I Was There | By The Planet Waves Staff
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I hit the snooze button once too often so my morning was spent hurrying to get myself and my daughters fed, dressed and out the door. I did manage to double-check that they each had their homework and lunch money. I recall sharply reminding them to shut off the lights as we left the house. Frazzled, I made my way down our street. Noelle, the older of the two, was pouting because she thought she was going to be late to school. Carmen was whining because she wanted something warm to eat and not the apple and granola bar I had grabbed for the car ride. Once we reached the highway, I thought we had gotten a break because there was no traffic at all. Noelle made it to school with 10 minutes to spare! I wondered if it were one of those miscellaneous holidays I don't get off or something. Carmen, who starts school 20 minutes later than her sister, asked if I'd stop to buy her a hot chocolate. Because I hadn't had time to make coffee, I eagerly agreed. We were laughing about how lucky we were as we walked into the coffee shop and cheerily greeted the owner with "Hey there Van, how's it going?" That's the moment I realized something was terribly wrong. I stopped by that coffee shop at least once a week over the past five years and never, ever had Van returned my greeting with anything but a warm "Hi Sally. How are you?" As if her silence was not telling enough, the look in Van's eyes said it all. I knew this was not going to be a good day. I realized the radio on the counter was not playing the normal soothing jazz; instead I heard the muffled drone of a reporter detailing with some urgency the news of the moment. I reached in my bag to pay for our drinks; Van refused. Instead, she came around the counter, put a treat into Carmen's hand, and directed her to go choose a table to sit at and sip her hot chocolate. She put her arm around me. With a trembling voice, Van relayed the news of the unfolding disaster. As we listened together in disbelief, the second tower was hit. I wandered through the morning in a daze, the kind when you know you must be dreaming and keep doing everything you can to wake yourself up-- only it wasn't a dream. Through it all, the scariest moment was realizing I hadn't kissed Noelle and told her I loved her that morning. -- Araceli DeAngelo
there was this strange euphoria mixed with horror inside of me, this was it, this is what's going to wake people up i had planned to go to manhattan that morning to check out a TEFL certificate program, but i had overslept. I was laying in bed, angry at myself, when my sister called and told me to turn on the tv. I saw the two burning towers on the television and i started to laugh, i couldn't believe it was real, but then i sat like a zombie watching the news as more and more kept happening, another plane crashed into the pentagon, another was still flying, there were supposedly more still in the air...there was this strange euphoria mixed with horror inside of me, this was it, this is what's going to wake people up...i remembered how a few days earlier i was driving in my car, passing my old university, thinking about how all those people i went to school with were asleep, apathetic, nihilists, or maybe fanatics of capitalism, and i heard this bang inside of me and i thought, "we need a war", and there it was on tv, in front of me. my mother came home from the restaurant at some point and i called her over to the t.v., we both watched the first tower go down, and the newscaster broke down on the television, "what about all those people down there?" she half whispered, and i was almost happy to hear somebody feel something at least, somebody show some emotion, somebody cry, do something, watching the first one go down, i remembered going up to the world trade center with my mom and dad when i was little to eat dinner on the top floor, there was this gigantic amythest stone by the door of the elevator just outside the restaurant, i always wanted to stop and look at it for awhile and touch it, it was so huge and beautiful, and my mother would pull me along to go to our table, but everytime we'd go to the top floor (it was always a tradition for us whenever we were in new york), i'd look forward to it, knowing it was always there, and then that stone fell too with the tower, but it made me feel like maybe a little bit of its magic would seep into that gaping hole, i thought about two phallic towers crashing, leaving a gaping, firey, vagina in the earth, simultaneous birth and death, horror and beauty, dark and light, because that big cunt open in the earth was going to change everything, for good and bad -- Giovanna Coppola
I looked up and saw the upper half of the two World Trade Towers--the only buildings that I could see from the subway platform--one with flames and smoke against the clear blue sky. Standing at the Smith and 9th Street subway station, waiting for the F train on my way to work, I was reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead because my Grandma had died in mid-August and I was trying to find out what was happening to her. A loud sound interrupted my reading, a sound reminiscent of a truck crossing Metropolitan Avenue and bouncing along the uneven pavement, except ten times louder. I looked up and saw the upper half of the two World Trade Towers -- the only buildings that I could see from the subway platform -- one with flames and smoke against the clear blue sky. No thoughts or emotions crossed my mind. My rational mind told me the building had been emptied out, evacuated because of fire -- no experience of mine prepared me for what I found out later. I looked to my right wondering if anyone else had seen this and what were their reactions. I wanted to see the reactions