It is, as everyone is saying, hard to believe that it's been a year.

Tragedies have a habit of staying immediate, though. My father has been dead nearer six years than five, but it doesn't seem possible that it has been that long since I have spoken with him, or seen him other than on TV. I realize that five and a half years filled with five and a half years worth of events and thoughts and feelings and such has happened, but my father is so big in my head that sometimes it feels as though I just saw him a week or two ago.

And this is the same thing. That day, those days and weeks following, were so big, are so big in my head that it can never be long ago. A year is a very long time, unless there was a tragedy at the beginning of it, and then a year is a moment, because the tragedy was a moment ago.

Another thing that everyone is doing is they are apologizing for feeling loss. If they were not in or near New York or DC, if they know no-one who died, they feel as though they do not have the right to mourn or fear, and they apologize, as though their feelings take away something from people staggering under the weight of great personal losses. They thing of it is, of course, is that we all lost something, and you don't have to have known someone who died that day to mourn them.

It is personal to everyone. No friend or acquaintance or family member of mine died, but I mourn for my friends who had such losses, and I mourn for my city, and I mourn for myself.

I haven't read my entries for the day and the days following in quite some time, and I have a horrible memory, normally, but there are bright flashes of memory in my head that are so clear that I realize why it still seems so recent.

I remember that I was going to go into work early that morning, but ended up not.

I remember turning on the television when the plane had just hit the first tower and standing in my living room, very calmly, for a very long time, just watching. I think I was in shock immediately.

I remember not crying at all that day, not until after it was long over did I weep.

I remember that it was a startlingly beautiful day, very sunny and blue.

I remember seeing that second plane hit and immediately thinking, "We are at war."

I remember watching the first tower fall and being unable to comprehend what was happening.

I remember calling my mother even though it was 6a in LA so that she would know what was happening and that I was safe.

I remember calling work over and over on Cynthia's cell phone to tell them what I had heard about transportation and how people would be able to get out and go home.

I remember while I was on the phone up in her bedroom to try to get a clear signal, Cynthia called from downstairs that the second tower had fallen, but I thought that I had already seen it, that it was the first tower.

I remember being unable to turn away from the television coverage, unable to watch anything else, unable to read people's journal entries written before it happened.

I remember watching the newcasters show everyone alive that they could so that people at home could see their friends alive. I remember being grateful that no local news coverage showed the bodies flying from the buildings, as I know they did nationally. They knew that we did not need to see that.

I remember cringing at the sound of a plane for a long time afterwards.

I remember that first day back in the city, everyone being so gentle with each other. We are New Yorkers, we are tough and smart and sarcastic and fast, but that day we all were broken. I saw the same look on everyone's faces that I know was on mine, pain mixed with both confusion and acceptance. Both the knowledge of what happened and yet not understanding how something so big could not longer be there.

I remember the first day that I drove home on the van in daylight, and as we took that turn out of the tunnel where you get that sweeping view of the city, every passenger turning to look at the blank space in the sky, and then, as one, turning away.

I remember riding on a bus some weeks later, and the bus driver was talking to a passenger saying that he was working 16 hours a day, eight hours on his regular route, then another eight driving rescue workers back and forth from ground zero. As a volunteer, might I add. "I drive for eight hours, go downtown and drive for eight more, then I go home and cry," said this big, tough driver, very simply.

Most of all, I remember September 12th, the day after. I remember getting out of bed and going into the bathroom, and suddenly stopping and thinking, "Did something happen yesterday?" and being completely unable to remember what it was. I couldn't get my mind around it, so while I was asleep, my mind kindly hid it from me.

This morning, I got up at 6a and walked down to the boulevard to see the sun rise over the city. I don't know why I had this strong need to do this, especially after getting to sleep a little later than I had planned, but it was so strong in my head that I wanted to see the city safe as the sun was rising.

As I was standing there, I realized that I have lived in this city for twenty years this month, maybe even twenty years this week. I remember coming here with my seventeen suitcases, not realizing that I had made the decision that would affect every single part of my life forever. I may have been born in Los Angeles, I may live in Jersey now, but I am a New Yorker to the bone, and whatever happens in the rest of my life, wherever I go or live or stay, this is my home, because this is the place that watched me become myself.

The sunrise was so beautiful. It was the right way to start this day.

Today's horoscope:
Feelings are thoroughly mixed with thinking today, so get comfortable with both.

One year ago today:
Another guy said that he didn't understand how this whole building had fallen, and on the street there were all these pieces of paper with writing on it, and they weren't even wrinkled or torn.

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Last Updated Wed 11 September 08:43:09 2002