Anniversary

Tomorrow is September 11th.  The anniversary of that intensely tragic day eight years ago.  A strange feeling to realize that this will be the first year, since the event, that I am not living in NYC.  It's odd to sense the distance.  Eight years ago I had just moved to NYC -- I was relatively innocent.  I had barely embarked on a new journey to change my life.  A cross-country move -- a change in profession -- and an open future.  Then, that fateful morning, as I left the gym, less than a mile from the World Trade Center, I saw people looking up and followed their glance as we watched one -- and then two planes hit.  One would be an accident -- two would be . . . what?  Incomprehensible.  Standing in the street and watching the rest of the events unfold with the strangers around me -- experiencing our collective trauma.  We gasped.  We cried.  We sank to the ground in unison as the towers fell -- feeling the rumble . . . eventually overtaken by waves of smoke and emotion. 

To this day I find myself looking for ways to contain the experience -- to express it -- to exorcise it.  I feel it so deeply in my core, but I have a hard time bringing it to a place where I can look at it and comprehend it.  It feels like a defining moment in my life.  A moment when I understood the depth of man's potential -- the horror and the brilliance.  Oddly (or perhaps not so oddly) it was a moment that confirmed for me that I was in the right place - that I had made the right move.  There was something solid about being there.  It wasn't something I heard about on TV -- there was no television for days.  It wasn't something I read about in newspapers.  It was something I saw.  Something I smelled.  Something I heard.  Something I felt all around and through me.  I lived it.  I get upset when people use the events of September 11th as a tool to justify acts of violence, prejudice and poor judgment.  I take it very personally.  Yes, it was something that happened to our country and it impacted people throughout the world.  But the spirit in New York in the days following the terrorist attacks was not one of vengeance or hatred.  It was not a spirit of prejudice, judgment or cynicism.  It was a broad spirit of love, brotherhood and togetherness.

While the anniversary of 9/11 each year brings with it flashes of pain, memories of suffering, and intense images of terror -- it also brings with it a profound recollection of the unity that was felt in that amazing city.  As I sit here typing this, I realize that I miss New York.  We went through a lot together.  It saw me through my darkest and brightest days.  And, in the end, we both came out stronger. 

Here's to the memory of those who lost their lives eight years ago through acts of extremism.  And here's to the hope that the world can someday move beyond extremism and enter a state of acceptance and inclusion. 

We must be the change we seek in the world.

Gandhi