because I didn't know how to react. If someone was upset I would know that something was wrong. I saw one dark- haired woman just staring too. Most other people were looking into their books or gazing elsewhere. The F train came and I got on. The nearer I got to work, the more my intuition told me something was wrong. A sort of anxious excitement emerged. I arrived at my subway stop and walked briskly to work feeling more urgently that I needed to know what's going on. I listened to my messages from home and barely understood my Mom, upset and crying. For the next few hours I paced, walking from my desk to the top of the building I work at for a view of the buildings, the smoke and its travel towards Staten Island. No emotion came from all of this except for shock, which seemed to be the lack of emotion until all the images and experiences could touch me and effect my existence from then on. -- Brittany Sacash
As we watch these images of smoke and fumes, there is confusion about what we are seeing. I am questioning Rich, who had studied to be a pilot: "What kind of plane could do this? An accident? Deliberate?" It is around 7:50 a.m. CDT. I have just finished my morning writing and sending out emails. I come downstairs to get another cup of coffee. My husband, Rich, is watching a Chicago program called "Fox Thing in the Morning." Most days it is a light news program, but today something is hauntingly different. I can hear the seriousness in their voices and I come into the living room to see what is going on. I see that something is very wrong and at first this is all hard to fathom. As we watch this smoking building, it all becomes horribly clear. "What? The World Trade Center? Hit by a plane?" As we watch these images of smoke and fumes, there is confusion about what we are seeing. I am questioning Rich, who had studied to be a pilot: "What kind of plane could do this? An accident? Deliberate?" We begin to discuss the possibilities. What has actually happened is still unclear, so he starts switching channels to CNN, MSNBC, to see if we can get a different story. I am not getting any sense of what is going on. I feel distracted and as I am late for getting ready for work, I start to walk upstairs to take my shower. As I begin to leave the room, I glance at the television and I am standing directly in front of it just as a plane hits the other tower. For an instant I am stunned and then totally hot-wired. I feel a tremendous influx of energy. It is as if this impact hit me directly. I feel jarring on all levels and I immediately stopped feeling any confusion or fogginess about what was happening. On some level I just KNEW. And I knew this event was going to change everything, me and everyone around me, and that it was time to do something -- what to do is still unclear and uncertain. What seemed to be happening was that I was feeling all dimensions of my being. As though a part of my soul entered me that day. This alone was the one clear thing I remember and I will carry with me forever -- that it was now time for me to do what I came here to do. -- Carol Burkhart
Looking passersby in the eye. I could feel the matrix that held us all; there seemed to be no real space between us, just a thick invisible fluid that transferred emotional intensity I was stepping off the escalator that ascends from the Wood Street subway station in downtown Pittsburgh when a young man, who had been talking with a cop just up ahead by the revolving door, turned around in my direction and told the first person he saw, who happened to be me, that "They hit the second tower." "What are you talking about?" "Another plane hit the World Trade Center." "A plane hit the building?" "Yeah, we're being attacked by terrorists." Once my brain deciphered the message, I felt an initial surge of adrenaline and an expanding sense of awareness, mental acuity, a wider and sharper field of vision. The adrenaline flow seemed to increase as I walked the block and a half toward the cathedral where I worked. Along the way I passed some men standing outside their work vans. One of them was perched in the driver's seat, door open, legs hanging out, listening intently to the news reports emitting from the car radio. Sort of like a morose tailgate party. Heads shaking. Incredulous comments here and there. Looking around. Looking up at the buildings. Looking passersby in the eye. I could feel the matrix that held us all; there seemed to be no real space between us, just a thick invisible fluid that transferred emotional intensity. I, too, looked up, looked around, and wondered what would unfold or blow up around me in the middle of the city. I felt a close kinship with the working men with their van doors open, like the 1970s when the Pittsburgh Steelers were terrorizing the AFC, collecting Super Bowl championship rings, injecting pride in a defunct city that had been defined, then abandoned, by the industrial revolution. A similar amplitude, but this was a different frequency. This wasn't intoxicating joy and camaraderie inspired by The Steel Curtain or the Immaculate Reception. This was ominous, like Vesuvius. Pompeii. And the towers hadn't even collapsed yet. "Lord Jesus!" My footsteps quickened to the church as I looked up around me, at the US Steel Building and Mellon One Plaza. "Archangel Michael." I went in the church, straight upstairs to the offices. It seemed everyone was assembled in a room off one corner of the wing that was usually empty, a conference room with an ancient grandfather clock made of ebony wood. Light shone through the old stained glass windows found in every room of the cathedral, even the bathrooms. Several people, including two Very Reverends, were gathered around a television perched on a cart. No one was speaking except a television reporter. I scanned the