9/10

September 11, 2009. I am reposting this from last year. A rerun, if you will, although last year, I posted it in July. Because that's when I think of September 11th, in July, when it's hot and gorgeous and the kids are running around carefree. (ok, so maybe they're playing the Wii. But still, carefree.) I also think of September 11th in the spring, when there is the cliche of rebirth and in December, when families gather to celebrate and during every other month and day therein.

I don't wear an American flag pin on 9/11 and I'm not putting a 9/11 memorial on my Twitter avatar because there is not a day that goes by that I do not think about what happened on that day. And I know that I will never forget what downtown Manhattan smelled like on that day and for many, many days after in September.



Knock, knock.

Who's there?

9/11.

9/11 who?

Hey, you said that you'd never forget.


Yeah, I know.

I will never forget September 10th. It would have been an ordinary day, in the way that the best days are, except that Meryl Streep held the door for me at a local furniture store, because I was pushing a stroller. She was wearing a baseball cap, but please. I'd spot Meryl from space. I thanked her and she nodded, not making eye contact. I remember thinking that I could die happy now.

The other thing that I remember that day is that I went to an overpriced paper store and ordered personalized stationary for my three year old daughter. I often think back to that. Did I really have money to burn? Did I realize that my three year old was not a big writer? Was I just that out of my fucking mind bored with my maternity leave that I had nothing better to do?

I wanted to write about 9/11 on a day that had nothing to do with 9/11 because I cannot stand the media coverage on that day, but also because I think about 9/11 every day. A few years ago I went to see a mental health professional in the hopes of getting magic pills that would alleviate my anxiety and make me a better person. When I told the therapist that I thought about September 11th every day, several times a day, he said, "I find that hard to believe." Apparently he was of the "Oh no, you didn't" school of psychotherapy and I didn't have the energy to deal with him. Of course he was all the way on the Upper West Side, in psychoanalytic mecca and I was living downtown, a mile from Ground Zero. It would take a better, and less kind, writer than I am to convey the smells of 9/11. It lingered for weeks.


On the morning of September 11th, I was taking my three year old daughter to school. My infant son was at home with my mother. My daughter was on the cusp of being diagnosed with speech delay and I clung to her words whenever she spoke. I was delighted when she said "samolyet", or "airplane" in Russian. It's hard to believe now, but it wasn't until months later that I'd realized that she was startled by the roar of the first plane as we'd crossed the street and she looked up to see it over our heads, heading to the Towers. I had not bothered to look up, because to me, it was just the noise of the city and I was more concerned with getting my daughter across the street safely. Amazing the things that mothers miss sometimes.

When I finally realized what her "samolyet" referred to, I could not believe that a moment that was so every day for me was a death sentence to the people immediately above me, who surely must have known what was happening. I think about that a lot--what must it have been like for them, seeing New York City so close, seeing people going through their morning commutes, all the while knowing that they were going to die. It is unimaginable, nothing good can come from thinking about it, and yet I don't think that I will ever stop.

That's my 9/11 connection. I will never forget September 11th, but I will also always remember the day before.