story2927.xml

story2927.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

It was a beautiful, sunny, late summer morning, with just a touch of fall in the air. I was just finishing my morning run when I heard on the radio I was listening to through headphones that a plane may have hit the World Trade Center. I immediately thought that it had to be a small plane, an accident. When I arrived home, my partner was setting out the breakfast things and also listening to the radio. When the reports got more serious, we turned on the television. I went to take a shower. It had become clear that this was not an accident. Just then the second plane hit. On the radio in the bathroom, a pentagon official was being interviewed, and just then, the plane hit the pentagon. I was in disbelief. We watched television, and saw the towers collapse, one after the other. My partner drove me work. We heard that my building was being evacuated and turned around. It was then that we began getting reports about the plane crash in Pennsylvania. There were other reports of truck bombs, which turned out not to be true. Once back at home, I learned that my brother was in New York, in SoHo, not far from ground zero, for a business meeting that morning. We didn't hear for hours that he was safe and fine and had had the forsight to immediately rent a car and drive home the next day. I called a college friend with whom I hadn't spoken in years just to see if she was o.k. (she was). The whole day was unreal. Interspersed with my thoughts about the gravity of the tragedy that had befallen so many people and our nation as a whole, where banal thoughts about a baseball game I was supposed to attend that night, etc.

Now, one year later, it seems like it happened yesterday. I go about my life. I have flown. I am not consciously scared. Yet, I can't help but thing that we can never really be safe. I guess that was always true, but since 9/11/01, I really know it.

Maria Harrigan