faces of the priests, which for the first time looked worried, and amazed. They were simultaneously considering, each quietly to himself, if The Time was at hand. Fuckin-ay! The building collapsed! COLLAPSED! Twirling down, down. Then the other. Who hasn't stood up against those sons of bitches, looking up, getting dizzy. You can see them sway, but they ain't goin' anywhere. Is there anything on the planet more certain than those fuckers? Apparently there is: a petroleum-based economy. Devvy, the cute little roly-poly secretary of Lebanese extraction, came up and stood next to me, eyes glued to the screen, brushing her big tits against my elbow, as usual. I loved when she did that. At that moment, she wanted me to hold her. Someone announced that yet another plane had been hijacked and crashed not far from here. Somerset. The tension rippled through the rigid old cathedral, stained black from the soot of steel mill smokestacks. I thought it would crumble too. I could feel Devvy's nipple, now erect, pressing against my elbow. We both thought of my cock in her mouth, up in one of the chorus balconies. No one ever went up there. -- Chris Grosso
For the next couple hours, I watched in shock like most people, as the networks kept repeating the scene of the second plane hitting the tower. Scared, not knowing what might follow, I remember feeling at one point like I was three or four years old, scared and crying, and I heard myself saying aloud, "I want my daddy." I was home alone, my housemate having gone away for a few days. I flipped on my computer and my home page came up with news headlines. I usually skip by that and go to my email but something about 'World Trade Center Attacked' caught my eye. I clicked on it and went to the story. After reading just a couple lines, I turned on my TV. As they were telling how the first tower had been hit by a plane, the second was one hit, and the reporters were stating that this was obviously a deliberate attack. It was hard to believe what was going on. I don't watch many sci-fis but I've seen enough to have seen stuff like this. I knew THIS IS REAL, yet a part of me kept waiting for King Kong to step over the building front and center. A sense that EVERYTHING had suddenly changed surfaced and was demanding full attention, telling me that it would take some time to realize the full impact of what was going on, but that it was big. For the next couple hours, I watched in shock like most people, as the networks kept repeating the scene of the second plane hitting the tower. Scared, not knowing what might follow, I remember feeling at one point like I was three or four years old, scared and crying, and I heard myself saying aloud, "I want my daddy." Later that day I heard from both of my grown sons, one in Minneapolis and the other just a few miles away. The sound of their voices was a godsend. It calmed me down a great deal, and I remember telling my youngest son (whom I often thought is a possible reincarnation of my father) what I had gone through earlier when I was scared and 'wanted my daddy.' All he said was 'wow!' but I could tell he completely understood -- far beyond just being a son. -- Dan Zeigler
"Breathe. Feel the floor with your feet. Breathe again." In the yard, a small brown movement catches my eye. The morning after never felt like this before. Not even the mushroom-green- pyramid-morning-after felt like this. I allow myself some cold silence -- no radio, no television -- while I make coffee. I hear a voice saying: "Breathe. Feel the floor with your feet. Breathe again." In the yard, a small brown movement catches my eye. I'm kneeling in the grass, holding a young hawk as it convulses. It lies on its back, head to its breast, wings spread, talons grasping. A corona of brown and red feathers surrounds it. There is nothing that I can do to save it. I soften myself and offer whatever comfort it may need. There is a moment of joining. The convulsions slow and then end. With everything that has happened in the last 24 hours, the death of this creature is what breaks my heart. At sunset, my partner (a kind man with an 8th house stellium) helps me bury the hawk. He smoothes the dirt and asks me if I'm going to say anything. My throat's too tight. He looks at the grave and says "Good bye; and better luck next time." I ask him to remember those words for my death. Hawks, like Mercury, are associated with messages and perception. In the 9/11 chart, Mercury rises, and illusions and perceptions of security fall. It's an alchemical reaction between opus circulatorium, the way things really are, and opus contra naturum, the way we see things. Mercury is also associated with Virgo and themes of healing. Hawks represent visionary power and guardianship of vital energies. Fall is a time of intense hawk energy. The morning after 9/11, my heart broke open. -- Denice Taylor
I turned on the BBC. I watched and watched and watched. I called a friend in Boston who flies to New York frequently. He was there, but he was terrified. A sunny day in London, the sky unusually cloudless and pure for September. For me, this was the last morning of a 10-day intensive course called Avatar. We finished at 1.45 p.m. GMT. The last section of the course was about creating a new planetary civilisation, about locating and dis-creating transparent beliefs that result in negative action. We were asking ourselves, "What would a country have to believe about itself in order for x to happen?" I walked home; it was now 1.55 p.m. I went in and turned on the PC to check my mail. The WTC headline caught my eye. I read it and forgot about my mail. I turned on the BBC. I watched and watched and watched. I called a friend in Boston who flies to New York frequently. He was there, but he was terrified. And, as the afternoon in London unfolded into sombre, shock-filled evening, I kept asking myself, "What would America have to believe about itself for this to happen?" -- Elle McKenzy
