Where were you when the world stopped turning?

The following is a personal recollection of the events of Sept. 11, written by Samantha Caan, a College of Communication sophomore and former student of the Parsons School of Design in Manhattan.

September 17, 2001

It was a truly beautiful weekend, and I mean that like some sort of sublime and surreal reprieve from the madness. Why the madness? Why the hate and pain and soul scathing, gut-wrenching heartache of not knowing where the future will take us? More than 5,000 missing, just gone, stolen and gone, without a chance to give one more hug, kiss, I love you. No time to say goodbye, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t “goodbye.”

There isn’t a word for what it was. There’s so much silence now. Where there used to be laughter and hope and vitality and living, there is thick, heavy, cloaking goddamned silence. So many tears, so many. And a big gaping hole where the person sitting next to you is one you try desperately not to fear. Because of how he looks he could be one of “them.” And that scares the [crap] out of you, and you say a silent prayer even as you curse yourself for thinking that way.

There is so much pain, where the sun seems to mock the sadness, and it feels like it’s raining or should be… for how can any light shine, in the dawn of such tragedy, such heart broken, angry, angry deafening agony of silence.

Driving by Public School 154 now… where they’re learning, what? To hate, to avenge, to fear? Learning that this is what terrorism feels like, looks like, goddamned smells like … walking down Fifth Avenue wearing a gas mask? What are these babies learning? It hurts, and it hurts so much.

To watch the dream of an entire nation go up in smoke and flames, and hatred. To be selfish and recognize, try to swallow but not taste the idea that my dreams, too, will never be what they may have been. Realizing that, oh God, things have changed, irrevocably, irreversibly … and to hate it! And to want to get it back. That feeling of invincibility, and fierce independent pride, and opportunity, and gold. Because we were golden … maybe not perfect, but hell, it was … amazing now that it’s gone. So now I am scared. And wishing I could just enjoy the sun, and not feel like it’s raining even when it’s not.

New York City was life, it was moving, breathing, it was dancing. And now, it has stopped. It has been broken. Its dancing free spirit has been stepped on. It is crying now, weeping for what has been lost, and it’s trying to somehow clean itself up … and come back swinging. Because under the broken sadness is a fierce bubbling residue of fury that will not be contained. We are down, but not defeated. We are alive, and will triumph. And we will all dance again.

The preceding passage is an excerpt from my journal. It was written while on a Greyhound Bus, making the return trek to New York City, from my home in Massachusetts. It is a small portion of my own personal, intensely private response to the events of Sept. 11. Only after serious contemplation and soul searching did I come to the conclusion that it is an important passage to share. For I have learned a great deal about myself in the past year, a great deal about life and a great deal about what is truly important.

I had ventured home that weekend in order to try and make sense of the horrifying events which had transpired, and also to escape from the hysteria which was overtaking Manhattan. I was quite desperate to see my family, for the events of Sept. 11 had brought about the shocking realization that life is entirely fragile. And in the blink of an eye, you can lose yourself, or someone whom you have never contemplated life without…

September 11, 2001

The sky was a crayon shade of crystal blue. It seemed as though I could see forever across the rolling green hills, the Manhattan skyline sprawled in the distance, just visible atop the peaks of the blessedly misplaced, forest oasis that is Central Park. The air was crisp and clear, summer air with just a hint of the fall to come.

It was a heady feeling, as I closed my eyes and spun round and round and round … with arms and smile wide, just grinning and living and laughing and living and loving it. And loving it. I had made it! New York City, that parallel universe which had fueled my dreams for seventeen years. My eyes shined with the joy in my soul. My bright gaze confronted the world with a proclamation, “I made it. I’m here, and it’s all beginning for me now.”

The air was alive with the energy I had craved, freedom and possibility wafting on the warm breeze. Spinning round and round and round and round, with the notion, “I am life, and I am living, and I have never felt like I was floating, but now I am, and I don’t want to come back down. Ever.”

Through my euphoria of newfound freedom surged an ominous undercurrent. The puffy white clouds, upon which I walked, were stormy after all, and somehow, I knew. I could sense that the dream was fleeting, yet could not grasp it. Wanted to, tried to, but couldn’t, just hold on and freeze time. I can pinpoint the very day, the very moment. Soccer games and sun bathers, dancing children and flirting teenagers, all living and loving, and totally oblivious that, in a mere twenty-four hours, New York City would erupt into a war zone.

