I wrote this about eight years ago, and I started sharing it several years ago, on the anniversary. This day, this time of year, is always a challenge for me. A challenge to keep it together, to get through the day, to push the memories to the back of my mind. They are there, they are always there, and they will never fade. Never forget. Never.
There was a time when I liked danger. As in a roller coaster or sky diving. Or getting a tattoo or rappelling. Or moving to NYC at age 22 with nothing but a college degree, a couple of connections, and parents who were willing to support me for a couple of months. It was fun and I was always up for taking on a challenge.
And then came 9/11.
I don’t talk about it much. When I’m here in TN, when the subject or that time of year comes up, I stay quiet. I get that that day changed anyone who was old enough to know what happened. But no one who wasn’t in NYC or DC or PA will ever get what that day was like. If I’m with a group that puts two and two together and realizes I did indeed live there then, they ask questions with a morbid curiosity. I get it, its human nature. But I generally answer in the shortest way possible and then get the hell away from that conversation.
I was 26 years old. I was at the dentist, with a load of Novocain in the left side of my face. My appointment was finished and I went to check out. The receptionist told me that two planes had crashed into the Twin Towers. I remember asking how the heck could that happen…how could you not see the Towers? I remember asking or assuming it was two small planes, like little Cessna’s or something. And she told me it was two jets.
And my stomach was on the floor. My sister & Josh’s offices were about 4 blocks from WTC. I knew Josh was working from home that day on the Upper East Side but not my sister. This was all at about 9:15 … moments after the 2nd plane had hit. I booked it out of the office, in the mid-50s in Manhattan. Everyone was walking around trying to get cell service. I came flying around the corner on Madison Ave and froze. Looking South was nothing but the blackest smoke one can ever ever imagine. Filling the sky.
I remember getting to a payphone bc my cell wouldn’t work. I can’t believe there were even payphones still around. (and I remember that by that afternoon, somehow Bell Atlantic had made all the payphones free). My fingers were numb and I couldn’t find coins. Once I did, I kept dialing and dialing. All lines busy. I remember getting through one time to my sister, she had just made it to her office and they were frantic and leaving. And then we got cut off. She had had told me they were leaving and all they knew was that they had to head north. I got through to my mom in NC and said I had no idea what was going on but I was ok and was going to work.
GOING TO WORK? I look back now and wonder why in the hell I did that. But no one could fathom what the hell was going on. And we were supposed to shoot with Emeril the next day, so I needed to get in to get that all finalized. Seems so surreal now to think I was concerned with an Emeril shoot.
And I walked the rest of the way to work. As did lots of other New Yorkers. We didn’t know what else to do. This was still before the planes had crashed in PA and DC. I remember standing outside the Fox News building, across the street from Food Network offices, and reading the red news ticker go across the building. Reading the ticker and then looking south and seeing smoke. It wasn’t clicking. It wasn’t real.
At work, most people were there. They were already on their way, and didn’t know what else to do. So I started working. I was still moving forward with finalizing Emeril stuff. We all had TVs on and were listening and watching. And I will never forget when one of the girls around the corner from my desk screamed. The first tower had fallen. Incomprehensible. I don’t think my feet touched the floor when I went over to her desk.
And it was gone. The TV just showed this image that made no sense. That was the first time I cried. And was terrified. And of course the planes had hit PA and DC by now. We didn’t know if there were more coming. It was about this time the management started to send us home. I hadn’t talked to my sister in an hour and had no idea where she was. I couldn’t get through to my cousin who also worked in NYC (but lived in Jersey) but somehow got thru to my Aunt in MA. She had talked to him and knew he was already heading back to Jersey. I somehow got through to Josh and told him I was coming home. I remember I had talked to my dad. He’d told me to get water and cash. And I remember telling Josh to go get it since he was home.
When the first tower fell, it took the massive antenna with it that was the main cell service provider. There was virtually no cell service. And land lines were a mess. Subways had been shut down completely. Bridges were closed. Buses were running, but they were cram packed with people the officials were getting out of downtown.