There is something about doing journalism one's whole life that makes it comforting to actually respond and deal with the news even when I'm in total shock, the country is supposedly under attack and my lover is treating me like I'm someone else. I was in bed sleeping, sick, when my friend and photographic collaborator Neal McDonough called me. It was a little after 7 a.m. Pacific Time. I was really out of it. He told me that both towers of the World Trade Center had been hit by jet planes and that one tower had collapsed. I was stunned and thought he was kidding, but he calmly reassured me that he wasn't. He's known me 15 years and knew just how to talk through my delirium, stating the facts really calmly. I remember thinking I was glad it was him talking to me, I was happy I had heard it from him and not a stranger, or the news. Two nights before, just after returning from my first Burning Man, my partner, Eve, had dumped me rather brutally, telling me a number of lies that it took me nearly a year to get to the bottom of. I went into shock and got sick with a fever and stomach and intestinal issues. That same night (the 9th), a lover who was staying at my home had a dream of everyone dying in a big disaster that had been planned by the government, some kind of virus. So, I was sick, grieving and freaked out, but still managed to begin daily updating of Planet Waves. I cancelled about half of my astrology clients that week -- I'm not sure why I didn't cancel all of them, though in my appointment book the whole day is crossed out for the 11th. I talked to a lot of journalism colleagues, astrological colleagues, old friends -- I was on the phone the entire day. I remember saying that there were only two entities in the entire world capable of this kind of thing. It felt good to work, to connect, it felt grounding to work with people and deal with what happened, very immediate and here/now, and important to stay in the stream of life and keep my attention sharp. One of my clients is a psychiatrist living in Oklahoma City and she had some valuable insights about how a culture absorbs this kind of disaster. I spent a lot of time looking at the chart. I started writing. I had my first full article done and posted on the 14th, "Hold On World." I was less impressed by the horror of the whole thing and more freaked out because I knew we would be bombing the daylights out of someone as a result of this. There is something about doing journalism one's whole life that makes it comforting to actually respond and deal with the news even when I'm in total shock, the country is supposedly under attack and my lover is treating me like I'm someone else. Then, mysteriously, Eve called. It was a voice from the past, the original person I knew, asking how I was doing and how people I knew were doing. She knows I am from New York City. It was good to hear her voice and the last time I remember her being herself. She faded away entirely after that. The next couple of nights I was really, really scared. I was alone and I wanted to be with her in her bed. The world felt extremely creepy, like anything could happen, like I could not trust anyone or anything, like I could not lock my doors enough. I was having Nazi Germany flashbacks. I'm already paranoid; I've been following the history of the Reagan/Bush regime since near the beginning, and it was just horrifying that these people were in charge. Small things kept me grounded; one of the correspondents from NPR was an old reporting colleague from New York and he was calm, his voice was really familiar and these things helped me trust what I was hearing and that we might be okay. The skies were silent. I live in the flight path to Sea-Tac and it was so strange that there were no airplanes. That was the strangest thing, and the most touching for me: a silent world, for days. I remember the first one flying over my house at about 4 a.m. three or four nights later. It woke me up. Somehow it was reassuring, the whine of those big, cozy jets going past my bed. But I did not sleep through the night for six months. -- Eric Francis
Institution on lockdown, lunch and dinner in a paper sack. Review of institutional files for terrorist connections. Men in black with velcro and weapons, just in case. Tuesday morning at the reformatory for women, treatment team. We have seen about half the scheduled folks and the nurses down the hall announce the World Trade Center attack. The TV is on in the hallway. Staff and inmates are watching as the planes crash, over and over, on the screen. We finish our treatment planning for about twenty women. Then we receive word that the warden has decided to implement 'critical incident management' and all non-essential staff, which includes me, are sent home. Institution on lockdown, lunch and dinner in a paper sack. Review of institutional files for terrorist connections. Men in black with velcro and weapons, just in case. At home, watching the confusion of news coverage, calling father, sisters, brother and sons. Reality slowly dawning. I cried only several hours, or days, later. My feelings more aligned that this course correction was oddly righteous, painfully needed. Not necessary had I been more vocal, more effective, more politically persuasive, over the years of capitalist accumulation. As much my fault as anyone's I guess. Too Catholic? I was raised that way. -- Jamie Beatty