Sept. 11, 2001. A beautiful morning, Indian Summer and I was loving it in my new yellow tank top and flip-flops. I awoke that day, feeling as though it was a day much like any other. The second week of my foray into life as a college student, I was running late as always. Hair a mess, chocolate chip cookies for breakfast with a trail of crumbs in my wake, I stumbled, laughing out the door and was assaulted by an image forever indelible in my mind.

Above the gates of Washington Square Park, Tower One of the World Trade Towers had been violated by a massive hole. A gaping, fiery cavity in the majestic façade, oozing a perfusion of swirling black smoke, choking what had been a picturesque September morning. I could not quite comprehend what I was seeing; the enormity of what had occurred did not hit me. I was on a high, a high of freedom. At that moment I was at an untouchable place. It never occurred to me that my newfound happiness could be compromised, that my new world had been damaged beyond repair.

My first reaction was one of utter confusion, however, not yet panic. Those of us walking down Fifth Avenue in the lower East Village of Manhattan that morning thought it had been an accident, a tragic, horrible accident. We could not see the news, therefore we had no idea of the truth of what had occurred, we had no warning whatsoever for the atrocity, which had yet to transpire. Tower One had been hit, yes. There was a ten-minute grace period, however, in which we were sustained in our blissful ignorance of the first collision having been an error of judgment, perhaps a navigational slip?

At that point, I determined it best to keep walking, for perhaps upon arriving at my classroom, I would find the answers for the questions which confounded my mind with choking confusion. I walked backward down Fifth Avenue, in a daze. This was not happening; this was happening; what the hell was happening? It was surreal the reality of it could not reach me.

Upon entering the classroom, I joined my classmates at the windows, windows that offered a view that will forever haunt me. Someone went in search of a radio, another frantically called her boyfriend, others sat waiting for the teacher to arrive. I hardly noticed his eventual arrival as the minutes crawled excruciatingly toward an unknown conclusion.

“There will be no homework for today, class is dismissed…” I heard my flustered professor utter the words, but obviously, it didn’t matter. I was at the windows, shaking with the notion that something cataclysmic was transpiring. And suddenly, from the corner of my left eye I beheld a plane, flying low, too low, so low it was going to … and it did.

My entire body froze. I heard one of my classmates scream. Someone hurled a chair against the wall. Tower Two burst into flames, and suddenly we all possessed a terrifying certainty: this was not an accident. I am not a religious person, but at that point, I began to pray. The first Tower then began to collapse, and in a matter of seconds, it was gone–just gone– and with it, the invincibility being American had always seemed to guarantee. Suddenly, we were all vulnerable. I left my classroom then, and the street reached me before my feet met its sidewalks. Fifth Avenue was a swirling mass of gut-wrenching sobs, terrified eyes and a collective hysteria of panic and shock.

I began to walk, toward the Towers, but also toward home, with the intention of somehow reaching my family. For I had been stunned with the shocking realization that life is entirely fragile. And in the blink of an eye, you can lose yourself or someone whom you have never contemplated life without. And as I walked– no ran– Tower Two began to collapse.

October, 2001

I watched the dream of an entire nation go up in smoke, and flames, and hatred. I went to New York City to live, flying on a dream, a whim and a brief flicker of shimmering starlight snuffed out like a candle. The wick was too short to support the flame, so suddenly, the dream was gone. And the stardust was ash. My warm Central Park breeze dissolved into a haze of debris, and I was lost, left grasping at smoke.

I survived in New York City for six months, though I only truly lived there for about two weeks. Two weeks, in which I was truly flying but even then realizing, I had to come down sometime. For those two weeks, New York City was the most beautiful of snowflakes. Diamond perfection glistening in an eternal sun. I felt it, and I knew. Knew that when I reached out to touch it, to save it, to keep it, it would all dissolve beneath my fingertips.

Before Sept. 11, 2001, I felt as though I knew where I was headed in life. As far back as I can remember, I had anticipated moving to New York City, my rationale being, “that’s where everything happens.”

Well, there I was, and “everything” had certainly happened. After Sept. 11, I found myself longing for the bliss of ignorance. For in that ignorance would be found my stolen hope for the unknown and anticipation for all the world had to offer.

Given all I had recently seen and experienced, my innocent hope had been, and continues to be, translated into a feeling of raw determination, an ironclad resolve to succeed. Despite the ways my priorities and path in life have been altered. Before Sept. 11, I, like many Americans, took the wondrousness of freedom, independence, opportunity and safety for granted. Or not for granted but rather, before Sept. 11, I had not even considered the privilege of the life I lead as a citizen of the United States of America.