With all my huffing and puffing over Survivor and Men’s Health, I forgot to write about the fifth anniversary of 9/11. I wasn’t in New York at the time, but I still recall talking to my friends several days after it happened and hearing the complete exhaustion and despair in their voices. I was at home in the D.C. area, and I remember waking up late that day, around 10 am, to my dad entering the bedroom. I had finished grad school two weeks earlier and had been looking for a job in New York. My dad told me to turn on the TV, and then said, “I don’t want you to go to New York.”
From then on, I was glued to the television just like everyone else, watching the split screen of the gaping hole in the Pentagon and the planes crashing into the towers as soot-covered workers fled the streets. I had tried to call my friend, who worked near the World Trade Center, but of course the phones weren’t working. Thank God, that day she had gone to work a little bit late and hadn’t made it to her building when the planes hit.
Despite my dad’s plea, I think he knew and I knew that the events of that day wouldn’t stop me from job hunting in New York, and about a month later a friend of mine and I went up for a weekend to attend a job fair. I remember standing on the balcony of an NYU dorm room in the West Village and seeing the smoke rising from the ashes at Ground Zero, even all those weeks later.
I wasn’t close with anyone who died in the WTC, but my friend did lose her boyfriend (soon to be fiancé), whom we both went to school with, and a future former coworker of mine lost his wife, leaving behind her husband and their small son. To my knowledge, neither of their bodies was ever found. My friend had gone from triage to triage with a few other friends looking for her boyfriend soon after it happened, but never found him. The New York Times ran all these little write-ups on the people that died; I still recall reading his and remembering what he was like in college.
I remembered the most that he was a music lover. I visited his suite when I was a freshman and he was a sophomore, and I remember looking at his vast CD collection as he tinkled on an electronic keyboard. He told me that one of his favorites was In My Tribe by 10,000 Maniacs, which I borrowed and later bought. I had never really listened to them before. A few years later we sang together in an a cappella group, and though we had our differences I remember he had a nice voice, the kind that easily blended in with others and was pleasant to listen to.
In July I stopped by St. Paul’s Chapel, the church near Ground Zero that served as a refuge for volunteer workers during 9/11, and teared up when I looked at the makeshift beds that volunteer rescue workers slept on, tiny beds that could barely fit me, let alone a brawny firefighter, and topped with ragged stuffed animals. There were tons of letters pinned up everywhere, large crayon scrawl from elementary school kids, written to thank nameless rescue workers. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been five years already; other times, it feels like it was ages ago. But it never deterred me from wanting to come back to New York, because as far as I was concerned there was nothing that could ever bring down New York’s status as the Greatest City in the World. The year after undergrad graduation, before I moved back home, I remembered being sick of the city—-sick of dodging people’s elbows as I left work in Times Square, sick of stuffing myself into the subway, sick of never being able to afford a room that wasn’t a closet. I left for home, closing a chapter of my life.
But I think I always knew that I’d be back. I think I needed that time away from the city to fully appreciate it. I still dodge the elbows. I still stuff myself onto the subway. I still live in a closet. At times this city is dirty, frustrating, grungy, scary, and downright rude. But it’s also the most vibrant, wonderful, and miraculous place I’ve ever lived. I see miracles everyday, see all the different kinds of people God created in His image, see all the different people who need Him and don’t know it, see those who work tirelessly for Him to make the city a slightly lovelier place to live. It’s true, in another town I’d probably be living in a bigger place, maybe own a home. Maybe I’d be a business owner. Maybe I’d be a wife. Maybe I’d be a mom. That’s a lot of maybes, though. The only thing I really know for certain right now is that there’s no other place I’d rather live.
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