Polly is shrieking at me--that's New York, that's New York. It still didn't register. Finally, the horror begins to define itself. Black pain. I was gardening when Polly yelled for me to come see what was happening on the tee vee. Over the furrows I trudged, not wanting to see whatever it was. I heard Dan Rather before I saw him and his tone told me whatever had happened was terrible. Then I saw a tall building on fire and a plane smashing into another building. Polly is shrieking at me -- that's New York, that's New York. It still didn't register. Finally, the horror begins to define itself. Black pain. Worse than watching John F. Kennedy murdered live on national television. Worse than seeing Martin Luther King's funeral cortege, worse than watching Watts explode, or Bobby Kennedy assassinated repeatedly. Worse than witnessing the Challenger becoming a brief comet. Or Lance hanging out of the window at Columbine. Worse. I leave. I cannot allow any more to imprint my brain. My body is even heavier returning across those furrows. The low, murderous rumble of Hughies leaving Colorado Springs bounces off the Rockies. The machine guns are roaring -- Jeanne Treadway
In the morning he went back to his other girlfriend, telling me our relationship was over. I was left to wonder for several weeks whether I was pregnant. I walked into the lobby of the university and saw that the television was on in the student lounge. This was unusual because students are normally in class in the morning, not hanging around watching TV. The moment my eyes made contact with the television I saw the second airplane fly into the second tower. I remember thinking for a moment that someone was watching a science fiction movie. Suddenly the horror of what was happening became abundantly clear. Pictures of the Pentagon came next but I could only take a moment to watch what was unfolding. The 16-year-old child of my boss was in an airplane, heading back to school in Connecticut. I immediately telephoned the airline. Through some miracle I was able to get through. No one knew where his plane was but they said I could call again. My boss set up a counseling center for the students in the student lounge just in front of my office. People poured in. I could see them through the glass. Some were crying. I was in shock. I had worked across the street from the Trade Center for years. I had my very first dress-up date when I was 18 at the Top of The World, the famous gourmet restaurant. I remember the long series of elevators I had to travel to get to the restaurant. At work we stayed on task. A few students' parents were missing. I was finally able to get information about my boss's son. His plane was being diverted to North Carolina. The airline actually read me the flight manifest so I could be certain he was on that flight. That night I met my estranged lover at a local bar. We had a few drinks and there was a heightened sense of urgency to our feelings of passion and love. We went to my house and made love. When I reached for the condom he pushed my hand away. He said he wanted to make a baby with me. I know that was crazy, but there was something about being with death all day that made us want to create life. In the morning he went back to his other girlfriend, telling me our relationship was over. I was left to wonder for several weeks whether I was pregnant. -- Jenny Singer
I remember feeling like a bare wire, wondering what the world would be like if there really was a war. And I remember thinking that the trees would still be here. And the ground would still be here. And that it was a beautiful day. I was driving north on the Garden State Parkway towards my temp job at L'Oreal in Clark, NJ, only 30-some miles from NYC. Traffic was heavy and I was running late for work. I was listening to WNYC, the local NPR station. During the local news segment, it was mentioned that a small plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. I was particularly irritable that morning and I remember remarking: "Fucking moron, it's a giant building, how could this surprise you?' Like, 'Oh shit, what's this tower doing here?' Dumbass." Traffic slowed even more. Suddenly the radio cut out. Dead air. I switched to the other NPR station and also got dead air. I scanned the radio dial: frequency after frequency of dead air. My head was reeling, thinking of some sort of Big Brother figure shutting down the airwaves. What the fuck is going on? An Hispanic station came in, but the news there didn't help much. I found a station playing big band music and listened to it happily and ignorantly until I got to work. I sat down and flipped on my computer. Someone passed by saying, 'they hit the other tower!' I walked out into the open area and started asking questions. There were two planes that hit; they were airline planes, not Cessnas. This was no accident. People were going down to the cafeteria to watch TV. I remember pointedly opting out of that. I sat down to call home, but I couldn't get through. I went outside to use my cell phone, but that didn't work either. I tried the radio again, but still only got big band. I listened anyway, to calm me down, and I stayed in my office. One guy came by from time to time and told me the latest. There are eight planes, one crashed into the Pentagon, one got downed in eastern Pennsylvania, one tower fell, the other one fell, smaller buildings fell. He would always finish the update by saying 'we are at war.' Everyone seemed to know someone who worked at the towers. I had only lived on the East Coast for three months; I knew no one. There were lots of immigrants in our office, African mostly, but from all over the world. The look on their faces was indescribable. I can't even imagine what they were thinking and feeling, trying to process this in a language not their own, living in a place that seemed to offer protection from this sort of thing. I gave out a lot of hugs. One woman just cried in my arms. I was growing angry at Update Man for talking about war, about nuking someone, anyone, about someone needing to pay for