Greetings Friends,
I was living in New York City when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred.
It was a turning point in my life, a time when I felt so connected to a place, to the people living there, and to my soul. I realized I loved writing, and that I wanted to help people. I considered going back to school to become a therapist (which obviously didn't happen!).
On 9/11 and in the days that followed, I sent a series of emails to my friends and family back home, it seemed the easiest way to communicate what was going on; phone lines were a mess but emails were going through.
This is an email from 9/15. I miss that connection I felt with complete strangers in the days that followed the airplanes hitting the towers.
How to get that back, in a world that is closed off, fearful, and anxious of current events, politics, and people we don't know - or who may be different than us? When so many people don't talk or look at each other or offer the time and space to share, to explore, to grieve, to heal...?
These emails give me hope that one day our world will get back to a place where we are not so afraid of our neighbors, when we look to them for sharing and comfort and solace instead of turning to social media or the news.
I hope you are all doing well on this day, wherever you are, and whatever you may be experiencing in your life.
Sandy
From: Sandy*****@aol . com
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 02:40:52 EDT
Subject: Friday Night Downtown
Hello from NYC,
Friday night I spent at Arturos Pizza with three friends. It was SO good to "get out" and discuss events, politics, our lives, and how we're coping, to be together and even laugh, something none of us have really done in a few days. Hanging out at the restaurant you constantly overheard "Twin towers...", "... Plane crash..." or "...I knew someone who saw it.." from the other tables. I wonder when we'll stop talking about it, if ever?
Arturos is located in the village, the part of New York that has many cool, hip, trendy etc. bars, boutiques, restaurants, clubs. This is the heart of "the city that never sleeps".
I have never seen it so quiet on a Friday night at 8:00. It was more like a Sunday morning at 8:00.
I walked west on Houston, this was the closest to "ground zero" I have been (less than 20 or so blocks north). They have opened Houston Street to traffic now. Looking down the north/south streets you still see a huge halo of backlit smoke where the financial district is. The smell my friend Chris mentioned Thursday PM was gone, due to the rain. However, during the evening, the lights in the restaurant flickered on two separate accounts, and Chris said at one point he looked out the front windows and all the lights on Houston Street were completely black. Probably just Con Ed messing with the electricity, since many people downtown are STILL without electricity, but you never know.
Last night (Thursday night) there was a terrific thunderstorm, and a crack of thunder awoke most New Yorkers to the thoughts of: "oh my god - what did they hit now???" only to realize it was only raining and what they heard was only thunder. Even I jumped out of bed and looked out the window, my heart pounding. These are the thoughts that are going through our heads. I heard a plane flying extremely low this afternoon and had to stop for a second and remember that President Bush was in town and it was probably Air Force One flying overhead.
It was nice to know I am not alone in feeling this way. Even though many of us in Manhattan did not personally know someone involved in this tragedy, we were all shaken by it because were/are here. One of my friends is a violinist who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan but teaches in Connecticut on the weekends. She called her school to say she simply could not teach Friday and Saturday due to the recent events. One parent, upon hearing this, called her to ask why her daughter was sitting last chair this year in the orchestra, and why wouldn't she be in to teach this weekend?? My friend (after getting over how incredibly frivolous this woman was sounding)said, hello, have you SEEN the news? This parent just said, "oh, yeah, but you're way uptown, aren't you??" Even being so close to the city, she just did NOT get it. We will never be the same.
Walking back to the subway after dinner we passed a man sitting outside a restaurant having coffee who saw us pointing at the smoke downtown. He said, "They put up the signal towers back up, you know, you can see them." I asked him what he meant, and he pointed to two tall buildings to the east of "ground zero", away from the wreckage to the west. There were two large towers on two separate buildings, you could see the red lights blinking on top of them. You could see a huge crane between them. This guy said he was down at the site, working all day. I don't know if he was telling the truth or not, but I did receive a page on my pager this afternoon for the first time since Monday evening. As we were talking with this guy, a NYPD squad car slowly rolled by. "The Star Spangled Banner" (a very hip soul version I might add) was blaring out of its megaphone. The police officer in the passenger side had his window open, and we gave him the "peace" sign. He nodded solemnly and returned the gesture.
We passed Minetta Square, a tiny garden oasis on 6th Avenue near the subway. There is a huge urn of flowers inside the gates, and people had put hundreds of candles around the urn, probably left over from the nationwide candle lighting that took place at 7pm, urging people to step outside and light a candle, to show unity and solidarity. There were also posters and poems and photos taped to the wrought iron gates and placed amongst the many candles. Two African American men, after bowing their heads for several minutes and crossing themselves, just started cursing the whole situation and shaking there heads, talking to everyone within earshot and no one in particular. I passed so many people with candles on my way to the restaurant earlier, and after seeing this monument in Minetta Square I noticed many other candles in front of businesses and restaurants and window ledges, just randomly sitting there on the sidewalks, still lit and burning.
On the streets of 6th Avenue there were SO many flyers for missing persons, on lampposts, trees, bus shelters. This is so weird to see. It reminds me of flyers for lost pets. Only these are for people who are the brother/sister/father/mother of someone, who was working on the 103rd floor of one of the towers. Even though there is so little hope of finding anyone alive... people are doing this. It's heartbreaking.
Back uptown on 55th street a restaurant had a table out on the sidewalk filled with votives and a single postcard showing the "old" New York skyline. In front of my apartment building were parked 2 squad cars and a van from the Miami Police Department. Freaky.
That's all for now from this woman on the street. Hope you have a great weekend, I know I will try to.
Love,
Sandy
"Know that no matter what happens in life, however hard it is, a new birth can come out of it.
In the Hindu tradition, birth is the complement of death. Life is seen to be a combination of birth and death; the seed of one is always within the other, like the yin-yang Chinese symbol.
In Western spiritualities, there is an acute sense that no pain is in vain: God will heal all wounds, if not in this life, then most certainly in the next."
- Russill Paul
Sandy Swanson is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC), a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation (PCC), and an ADAPT Certified Functional Health Coach (A-CFHC). Click the button below to learn more about the services she offers.
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