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I’m talking here about being a child of my time.

When I think of September 11th, 2001, I am thinking more of the days just before it. I am remembering Sunday, September 9th. It was a light Sunday afternoon where Lynne, Bassey, Seed and I met up in Fort Greene, had brunch and then not quite ready to part ways  —there was so much more for us to say to each other— we went to Fort Greene Park, hiked up a hill to the highest summit in the park to the Prison Martyr’s Ship monument, laid out a blanket and took in all that was beautiful, young and full. Seed was visiting town from Knoxville and had a gig at the Nuyorican. We talked about writing and music. I brought my camera along, for no particular reason. I had stopped taking pictures for a year after college, but I was getting serious about it again. Seed had an idea for a musical. I think we talked poetry, nationals, dreams, plans… always, always about writing and art.  I don’t remember the details of what we talked about. I do remember feeling content and connected. We felt possibility with each other. We were all together. For no particular reason, I looked over my right shoulder and said, ‘Hey, you can see the World Trade Center from here.’ I don’t remember if it was Bassey or Seed or Lynne or if they all said ‘Yeah, you sure can.” I snapped my shutter. We were in the park for hours until the September wind chilled and we decided to go to Chez Oskar for dinner. There are gaps in my memory; they bleed into the following night. That night before, it rained so hard. A punishing and wrenching rain. I thought to myself, God is weeping. I remember earlier in the day that I couldn’t see the towers from the window of my boss’s office at work. The sky was muddy. And my memory flashes to a bar, and there we were again, together. Al had joined us. He had just finished a show at PS122 and we all went to a bar on University Place that wasn’t Reservoir. Al and Bassey spontaneously broke into characters, our private comedy improv group. Seed, Al and Peter took turns wearing my glasses, and goaded me to take their pictures. Elana mocked Al and Bassey’s schtick. Everything was lively and our conversations glittered. We were fully present in our innocence. Before the collapse of towers, before two wars, before Bin Laden, before cancer, before tumors, before…

I was up so late that I barely slept, Seed crashed at my apartment and kept me up talking about his grand idea for a musical he was writing. My dreams were a mashup of Moulin Rouge and Stevie’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale. I still woke up at my usual time. And the only thought in my head that morning was that I had been meaning to go to the World Trade Center for days to pick up something I ordered at one of the stores.  I remember saying to myself, if I don’t go today, I’ll never go. How was I to know the truth of such words?

I remember listening to the radio because the TV signal was out. Answering my phone to tell everyone that I was home in Brooklyn, that I hadn’t left my house yet. I remember Bassey telling us to come to her apartment. I remember that night we left Bassey’s and went to Park Slope to eat. I had an inexplicable craving for tabouli. I remember that we ran into Matthew who was comforting a friend who worked in the Towers. I remember that Al, Bassey, Lynne and Seed were my family for those days and will always be family because of it. I can’t remember now if Al had worked for American Airlines as a Flight Attendant, but I do remember him saying that he could’ve been working one of those planes because it was a route he’d worked frequently, and if he hadn’t had the gig at PS122, pursuing his art…

But all I know is that we felt blessed to be with each other. We were all where we needed to be, holding each other, waiting for the new world to begin.

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