this. I was pretty sure the whole thing was giving him a raging hard-on. He was enjoying this, though he would probably never admit it. I stayed in my office and tried to work, to not get caught up in the hysteria. I wrote a poem in an attempt to process: The symbols of our freedom fall to our feet The symbols of our freedom die at our feet One by one, people started leaving, going to be near loved ones. One said specifically that he was going home to stockpile cigarettes and gasoline. I stayed. I went outside for lunch. Military planes in formation flew low and loud over my head, heading in the direction of New York. The skies were otherwise empty. I remember feeling like a bare wire, wondering what the world would be like if there really was a war. And I remember thinking that the trees would still be here. And the ground would still be here. And that it was a beautiful day. And so I sat in the sunshine and just breathed in the quiet air. And for a minute I felt totally at one with everything. After lunch I called home and finally got through. I felt anchored. Safe. I ran some reports. I went home from an empty office at the regular time. I drove home on an empty highway. The cars that I did encounter were driving slowly, without the trademark Jersey aggression. It was not until almost 7p.m. that I saw my first image of the towers falling. I only saw it a couple more times. Really, that was enough. PS. The radio signals all went dead when the second tower was hit. That's where all the communication antennas were, they reported later. WNYC didn't come back on air for something like a week while they searched for an alternate place to transmit their frequency. The other NPR station was back the next day. I had forgotten that my first thought was of some governmental conspiracy, and not terrorism, until I wrote that last night. -- Maya Dexter
Somehow then came an awareness that the way to be with her, was to be as her, to be peaceful. The hours that followed this early morning dream message are those of September 11, 2001. The radio informed me of the terrorist attack and when the first plane crash into the World Trade Center Towers. I knew where the dream came from. She came to me with a serenity evocative of the image of the Queen of Cups of the Thoth tarot. The pallid soft hues of blue and green veiled with a gauze of misty white. As she approached I knew her to be all compassion and I wanted to be as near to her as possible. With a violent displacement his face grimaced at me from the black surroundings of a dimly lit room. Black rimmed glasses and thick gray streaked hair. Sinister, danger, threat, revulsion were my immediate emotional reactions. I struggled to find the woman and the peace that came with her. As her image retreated my heart longed for her to remain. Somehow then came an awareness that the way to be with her, was to be as her, to be peaceful. The hours that followed this early morning dream message are those of September 11, 2001. The radio informed me of the terrorist attack and when the first plane crash into the World Trade Center Towers. I knew where the dream came from. I was at work alone most of the day and listened some more to the radio but not very much. I wanted to be with people rather than go home. It wasn't until that evening that I first saw the images of the events. They are still vivid in my memory. -- Pam Purdy
"You mean they toppled to the ground?" I asked aloud. "How many people will die?" "Thousands," he replied. On September 11 I was setting up my new office which had opened for business the day before. We, two other civil rights lawyers and I, had opened a law office and had a lot of work to do. At maybe 10:00 a.m. or so, our temporary secretary got off the phone and asked me if I knew what was going on in the city. We did not yet have internet access and there was no radio in the office, so I was toiling away in oblivion. I responded, 'which city,' knowing damned well she was talking about New York City, only one hour away from our office. She said there was some kind of accident at the World Trade Center and all the television stations were down. I figured it was just another day in New York. There is always some 'disaster' which fucks up city life for thousands of people. A little while later our secretary got off the phone again. She said there had been a terrible disaster in the city. She knew people there and had to leave. I went to my car to listen to the radio. Newscasters were broadcasting without their usual smart ass delivery, saying ashes were covering the streets and there was much chaos. I couldn't bear to hear what came next so I went back to work. Bit by bit we learned that the Towers were hit and that other planes were flying around the US with no discernable destination. Someone said the Pentagon was hit. That morning, no one knew when the terror would end and if there were other targets. A police officer, the brother of one of my law partners, stopped by to advise us that the towers had fallen. I was speechless. "You mean they toppled to the ground?" I asked aloud. "How many people will die?" "Thousands," he replied. A guy I went to school with was among the dead firefighters. The last time I saw or even thought about this guy was probably at high school graduation 17 years ago. Someone emailed me his obituary and the thought of him being crushed in a concrete staircase trying to maneuver people to safety was too much. I also knew a few guys who were trying to find people in the rubble and worked in the general clean up. It is they and not that asshole Guiliani who should have been named 'Men of the Year' by Time magazine. This was all very scary to me because it happened in my back yard. The planes, after leaving Boston, turned left at Albany and headed for NYC, using the Hudson River as a guide. That means the planes were probably visible from my house that morning and I could have seen them as I headed down the New York Thruway. I could have been in the neighborhood of WTC. Having experienced the size of those buildings made it that much scarier. They were like mountains in the city, and nothing can take down a mountain. I went to sleep after watching non-stop news coverage and images of the buildings collapsing. In the middle of the night our cat woke us up for more food. I went downstairs and turned on the TV. There were the same news anchors speaking in solemn tones about the attacks. Aerial shots of lower Manhattan showed nothing but smoke. That's when it hit home. It really happened. --Steve Bergstein