So I walked. What’s funny to me is it was a gorgeous day. It was in the 70s, no humidity, clear blue sky. It was about a 2 hour walk. And it was surreal. I remember being so glad I’d worn really comfy flip flops. I remember taxis parked on the curb, with their doors open and radios up all the way, so anyone walking by could get updates. Same thing with bars and restaurants. They had doors and windows thrown open. Most weren’t open for business yet, but people just stood in the doors and at the windows watching. At some point on my walk I was almost home, and I got through to Josh. He’d talked to my sister for only a second. We still had no idea where she was, but we knew she’d gotten out of downtown and was alive.
At one point, walking down the middle of First Ave.. there were no cars and there were so many people walking… we just spilled out onto the street. Throngs and throngs of people. I remember thinking it looked straight out of a movie. And I remember a bus going past me. Heading North. Packed with people. And as it passed me I just stared. There was a guy riding along the back. Literally standing on the bumper and just hanging on. One of those things that wouldn’t be written about. No one would ever hear about that guy. He’d probably been walking for hours from downtown and had a ways to go to get to the Bronx. I remember thinking it would have been funny if it were any other day. It would have been some whacked out New Yorker out for a thrill ride. But that day it was a desperate attempt to just get home. To safety. Even tho we all knew we’d never feel safe again. Not even at home.
And I finally got home. Opened the apt door. And was hit with the smell of unfinished wood. Bizarre right? We had ordered an unfinished bar the weekend before, and arranged to have it delivered on the 11th. And it got delivered. The delivery truck was already almost to the apartment when everything had started to happen, so they just delivered it. It is still out on the back deck, and we’ll never get rid of it.
I remember hugging Josh. But still not freaking out. I remember being methodical. Like, I need to get in touch with so and so and so and so. More stuff about the shoot. That’s what I was concerned with. And I remember just trying to get in touch with family. Of all days.. all 4 of my parents were in different cities. My stepdad was in Atlanta, mom was home in NC. My dad was in CA, and my stepmom was home in Memphis. Josh had gotten several gallons of water. We were terrified the water supply would somehow be threatened. And then we just sat there. But we couldn’t sit there. We didn’t want to be alone. We needed to be out in the street with everyone else. We were so scared, but wanted to be scared with everyone else.
So, odd as it might sound, we went to the Irish pub next door. And it was packed. And silent. Wall to wall with people drinking beer. No one was drunk. Everyone just sat there stone faced watching TV, we got a table. And I remember I was starting to shake. And I sent Josh out for cigarettes. I hadn’t had one in a long time. That day, I didn’t give a shit. And I smoked and drank. We stayed there a couple of hours and then went home.
Sometime in that afternoon I had heard from Shannon. She and Angela had made it home, and they too went to their neighborhood bar. Looking back, I don’t know why we didn’t go down to her apartment. I really don’t. She saw much worse than me. She literally had to run through the streets, just going north to survive.
At some point my boss had somehow gotten thru to me to tell me the offices would be closed the next day. The day we were supposed to shoot with Emeril. And I remember having to cancel some VO sessions and the crew. Random crap like that. I still have my notebook from that time.. I still have the page.. with my to do list that I’d written on Monday 9/10 for me to do the next day. I still go back and look at the random chicken scratch and phone numbers that I then was writing on 9/11. I will never throw it away.
I remember coming back to our apartment building. I guess it was early evening by now. We went up to the roof. We lived in a high rise. We took pictures of the smoke. There were fighter jets everywhere. Just circling Manhattan. Terrifying yet comforting. I remember there were already pictures up everywhere of missing people. We lived in a part of town where lots of young financial professionals lived. Lots of people who worked down there.
I don’t know how long we were home when we heard a knock at our door. It was my old roommate Opal and her boyfriend Eric. They too just didn’t want to be at home alone. So we all went to a bar down the street. I remember they were just doing happy hour prices all night. There was nothing happy about it. They just knew it was all they could do I guess. Bush #2 had been president 9 mos. I couldn’t stand him. That night tho, I remember watching him on the big screen in that bar. You could have heard a pin drop. And that night, I liked him. I really did. If and when I tell people we went to a bar that night, most think I am the worst human on the planet. They don’t get that no one was there for a good time. Everyone was there bc everyone was terrified. Everyone was there bc they just needed reassurance that everyone else was just as scared. Everyone was there bc they just wanted to be with fellow New Yorkers. Everyone was there bc we knew no one, no one else, would ever ever understand. We had a couple of pitchers, and then we just went home.
