In writing that date, my heart is heavy. I always find
this day very hard to take in. I was a graduate student at Rutgers in New Jersey the day the towers fell. I
had gotten up early that day and gone to the gym for the first time that
semester. It was our last year of acting school, and my classmates and I had become obsessed about getting in shape for showcase at the end of the year. A friend, Jessica, had met me there to show me some good exercises. She was fit, I was not.
It was the first week of school, and we had our first on-camera class that morning so I spent extra time getting
ready. I even ironed my clothes. As I got close to school, I had this nagging
feeling that I had left the iron on, and I was worried that my cat would knock
it over and start a fire. I was pretty well consumed with this thought as soon
as it occurred to me.
I parked my car in the faculty lot behind the student center. I was a TA so I technically could park there, a relief since there was usually an empty spot, unlike the student lot, and I didn't want to be late. I hurriedly walked through campus to get to class on
time. On my way, a random student I had never met stopped me and said, “A plane
has just crashed into the Pentagon.” I was flabbergasted. What? What was going
on? I didn't linger - I didn't want to be late for class. That was a cardinal sin in our program.
As I
approached our building, several of my classmates were standing outside.
Everyone looked especially nice that day as we were meeting a new teacher on going on camera. One of my classmates, Tammy Jo, was
crying hysterically. The information from the events that morning started to
come to me in disjointed bits and jabs.
“Tammy Jo
saw it! She was driving to school and saw it from the Turnpike!”
“Should we
go give blood?”
“There were
two planes, the World Trade Center is on fire!”
“Are we
having class? What should we do?”
What happened at the Pentagon? That seemed inconsequential now, considering how close we were to the World Trade Center. It was
quickly determined that we were not having class that day. In a truly selfish moment, I was so grateful.
I could drive back home and see if I had left my iron on. I had.
Several
classmates met back at the house down the street from school. It was the local theatre
house, everyone who lived there was a student in the department, about eight
or so. The number was never really definite, as boyfriends and girlfriends
often stayed, too, myself included. I was dating one of my classmates who lived
on the second floor.
We sat
there that morning and watched the TV in stunned silence. Phone calls were made
to check on loved ones in the city. More calls were made to folks back home to
assure them we were okay. We saw the towers fall over and over again, the
footage looped in case anyone in America hadn’t heard the news yet. How could
anyone not have heard the news? The images of the jumpers were shown over and over and will remain seared in
my memory of that day. It’s stomach-turning to think about what September 11th was like for them, the horror they faced that made jumping to their
deaths below the best option. And the two who were holding hands - I still get choked
up thinking about that. Did we ever find out who they were? I've since learned there were over 200 people who jumped to their deaths that day.
After a
couple of hours of not knowing what to do, and not getting any new information,
it was decided that the best thing we could do to help was to give blood. A small army of us coalesced and we headed down to
Robert Wood Johnson Memorial Hospital in New Brunswick.
The
hospital was mobbed and we were turned away. So many people had showed up to
give blood that they were overwhelmed. I wouldn't find out until years
later that I can’t give blood, anyway. I spent a semester in England in 1995.
The Red Cross won’t allow anyone to give blood who spent more than three months
in some countries, including England, between 1980 and 1996 because of Mad Cow
Disease.
Not knowing
what else to do, we all descended upon the Edison Diner, a favorite place to
score a greasy dinner after rehearsal or a party. I was preoccupied, wondering
if I was supposed to have my therapy appointment that afternoon. I had finally
signed up for the free therapy they offered at school, to help me
through my recent divorce. All my calls to the office went unanswered. I could
only assume there would be no therapy that day. We didn’t
have any classes for at least a week, as I recall. Most of our instructors
commuted to Rutgers from Manhattan, and were trapped in the city.
A month
later I went to Manhattan with my friends Kristofer and Paul, to interview headshot photographers. We made our way downtown to see for ourselves what had
happened. The air still smelled of acrid smoke and – what else, it's hard to say. I’ve
never smelled anything like that before, and I hope I don’t again. The site was
not yet cleared, sections of charred walls remained, set askew and barely
visible over the fences that cordoned off the area. It was a ghost town. Businesses were closed and there were few people walking around. Paul
tried to shimmy up one of the temporary fences to get a better look. I didn’t
need to see anymore. Our hair still smelled of that acrid smoke on our return to New Brunswick, like when you've been sitting in front of a campfire for too long.
Those are my memories of 9/11 - faces, pictures, feelings and smells.
What a fucked up day. It’s so big and hard to comprehend, the amount of suffering
that happened. Suffering that rippled out through the country from Ground Zero that day. Have those waves finally settled?
I'm watching CNN right now. It's 13 years later. I've so far seen no coverage of that day. Stories of Ferguson, Missouri, the Oscar Pistorius trial, and Obama's speech about ISIS are the top news.
Have we forgotten?
