I spent the first anniversary of Sept. 11 walking around NYC with my girlfriend at the time, taking pictures, listening to the wind, and helping her get an “I Love NYC” tattoo on the back of her neck. Here’s a link to the editorials I wrote for my magazine on the attacks and the first anniversary.
Last year, I spent the day at home, waiting for a truck to bring me 2,000 copies of the 9.11 novel I was publishing, The Immensity of the Here and Now, by Paul West (still available!).
This year, I drove into NYC to pick up my girlfriend, headed out to a Mac store to pick up an Airport Extreme base station, walked around the town of Nyack for a bit, and had a pleasant afternoon. She told me how, during the ceremony where the names of the dead were read, some elderly couple read a few names, and the wife kept hectoring the husband because he skipped some of them. Here’s the whole list.
During the drive in this morning, I ruminated on the anniversary. Heading out of my town, there’s a wonderful view of the NYC skyline (not so far south as to see the WTC area, unfortunately), and it put me in mind of the day of the attacks, seeing that same skyline from the highway near my office. The weather was absolutely gorgeous here on 9.11.01, and a plume of dark smoke stretched north across the island of Manhattan. On one hill, people were setting up tripods and taking photos of the city. Memento mori.
I don’t feel like going into it too much nowadays. We all responded (and continue to respond) in our own ways, and I try not to begrudge anyone else’s ways of approaching it.
About a week after the attacks, I was able to start listening to music radio again (I’d been unable to take anything but news radio at first). One of the rock stations played “New York,” by U2, from its most recent album. I’d never heard the song before.
New York, by U2
In New York, freedom looks like too many choices
In New York, I found a friend to drown out the other voices
Voices on a cell phone
Voices from home
Voices of the hard sell
Voices down a stairwell
In New York
Just got a place in New York
In New York, summers get hot, well into the hundreds
You can’t walk around the block without a change of clothing
Hot as a hair dryer in your face
Hot as handbag and a can of mace
New York
I just got a place in New York
New York
In New York, you can forget, forget how to sit still
Tell yourself you will stay in, but it’s down to Alphaville
New York, New York
The Irish been coming here for years
Feel like they own the place
They got the airport, city hall
Dance hall, dance floor, they even got the police
Irish, Italians, Jews and Hispanics
Religious nuts, political fanatics in the stew
Happily, not like me and you
That’s where I lost you
New York
In New York, I lost it all to you and your vices
Still I’m staying on to figure out my mid-life crisis
I hit an iceberg in my life
You know I’m still afloat
You lose your balance, lose your wife
In the queue for the lifeboat
You better put the women and children first
But you’ve got an unquenchable thirst for New York
New York, New York
In the stillness of the evening
When the sun has had its day
I heard your voice whispering
Come away now to New York