One year ago my friend Rufus wrote about New York. Here she puts down her thoughts after the anniversary.

What kind of title could I put on today? One Year Later? Still Alive? I Don't Think I'm Going To Forget?

I am feeling somewhat bitter and irritated this morning. I'm all for
memorials, for allowing people to grieve. Etc. But this outpouring seems somehow forced. It's Mandatory Weeping. And that bugs me.

Someone asked me in class yesterday if I was going to the memorial here. I said no. I said, I was there watching the black smoke billow across the water, I don't think I'm going to forget. I walked through
Washington Square Park on September 12 and smelled the smoke and saw the blackened cathedral shape of the fallen towers; I'm not going to forget.

I have a crystal clear memory of most of the day, from the way I was
hunching over to put my socks on to look at Drew before he left (feeling suddenly anxious for him, for what at the time was no good reason at all), to my irritation and automatic route-change calculation when the train was late (I waited for the express, I didn't take the local, or else I would have been even closer to the carnage). I walked across 35th to Madison every day and every day I remember the people gathering, gape-mouthed, at the loudspeaker for the radio at the garage.

My journal entry for that day consists of a simple 'we ain't dead'
message. It fails to convey how hard my heart was pounding, how quickly
I had mentally indexed my friends and their locations, how fast my
fingers were moving over the keyboard, sending out emails to say, Alive, Alive, Alive. It doesn't take into account the number of times I called my mother, to find out the status of relatives (alive), or to give her my status, or for that matter to argue about whether or not I should try and make it home, if I should stay (completely unnecesarily) in a Red Cross Shelter.

At the end of the day, bZ and I walked through the ghost town to the
train and made it home. We had pizza, for his birthday, as I had
promised him. I called Janette to finish up some email business. And
then we went to bed.

I had my memorial every day I lived in NYC. I sat on the same train and crossed the same bridge and turned my head like everyone else, when the skyline came into view, checking for smoke. For tiny licking flames. To see of maybe it had all been a horrible dream and the towers were back.

And I saved the papers, like a good little archivist, and I also read
them, and I looked at the pictures.

What am I doing today? I'm cleaning my room and doing my homework and
going to a meeting and class. I'll call Drew and wish him a happy
birthday.

It's a beautiful, clear, September day. And I am still alive.

Rufus

Munchkin

19.09.02 Front Page

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