I had nightmares that night. I had them for weeks. I still have them now. They are rare these days. But they will come, out of nowhere, and they are vivid. And horrible. I remember that first night my sister calling several times. Just so scared. I remember waking up the next morning. Hoping it was just a big nightmare. And turning on the TV and knowing nothing more than we’d known the day before. We met my sister and her roommate for breakfast. We bought a NY Times and Daily News. I still have them. I remember we just walked the Upper East Side in a daze. That afternoon we got scared. We could smell smoke. We thought something else had happened. But no, it was the smoke working its way up Manhattan. Acrid. Burning. And I remember seeing Army vehicles. So many of them in a parade down 2nd Ave. HUGE trucks. They were going to start getting the debris. You know what else? I went to the gym that morning on 9/12. Ran on the treadmill. Cried the whole time. The gym was packed.
I remember my boss calling me to tell me we did have to work on Thursday. I remember contact with our parents being helter-skelter bc there was still no cell service and land lines were locked up.
I remember Josh walking me to the bus that Thursday. I usually took the subway, but that day I wanted the bus. I was terrified of being stuck on a train underground. There was such paranoia that every single time someone coughed wrong, they stopped the trains and had the SWAT team there.
That day, that Thursday. I remember calling my vendors. About VO sessions and stuff. And we all felt so stupid. Who the hell cared about a VO? It seemed so asinine to have to even worry about it.
That Saturday me, Shannon, Josh, her roommate, I think David, and another friend went down to the site. We have pictures. Pictures of bombed out mail trucks still just sitting on the street. Pictures of firefighters changing shifts. Covered in that gray dust. And crowds cheering for them. So thankful for them. And scared for them. And proud for them.
One of our producers at the time lived a few blocks away from the towers. She had tapes in her apt that day. When she finally made it back to work a couple of weeks later, the tapes still had the dust on them.
There are so many things about that time in NYC that no one knows. Except those of us that were there. For the next 6 mos, no one was ever ever to work on time. You’d get stuck on a train for hours. Just waiting for the next threat to be cleared. Seeing cops with massive guns became the norm. I mean- like AK 47s. There was a plane crash about 6 weeks later at JFK. We heard the news come on, and we froze. I was at work. And I immediately started crying. We all did. We were convinced it was happening again. It turned out to be a freak accident. Everyone on board died. It was gut wrenching.
Early that November – at least 8 weeks later- I had a shoot downtown. About three blocks from the site. And I remember the smoke still being so thick. So prevalent. When I got home that night, it smelled like I’d been at a campfire for hours. I still can smell it in my mind.
I remember one morning that December. Watching the Today Show while I got ready for work. And I froze. Matt Lauer was doing a story about purple ties and how they were the current trend in men’s fashion. I am sure one wonders why that story made me freeze. It was the first time in months that there was a story NOT about 9/11 on the Today Show. It was the first fluff, who-really-cares-story, that was covered in the news. The first sign that maybe, just maybe some sort of normalcy would return to our life as we knew it.
Somehow, I knew no one personally that died that day. There were friends of friends – too many too count. But I did not know anyone personally. Nor did Josh, Shannon or David.
It was July 2005 when the train bombings happened in London. We’d come back to Knoxville a few years before. I remember waking up to that story. And crying. And crying. It was happening again.
That’s it. That’s my story about danger. I no longer want to ride roller coasters. I no longer need to get that thrill of danger. I have had a lifetime’s worth. I still have the nightmares. I still, and I am not exaggerating, flip out if I hear a plane overhead that sounds too low. Or if I see one flying that looks too low. I literally freeze, and I start to lose my breath and talk myself down.
There’s so much more I could tell. Still stories from that day, that time period that I still have in my head. I don’t doubt for a minute that day changed so many people. I can’t believe I’ve never written about it before now. Someday maybe I’ll share it with others.
Adventures In Active Wear 