About other things entirely

Five years ago today, I was not yet a literary agent. I worked in New York City, at one of my between-publishing jobs -- in finance, as a marketing writer. I was thinking of quitting, even then, though it would be another year before I did. After 9/11, I felt I owed it to my city to stay and help it rebuild, even if it was just by continuing to participate in its economy. But that day, all I could do was stand in the street and watch a cloud of dark smoke and ash engulf lower Manhattan, worry about the people I knew who worked and lived farther south than I did, and wonder how on earth I was going to get out of the city and home that night with all of the public transportation shut up tight against the sudden barrage of bomb threats. Beyond that, I fought the persistent thought that there might not be a city to return to once I finally did get out.

What do I remember most about 9/11? I can still smell the strong, acrid burn to the air even forty-plus blocks away from the Trade Center. It had been a perfect pre-autumn day, with clear blue skies and perfect temperatures and, ironically, a cleanness to the air that you only get a few days a year in Manhattan -- and somehow it made the tragedy all the more surreal. I remember watching the televisions hanging from the ceiling where our sales force normally watched CNBC during the day -- all switched to CNN as the morning progressed -- as the towers were hit, and later as they fell. I remember the bizarre silence outside in the streets when I finally couldn't stand the claustrophobia of my office anymore and went out to try and breathe... No buses, no taxis, certainly no planes overhead, no traffic of any kind. There were people everywhere, though far, far fewer than normal, but none of them were saying anything. They all looked shell shocked -- because they were -- and everyone made eye contact. If they did say anything, it was a whispered, "Are you all right? Can you believe it?" Perfect strangers. It didn't matter.

And I remember finally getting out of the city, late in the afternoon. Grand Central Station had reopened despite all concerns, and started running Metro North trains outbound only. There was only one train at a time for each of the three lines, all schedules thrown out the window. They simply waited until they'd crammed as many people as possible into the cars, then set out, making every single stop and never going very fast between stations. My 50-minute commute took over two hours that day, in a train as silent as the city had been. One man in my car, an older gentleman in a uniform reminiscent of those worn by elevator operators or bell hops, sat staring into space. He was covered in white powder from head to toe and was bleeding slightly from a gash on his forehead. I don't know if he was in one of the towers or simply on the street running when one of the buildings came down, but it was clear either way that he'd walked all the way up from lower Manhattan. Exhaustion and shock clung to him along with that dust. When I finally left the train at my own station and saw medical teams waiting there for potentially injured passengers, I knew he would be taken care of at his own stop.

I never appreciated the internet more than I did on that day. With the phone circuits in Manhattan strained to capacity, and cell phones virtually useless (most cell reception bounced in and out of Manhattan from atop one of the towers), we all relied heavily on e-mail and blogs to find out if people we knew were all right. I received a steady stream of inquiries all day long at work, and long into the week that followed. It was a lifeline.

I've been watching far more 9/11 programming than I intended to this week. I don't want to, yet I feel this need to despite everything. Perhaps because this is the first time in years that I'm spending 9/11 in Los Angeles instead of New York: I fly home tomorrow night. Still, I vastly prefer reading other people's takes on that day. Where they were, what they were doing, how they found out. Anyone interested in reading someone else's account might check out Liz Marcs's story of hearing a woman's tale of Pearl Harbor, and how that telling informed her 9/11 experience. It's a thoughtful post that gets to the heart of what many people are feeling today.