I wanted to write this yesterday, but mid-morning I remembered I had something I had to do for Antonio, so that essentially wiped the rest of my day into nothingness. Well, not nothingness. Mostly pacing, violent but silent self-loathing, and rampant anxiety leading to a rushed, desperate completion of the loathed and terrifying task.

Needless to say, I didn’t get to write this post yesterday. I’d like to now, though.

…

Whenever anyone finds out I was in lower Manhattan during the attacks of September 11^th, I get a lot of “Wow, what was it like? What do you remember most?” questions.

Invariably, I think of those bumper stickers that say “We will never forget.” They always struck me as odd. Never forgetting is just different than remembering to me.

I remember.

So, what was my September 11th, 2001 like?

It was unremarkable in the fact that I didn’t lose anyone close to me.  But it remains one of the most important days in my life.

I was 18 years old.  I walked out of an 8:00am lecture at around 9:00am. It was the very beginning of my freshman year of college (or university, for you non-Americans!) I made it half a block before realizing something was very wrong.

You see, a city vibrates. It pulses. And there is a purpose to its humming, drumming buzz. Everyone and everything operates with direction and intent. And that makes the city throb in time to those purpose-driven lives. There is a strange harmony and a sense of progression in the city’s buzzing.

But that morning the city wasn’t vibrating as it normally did beneath my feet and in my chest… The city was crackling. Crackling with aimless, frantic static. It FELT different – in me, in the air, in the buildings.

When I turned the corner, I began to see why. The streets were clogged with thousands of people, similar yet warped versions of each other – each with a bent arm pressing a cell phone to one ear. Every last person was trying to talk to someone, anyone, everyone.

A girl – a stranger to me – with soft hair and hard eyes walked up to me and said, “There is a hole in the World Trade Center.”

It sounds so stupid now. A hole you say? Excuse me? But… That’s what she said.  I walked a couple blocks to Washington Square Park, to look downtown. And there was, in fact, a hole in the World Trade Center. Just like she said.

Huh.

I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t have any idea of the implications.  I stared for a minute, utterly dumbfounded.  Then I looked at the ground, begging the stupid neurons in my stupid brain to come up with something, anything to do. But nothing came except “Well… I’m due in another lecture!” So I went. To be honest, I don’t remember it. My mind was not there. It was in the park, waiting for me.

When I got back, I turned to look at the crippled towers again. But they weren’t crippled anymore. In fact, they weren’t there at all. In their place was debris, rising higher and higher into the air. The New York City skyline was hazy, like even it couldn’t believe the twin towers were gone, and it couldn’t form a crisp image of itself mutilated so badly.

Later, we watched the news. For hours. They got so much wrong. So much.

…

So, what do I remember most?

There were so many things: The girls, from a nearby dorm that had to be evacuated, camping on my floor that night… The streams of business men as they walked the length of Manhattan because they had no other way to get home… The armored tanks that escorted food to our dorm because we were below the 14^th Street blockade.

But the things that are sharpest for me are not all that sensational. They’re pretty simple acts, actually.

It’s just… It’s hard to get a REAL education in the definition of surreal.

And when I think about it, even though I have used the word plenty of times – only one truly surreal thing has ever happened to me. And it happened right at the south end of 5^th Avenue, on the afternoon of September 11^th, 2001.

A few friends and I went outside, and in the afternoon sunshine we walked up the center of 5^th Avenue. Arms spread, faces to the sky, eyes closed, soaking in the stillness blanketing our eerily slumbering city, the one that isn’t ever supposed to sleep.

I have never before, and never since, experienced that. There is no other way to describe it except as apocalyptic. It felt like the beginning of a zombie movie, to be quite honest. Everything you know is there, but utterly wrong. There are no people, no sounds, no cars, no taxis, no buses, no subway trains, no stores open – nothing.

THAT was surreal, and thinking about it still sends shivers up my spine.

Back at my dorm, it sunk in. And when the winds changed  the next day, blowing clouds of yellow-green haze uptown, I couldn’t even bear to look at my own fingers as I used them to close my windows to that horrific smell. And it sunk in. Watching men with guns line the streets, watching tanks roll down Broadway, it sunk in. Standing in line to leave a lecture weeks later, with the economy of lower Manhattan struggling, I received an envelope along with everyone else in my class. Our professor had “deputized” us to spend his money for him  – over $5,000 of his own cash was shelled out to his students with nothing more than a smile and a request that we spend it somewhere below 14^th St.  And it sunk in again…

It’s still sinking in.

I remember that day. Sure, I won’t forget it either – just like all the bumper stickers say.  But I remember it too.

…

I also remember that I am not without many strange and wonderful cosmic gifts. And that the very best one is tied up directly in the date September 11^th.

Because it is Antonio’s birthday.

And that helps me remember that no matter how dark and desperate something is, there is always a reason to say thank you. 

So… Thank you, universe.  Thank you for this day.  Thank you for every ounce of innocence and stability it stole from me eight years ago, and thank you for, years earlier, choosing that same day to gift to the world the man who would become my everything.