Everyone says “Never forget.”

It’s impossible to forget what I heard and saw and felt that September morning, when I lived and worked in Manhattan.  I’ve never written it down before.  But I know what I remember, though some of it has gaps in between, and the sequence may not be intact.  Some parts are crystal clear and others inexplicably muddled.  But I know what I remember.

I remember the sky — the clearest, bluest morning sky.  It was gorgeous and warm, but also crisp — one of those first mornings each year when you realize that soon it won’t feel like summer anymore.

I remember watching The Today Show and getting ready for work.  Just like every morning.  On that day, P was with me — we were just dating back then — and we were watching a segment about a Howard Hughes biography.  It was interrupted to tell us a plane had hit the WTC.  We thought it was a small plane.  We thought it was an unfortunate accident.  And we thought it was incredibly odd that one couldn’t avoid hitting a building that prominent on such a clear morning.  But, strangely, we didn’t think much more about it.

I remember the second tower being hit.  We were still in my apartment, about to leave for work (we worked in the same office).  And, for some reason that I can’t explain, P and I — still not realizing the enormity of what was happening — got on the subway to head to midtown for work.  It seems ridiculous now, but we didn’t know what else to do.  We’d later find out that we were among the last folks on the subway before the system was shut down.

I remember people on the subway talking about it.  Some had boarded the train before anything had happened, and had no idea.  Others, like us, knew about both WTC hits.  There still wasn’t much panic.  I think, because, again, there wasn’t yet a full grasp of what was happening.

I remember arriving to my office building and hearing that, while I was underground on the subway, the Pentagon had been hit.  I then saw on the lobby’s television the downfall of the first tower.

I remember thinking how sad it was that there would only be one left.  There would only be one tower left. It’s strange how your brain works in the midst of disaster.  I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that the other would also fall.  I went up 40 floors in the elevator to my office.  Again, because I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do.   And I didn’t know what was next.  I wanted to be around the people I knew.  Around my routine.

I remember the hysteria really building in my office when the second tower fell.  And when there were reports of Flight 93 off the radar.  It was unclear how many more planes would come down.  Or what else would happen.  People were coming undone.

I remember the phone lines going dead in our building.  And the cell phone networks quickly getting overloaded.

I remember a senior leader in our company, with tears streaming down her face, gathering all of us together and telling us to go.  Anywhere.

I remember walking with colleagues through Central Park because we felt we should stay away from tall buildings.  We gathered around a parked car to listen to its radio — hundreds of us, standing around this guy’s car.  Moving but paralyzed.  Streets began to close to make room for the steady stream of police and ambulances, sirens blazing, speeding downtown.  One after the other.

I remember sitting in my friend’s apartment watching the coverage all afternoon.  Because we all felt my building was too tall, too exposed.

I remember the ongoing spotty cell phone coverage.  Trying to reach my parents, my sisters, my friends.  And the people I knew were downtown.

I remember feeling both trapped in Manhattan and not wanting to leave my beloved city.

I remember people everywhere in the streets.  The images of the doctors lined up at hospitals, waiting to treat the rescued.  Who never came.

It was the longest day I’d ever known.  And when it was over, we awoke to a different world that wouldn’t begin to feel normal again for so, so long.

One where quiet replaced the hum of the city.  When I went back to work some days later, there were no working phones for quite a while.  There were no planes flying over my 40th floor office.  Just silence — except for patrolling military aircraft.

One where, for weeks, months and years later, every conversation in New York started with “Where were you?”

One where I received an email about a month later, asking people in midtown — anyone — to stop by St Patrick’s Cathedral as often as they could.  Because each day, there was at least one funeral for a fallen firefighter.  The bagpipes echoed through the streets every afternoon.

One where the “Missing” fliers draped walls and fences downtown.  Most of them in vain.

One where I no longer had a southern compass on that island.

One where we read the “Portraits of Grief” section in the New York Times for months, and often realized we knew some of these people through mutual friends.

One where we couldn’t quite see straight for a long, long time. Where we took a deep breath for months going through tunnels in and out of the city, and certainly getting on planes.

One where, every year, right after Labor Day, there is an odd space between summer’s end and the 9/11 anniversary.

***

Though I was in Manhattan and close to the attacks in many respects, I know that I was worlds away compared to those downtown.  Their reality and their memories are ones I can’t imagine holding onto.

I was incredibly fortunate not to lose anyone I knew personally that day.  For the many others who can’t say the same, I hold them in my heart.

I was physically unharmed on 9/11. But my soul was irreversibly scarred.  And a city that I will always call home was forever changed.

{photo credit: Bob DeAmbra}