I remember thinking it had to be the first time I had ever seen an American newscaster look sincere and genuine. I was at the Best Western in the town of 29 Palms with my husband, on one of our frequent visits to the Joshua Tree National Park. 29 Palms is a one-street, tiny desert town which sits on the eastern gate entrance to the park, and is home to the largest Marine training center in the US. We're regulars at that hotel. It's a fairly big hotel in three sections with a pool, all set against a hot, windy and bleak mountainous backdrop. Except for visiting or re-locating military families, we usually have the pool to ourselves. This time we had to share it with military personnel, some even dressed in their camouflage while they lounged on deck chairs! Being friends with the manager, we found out our fellow guests were: British Aerospace, McDonnell Douglas and the Marine Communications Corps. We asked about a really strange experience we had driving down the 10 freeway, just at the junction where we turn off through the windfarms: a huge, blinding flash of light pulsed up the freeway. It was like God taking flash pictures. We were told that many of hotel guests were here testing three of their new toys, among which was a Tesla theta-wave pulsar Howitzer (a sci-fi raygun which apparently leaves no trace of radiation), a pulse jet for the Aurora project (supposedly travels at 8 1/2 times the speed of sound), and an amphibious vehicle. I had just started studying the Tree of Life and the Kabbalah. I figured that this birthday (my 32nd) heralded my embarking on the 32nd path in the Otz Chim, the path from the sepiroth of Malkuth to that of Yesod. It is represented by the Hebrew letter Tav, whose keynote is "from imprisonment in form we rise to the consciousness of the vital force." I was blissfully submerged in the symbolism and meaning. My husband and I spent most of the weekend awake, on one of our 'quests.' We were talking about going it alone, about him being sick of his job, and about having the courage to jump in to our lives without the 'safety net' of having an employer and a steady (but crappy) paycheck. (I had already been laid off the previous June.) There was much talk of Babylon as we realized it was only fear that was holding us back, and that the safety net was actually drowning us. By the end of the quest, we had decided to do it. We were going to call in and tell them he was finished with the job. We called the front desk of the hotel to see if it was possible to stay another night and found to our dismay that it wasn't; they were jammed, no vacancies. It was September 10th, and sadly we were booked to leave the next day. Next morning, the hotel manager called to tell us that "a plane had crashed into the Trade Tower in New York! and were we planning to travel anywhere? If so, we should change our plans. The towers were exploding. Turn CNN on!" My immediate and absolutely certain feeling was that this had been done by this 'government' to activate some global media takeover and world manipulation. It seemed to confirm for me the theme of our weekend discussions: that it was really time to jump in, to truly live our lives. In an instant it said that times were changing, fast. That it was time to change. That we had made the right decision, that things would never be the same again. We went back to sleep, relieved that we didn't have to return to LA in a few hours. I didn't turn on the TV; I knew it would be there waiting for me when I got up. Staying awake through a few cycles of day and night and stimulating the nervous system with pyschoactives alter one's perception of what is real, what is important, and what is really important. What was really important for me in that moment was sleep. A few hours later we woke up; we logged on to the cathode ray nipple*; we saw the endless repeats of the planes crashing into the towers, the fires, the news reporters with fear and shock on their faces. I remember thinking it had to be the first time I had ever seen an American newscaster look sincere and genuine. Everything seemed strangely frozen, unearthly quiet, shocked and numbed. We went down to the front desk to get our room keys re-activated and the lobby was full of Uncle Sam's best. A middle-aged black sergeant dressed in his camo-khakis to whom we had nodded at the pool over the weekend, asked us, "Are you guys finished up here as well?" -- Jennifer Wilkes Christian *Michael Franti, "Television, the Drug of the Nation"
