I'm ok. Somehow the full magnitude of this just hasn't hit me yet. There are ways the disaster brushed incredibly close, and yet I just feel numb. I keep feeling I should grieve for the people who were killed, and yet it's so hard to believe that, even seeing the rubble, it still does feel like a special effect.
I work about two miles north of the trade center, and things were oddly calm up there on 23rd street. Most offices closed around noon, and the streets were filled with people, in the middle of the streets as well as the sidewalks. But most of them were astoundingly calm, focusing on how to get home, and seeing the city's well-organized response to the emergency in the process. Many buses passed us, heading downtown to help evacuate the area. The taxis we saw were all off duty, for some reason, and most people just seemed to be walking, slowly, but reasonably calmly. I passed one young woman staring down Fifth Avenue at the smoke pouring out of the hole.
I was the only one who made it into work yesterday. David has been driving me in because I'm having a tendon problem with my foot, and he dropped me off at about 8:30. We generally take the Battery Tunnel in, which exits just west of the former towers. So we drove by about half an hour before the explosions. I don't think I was even paying attention.
My boss was in DC yesterday; still is, as far as I know. He travels so often that his wife didn't even know what hotel he was staying at, and she called, frantic, to try to find out. (As it turns out, he was in Rock Creek Park, safely far away from the explosions.) I called our colleagues who work further downtown, and the person I spoke with had just seen the tower collapse, out her window. I left my office twice to try to give blood. The first time I couldn't get uptown; the second time, I started walking, realized I would never be able to go two miles on my aching foot, and finally was able to share a cab uptown with several other people. I had planned to meet David at his office, and we were to go together, since he had already been to the Red Cross center and was told there was a five-hour wait. He had also signed up to do grief counseling, and he had been picked up by one of the commandeered buses by the time I got to him. So I waited, read through almost the entire Table Talk thread, and listened to the radio. Meanwhile, he waited at the piers that were to be a temporary morgue, and eventually was dismissed because neither the bodies nor the grievers had arrived.
So, a lot of near misses, but we're all ok. David and I eventually got home to Brooklyn over the Triboro Bridge, which was the only one open, and stayed up far too late watching the rescue attempts and that very swiftly-moving plane. My office is closed today, but we're working from home, televisions and radios blaring.
Much love to you all. When you break a glass at a wedding, it's supposed to mean that you remember sorrow in the midst of joy. I think enough glass has been broken for years of weddings. But we'll see you at ours, God willing.
{Later}
The situation is actually quite a bit calmer up here on 23rd street. I tried to get over to give blood earlier, but there's a five hour wait in local hospitals. The streets are filled with people, most of whom are fairly calm, but who are walking slowly down the middle of the street instead of staying on the sidewalk. It reminds me of celebrations at the end of World War II, rather than what could be the beginning of one.
In a movie, the eerieness of this scene might be marked by silence or wailing, but what makes it particularly eerie is the normal behavior most people are lapsing back into. Most seem more focused on trying to get home. I overheard one conversation about the wtc collapse which transitioned into a discussion about Independence Day, and then into other Denzel Washington movies. But it's all under a literal pall from the smoke billowing out of the hole at the end of fifth avenue.
I am going to try again to give blood in a little while. This is an extraordinary and very frightening day.
| New York City |
