years. Nothing I’ll ever do will ever make this up.
We bound down five flights to the streets. People walk by, sobbing, covered in ash. Into the crowded market, we fill our arms with gallons of water, cans of food, hair dye, gum, randomness. As much as we can hold. The credit card machines are down. I pull out a wad of cash from my bartending shift the night before, pay, and we dash down the center of the empty avenue. Climbing the stairs by twos, we get to our front door–bent an inch open, crow bar on the floor.
Someone tried to break in when we were gone. The door is damaged and we can’t get in. We set our groceries down. Rob screams.
“I’ll get help,” I say. The neighbor upstairs. I race up and pound on his door. He answers, white paint on his face.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Painting my room.”
“You’re painting your room?”
“I’m painting my room.”
“Oh. Do you know the Towers just fell? Just like that weird dream I told you last week?” I stammer, “Someone jacked my door downstairs. I can’t get in. I left for water. My phones are down. Can you reach the landlord?”
He can. He tells me to sit. He hands me a glass of water. He pulls his long black hair into a ponytail and says he’ll get a hold of him. I stare at his white, freshly painted walls and ceiling. The paintbrush is balanced sideways on the can, white drips to the floor, “So—you’re painting?”
“So—your dream. Tell me again.”
I finish the water and walk back downstairs, sit on the concrete step next to Rob, and stare at the jacked door. I pull my walkman out of my purse, push play, watch the CD spin. Kid A on endless repeat. It’s the only CD I have with me. Hours go by, the CD plays, over and over. A locksmith arrives. Busts the door open.
I walk into my apartment and gasp. The windows are open. A soft, white ash has covered everything. It’s a funeral pyre outside.
I rush around closing windows, wiping counters, mopping floors, headphones blaring, on repeat. I pull out the red hair dye. Slather it on my head. Cover it with a cap. Back to cleaning. Scrub the stove. Clean the refrigerator. Wash the windows but don’t look out. Put dirty laundry in piles. In the shower, off with the cap, and I step under the water.
Rivulets of red hair dye run down my body like blood. Gooseflesh rises with the steam like an encore and the Towers fall again, behind my eyes, thousands of times, for years, twisted screeching metal, splatters of blood, bodies burn, bones splinter—there were people in there, all of them someone’s children. The unbearable loss. And twenty years later so many more have died. The memory of that day is immediate, resuscitated in a burnt scent, a blue east coast sky, or a fresh coat of white paint, but always by the most haunting of songs on a day everything went left: “Everything in Its Right Place.”
***
So now I wonder, in the face of destruction, how do we create? What do we build? The meaning is ours to make and where do we do it? I think it starts here on the physical plane, in our hands and feet however scarred, and stretches through every plane—emotional, mental, intuitional, spiritual—all within our reach and direct through the heart. From here, the story begins.