I told them they'd see patriotism like never before and that a heavy-handed retaliation would come next, even if the enemy wasn't known yet. I told them the US always profits from war, "as sick as that sounds," which shocked some of them. I was shuffling hand-outs and strips of paper for my next class, a discussion on 'parent-child relations,' determined to be over-prepared. A co-worker was talking about planes hitting towers, but I tuned him out. Action movies rot your brain. Then I listened. Too big to handle. While I responded verbally, I was mentally pushing myself to empathize. An inhuman event. I felt inhuman hearing about it, and that scared me. Nausea. Tears. Guilt. Class began weeks of viewing that horrible loop. "What are they saying?" A Japanese guy and several Koreans wanted to know. We watched. I reiterated. This was not an accident. People trapped inside. Hijackings. Numbers changing. Families. North American airspace closed. We heard a plane overhead. Was this WWIII? Korean guys wondered if they'd be called to service. Were we safe in Toronto? Students noted that one tower appeared to explode just before the plane hit. We didn't see the footage again. Overall it was solemn fascination, not emotional. This was hitting me closer to home than them. I told them they'd see patriotism like never before and that a heavy-handed retaliation would come next, even if the enemy wasn't known yet. I told them the US always profits from war, "as sick as that sounds," which shocked some of them. It was my frustration. People at the top break the rules and the rest of us pay for it. Then I broke the rules and gave my students 9/11 idioms for free discussion. Other teachers had continued as planned, but I wasn't prepared to. After class, an email from a NYC friend who wrote "America is under siege" but she was all right. Open the floodgates. Loved my internet when it helped connect so early in the day--her observations from the city when we craved more information. Then I told my co-workers that the night before a friend had said he had something important to tell me. I never got to hear what it was. I had a feeling he'd been warned about 9-11, but I would never able to confirm it, and I knew it sounded crazy when I said it aloud. I went in search of birthday cake for a depressed co-worker after lunch. All the downtown high rises and schools were closed. Quiet traffic heading home. Broadcast sounds, people shaking their heads in conversation, or staring off. The first day of that exhausted feeling of too much bad news and too much CNN. -- Stacey Clarke
I took it very personally considering it happened on the other side of the Atlantic, because the message was loud and clear and hit me in the gut long before my brain caught up--that this was an attack on you and your kind, including me. It really was a bad week. I locked myself out of the house, so I went to a friend's house to use the phone, and fell down her stairs. With a badly bruised back, I hobbled over to My partner came home at tea-time. I was in the lounge getting our daughter ready for bed. He asked if I'd heard. "Heard what?" "Aeroplanes crashing into the sides of buildings." "Aeroplanes plural?" (Assuming he was exaggerating.) I turned on the television and saw the first impact. Still thought it was an accident. I wasn't expecting to see the second one. That scared me. That as the moment when a thousand thoughts went through my mind. The first ones seemed to be: World War III broke out this morning and I didn't even know--here's me thinking I'm psychic and intuitive--how can I protect the baby? I took it very personally considering it happened on the other side of the Atlantic, because the message was loud and clear and hit me in the gut long before my brain caught up--that this was an attack on you and your kind, including me. Watched the news all evening, even though they were saying the same things over and over again. Just like when Princess Diana died. There was a story about a mother and small child on one of the planes, and the fact that they were all told in advance what was going to happen, which really got to me. I wondered what on Earth you say and do to help a child in that situation, and realised that knowing your child is about to die is far worse than knowing you are. --Tracy Byron
I don't remember feeling much, except a kind of surreal bewilderment. I called my mom. I was home, an off day from work. In an absolutely unparalleled bit of pure inconsistency, I was neither at the computer nor did I have the TV on as background noise, but was listening to music while totally absorbed in some art project. I remained blissfully unaware of the national-global disturbance until after 11 a.m. west coast time, when my boss at the gallery called to say she thought she was going to close for the day--there seemed no point in staying open. Well, this was peculiar. why? what's going on? I remember not believing the words. The towers fucking fell? My brain couldn't process the information. I turned on the TV, as the endless loop of the towers falling one after another got replayed, over and over and over. It was unreal, like some overblown special effect in some gory movie. Maybe Die Hard. I don't remember feeling much, except a kind of surreal bewilderment. I called my mom. Later in the afternoon, my friend Ellen came by. Being one of the many locals with no TV, she stayed to catch some footage. We stood talking about it, as Dan Rather introduced some 'this just in' footage taken from across the river in an office building facing the towers. Camera locked on the smoky skyline, voices of fear and distress and disbelief and then the first tower falling down. "OHMYFUCKINGGOD" from a wailing woman, off-camera. Ellen and I burst into laughter, some combination of the nightmarish absurdity of the situation and odd relief at hearing an honest reaction. Cut to big Dan, unruffled by this forbidden outburst on national TV, quietly introducing a second clip from the same office building. Louder, very agitated voices as the second tower crumbles across the water. "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" a man screams, the power of his anguish ripping right through the screen. Ellen and I still laughing, and then the tears came, great heaving waves of them. Finally, it was all too real. -- Via Keller |
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