Since my blog is largely about New York City, I thought it was important that I write something on the seven-year anniversary of September 11th. I’m not sure what else I could share except the vivid memory of where I was at the moment it happened. New Jersey. 8th grade Social Studies. Class had just started and the principal came on the loudspeaker to announce that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. Initially, I thought it was some sort of cruel joke – because, planes crashing into building didn’t make sense, right? Right? The teacher turned the TV on to the news and the rest of my memories of the day was just that – news. And the same haunting images flashing on the screen for the next couple days. And the people falling. I remember crying that night while sitting with my dad.
Anyway, I’m running late for class and don’t have time to proofread what I just spewed onto the (web)page, agh. Where were you on that morning?
My aunt Gerri was actually in that building hours before the incident. I was at home sleeping in Sacramento visiting my little sister, it was a sad day.
I was in the hall in my school and some kid I detested was running around telling everyone, so I didn’t take it seriously. No one was telling us what was going on, but we had to continue our 8th grade class meetings and plan something, I don’t remember what, while pretending nothing was going on. But we knew something huge was going on. Our nanny came to pick us up at lunch time and when we (my brother, sister, and I) went home I just remember watching the news all day. When my parents came home from work (my mom worked in DC at the time, scary) I had a million questions that I expected them to be able to answer, but of course they couldn’t. The next few days were really weird for everyone. We were more affected by the Pentagon being hit than by the World Trade Center, which seems to have been completely forgotten about in the years since that day.
I lived with my folks in Bombay, India back then. It was 8 pm there, and I was preparing (panicking) for a test I had the next day. Needless to say I didn’t do too well on that test. I moved to New York in Fall ’06 but didn’t get around visiting ground zero till a few months later. The sight of construction workers, trucks, machines, the large open field just made me sad thinking of all the hatred in the world.