Gorgeous Weather

Reflecting on 9/11 twenty years and one war on masks later

Most years I let 9/11 come and go, but the onslaught of twenty year anniversary coverage got to me. This year, it’s different. I’m remembering my experience that day and where we’ve arrived twenty years later. It’s not a good place.

Everybody will tell you where they were that morning. I was at my desk writing a check to Blue Cross Blue Shield to hand deliver at their World Trade Center offices when the phone rang. It was my dad, who passed in 2019, calling from his house in Miami. “Turn on the TV.” My friend was asleep on the fold-out couch sleeping off a bender. He was scheduled to fly to Dubai that morning and overslept. I turned on the TV and told him to wake up. He tried to argue. “What could be so imp…”

Speculation went from accident to intentional pretty fast and we were dressed and out the door. The sky, as you know, was a vivid blue, and the weather was one of those crisp fall days where you felt how lucky you were to live in New York. This day was no different. They came to hit us. We’re New York. Errant paper swirled and swam in the wind. We walked along DeKalb toward the promenade picking up another friend along the way. Up in his apartment, we watched the first tower collapse on TV.