tp184.xml

tp184.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-03-03

The very first time I went to the World Trade Centers was on a
thunderstormy afternoon. The towers rose into swirly clouds like beanstalks
climbing to strange heavens. I loved looking up at the buildings measured in
miles, not feet.
Then, a few years later, we went into the World Trade Center 1 to
bring my daughter to a friends' office on the 17th floor. We passed security
and got photo IDs, and were quite thrilled.
I felt mildly nervous as we rode up the elevator, and laughed at
myself, for thinking anything would ever happen. Or would happen there of all
places, for after all, lightening never strikes twice.
Lightening has hit the Empire State Building more than 15 times in
15 minutes.
Suddenly everything I had told my children was wrong ( being
children, of course, they always knew that). I had said no one would attack
the US mainland, that it was a nonsensical idea, nothing rational could be
achieved by doing so.
I woke up Sept 12 not remembering and then, when full
consciousness came back, I thought I could never feel safe again, that the
world was irrevocably different.
In that, I was also wrong. We go by the broken bridges not thinking
about what happened any more. We grumble about having to fight the
solemn crowds around the WTC site to get to our subway station.
But sometimes I remember waiting for my son to get home from
evacuating his school four blocks north of the towers collapsing into movie
clouds of dust and it's hard not to cry.