Musings of a Compulsive Thinker

Where were you?

Five years today have passed since September 11, 2001. I was a senior in high school. I remember that while driving to school that morning, still mired in my usual waiting-for-the-caffiene-to-kick-in early-morning funk, I spent the first five minutes of the trip flipping through my favorite radio stations, trying to find a station that was playing music. But they were all talking, blah, blah, blah, and finally I gave up.

Then, as I was driving south on highway 119, coming down the hill to the intersection at Valmont Road, the news finally sank in. I stopped at the traffic light, had a moment in which stunned realization dawned on me, and drove the rest of the way into south Boulder listening to the news bulletins on AM radio.

When I arrived at school, I was reluctant to leave the car (and the radio), but I had to go to my 8:32 calculus class. I listened to one last breaking news item and turned off the car.

The classroom, full of seniors and a few juniors, was a-buzz with conversation; every student to walk through the door delivered the latest news they had heard. And so it happened that I was the one to inform them all of the plane crash at the Pentagon.

That entire day exists in my memory as permeated by a deep sense of surreality.

I grew up in the NYC metropolitan area. The New York cityscape, for me, has always been defined (and still is, because this is the way I remember it) by the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Now, when I see photographs of the Manhattan skyline taken within the last five years, it doesn't look like Manhattan. Something is missing.

I am one of the many who had no real personal ties to the attacks. My best friend's father was in Manhattan that day and watched the towers go down; that's as close as I came. I was lucky, I guess.

Still, it seems to me that 9/11/2001 has been one of the defining days of my early adulthood. I felt compelled, after all, to recognize it today.

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Labels: ponderings

posted by the alygator @ 11:21 AM