![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I rarely do personal posts, as you probably know, but the anniversary of 9/11, and the fact that I have written some 9/11 stories, has me extra thoughtful.
Due to the sensitive nature of the event, I’ll continue this under the cut.
I’ve lived in the Washington, DC area since I came here to college. For many years I lived in Arlington and Alexandria, two close-in suburbs.
In August 2001, some friends and I planned a trip to California. I was working with two of the actors on a Daytime TV show, working on the staff of their fan clubs. A set tour of that show had been arranged, another favorite actor was doing a play, and one of the folks we worked with was in a musical as well. The timing was perfect to do a great deal of things in a short time.
The trip ended up being not as ideal as expected. From the sketchy hotel, which two of us had to move from …well, it was a lot of frustration.
The plays were fantastic, the set tour amazing, the actors great, but there were other factors that made parts of the trip incredibly annoying. We did, however, get to see a taping of Family Feud with a then-unknown Keith Urban, The Dixie Chicks, and Buck Owen against the Muppets. From a technical standpoint, it was so interesting. From a personal standpoint, I adored this blond Aussie. He came into the audience and he and I chit-chatted a bit. A few folks (a couple in my group) talked to the sisters from the Dixie Chicks, and really liked them.
Anyway…
On Sunday, 9/9, we were at a coffee shop across the street from our hotel when what felt like a truck rattled by. Everyone in line yelled “Quake” and there was a fair bit of nervousness. The quake was centered less than a quarter mile away and really rattled me. I remember talking with my then-fiancé, who was in Australia, and telling him how I just wanted to be home with my kitties, that parts of the trip had been great, but I was done traveling. I kept saying “at least when we get home, there will be nothing to worry about.” Meaning the quake. How wrong could I be?
We flew on American Airlines flight 76 from LAX to Washington, Dulles on 9/10/2001. Due to some snafus, when we got home, we were fairly wiped out. It was about 7 pm, and roommate and I had to decide if we wanted to get our cats from the borders or not. We opted to do so—smart idea.
We had a wonderful crew on the flight, and I remember asking one of the in-flight cabin crew members how to best extend my thanks, so that they might get recognition that would go in their file. She suggested writing to American directly, but took my comments on and gave me a beautiful smile. I later learned she (and some of the other flight crew) died at the Pentagon.
We were at this point living at a corner unit of an 8-floor high rise, southeastern exposure, gorgeous floor to ceiling windows. We were on the 7th floor. We means me…and the roommate, and the two cats. Roommate is a sweetheart, but she has Asperergers and doesn’t deal well with any chaos. At all. Some of the events of the trip, including her almost accidentally being dragged by a car had shaken her up deeply. As a result, I suggested she stay home from work the next day.
She declined.
At the time, I’d been working nights, though the combination of West Coast time, travel, getting the cats, getting settled back home, etc. had me pretty tired, and I crashed hard and early, from like 8Pm-midnight.
As I mentioned before, my then-fiancé was in Australia. After he finished his workday, mine would usually be winding down, so we’d use a voice over IP predecessor to Skype called Netmeeting to chat verbally over the net. For hours sometimes! He got online about 3am, and we chit chatted through his evening.
At about 7 am, the subject of where do we live came up. Again. He has four children, then teens, in Australia, and while I have a mom and stepdad here, I didn’t have as many ties. So the choice should have been easy, right? Wrong. He was contracting at the time, but the job market had tanked in early 2001 in Australia, and we were *very* concerned that he wouldn’t be able to get a well-paying job in his field. There was just nothing out there…
So we debated—bickered really—and by about 8:30 I said we ought to wind it down. Roommate was on her way to work, I was getting ready to go lie down for a few hours, and we might as well relax for a bit.
I’m very ADD and I can rarely do one thing at a time, so I flipped the TV on. I ended up on the Today show and was puttering around my small apartment, headset mic on a one-hundred foot cable. I made a snack and came back to the TV to see…
I was SURE it was a movie review. It was that time in the morning programs where they do their entertainment segments. I didn’t pay a lot of attention at first. Then something in the announcer’s voice, some thread, grabbed me over my fiancé’s voice and I asked him to be quiet. It was then we saw the aerial view of the second plane hitting. It was at a distance…but oh, you could tell it was a jet.
I managed to tell him what was going on and he turned on his TV, but of course there was nothing there. Yet. He was loading websites to see what could be found while I was piecing together that not one, but two, planes had hit the WTC, the same buildings I’d pointed out to him as landmarks when we drove past them on his trip to America a few months earlier.
We knew it was a terrorist attack, but had no idea what we should do. He was monitoring online feeds, I was seeing what the TV said. I was pacing back and forth in my apartment. At one point, I went into my bedroom and noticed a plane was flying very low over 395. My apartment complex was right off 395, which is a major highway into DC from Virginia.
Anyway, I made a mental note of it, thought it was strange, resumed pacing. About…maybe ten, fifteen minutes later, there was a sound in his voice, a sound I *never* hope to hear again. He told me to go into my bedroom. “Don’t scream, love. Just tell me what you see.”
I stood there in shock, tears pouring down my face, hugging one of my cats and trying not to scream into her fur, watching the Pentagon, a couple miles away, burning. It was the most horrifying moment of my life. If I hadn’t had him to anchor me, I have no idea what I would have done in that moment.
I never felt or heard the explosion, but other folks in my building did. I suppose with the TV and future DH’s voice in my ear, I just missed it. I’m so glad I did!
The rest of the day passed, parts of it in a blur, parts in too bright contrast. Phone service in DC was jammed, so future DH was tasked with calling my family and letting them know that I’d arrived home safely the night before. That was I shaken, but okay.
He also got in touch with roommate, who had no idea what had happened. She was the only English speaker at the time in her office, and only knew a few phrases in Vietnamese, not enough to piece together what was happening. She left for home at about ten am and actually arrived home at just before midnight. She ended up having to walk most of the fifteen mile route.
Future DH stayed with me all day. We watched the towers fall together from across the world, sobbing together. We opened up a chatroom that was a curious blend of science fiction authors from the BAEN bar (John Ringo and David Weber were there for a bit), soap opera fans, local friends, even future DH’s ex wife. We got the word out far and wide and people from all walks of life were there.
We all comforted each other, just by our presence together. Ideologically, and even physically, we were worlds apart, but in that moment, it didn’t matter. We were human, we were hurting together.
I’d keep wandering into the bedroom, watching the fire, wishing I could physically speak with friends and family. I watched the cars crawling past on 395, knowing those people wanted to be home with their loved ones. I worried about roommate, who didn’t have a cell phone, even though I know we couldn’t have reached her anyway.
I worried so much about friends in the Pentagon and WTC. Some were okay by miraculous means. Ani should have died in the Pentagon, but she was just late enough for work that she was on 395 when the plane hit. James’ son had a toothache and he was late to work at WTC1. Some folks were delayed because of the primary voting. Others…it was just fate.
And I lost some very dear friends in New York. I think about them a lot and know the world is a sadder place without them.
One of my most enduring memories of that day was chatting with three friends late that night (or possibly into the wee hours of 9/12). Kerri was a resident advisor at NYU. Amanda was a retail associate living in Indiana, and Brandy was a reporter in Houston. All three were just as terrified about what might come as I was. We were literally spread across the country and we all felt just as vulnerable.
Another enduring memory was me going onto the balcony that evening and looking out into the skies. The silence was astounding. No planes were overhead, though later we had fighter jet patrols. The airspace had been locked down. Then I heard the thump of helicopter rotors, many of them. They’d started the patrols around DC. Some of the copters hovered so close to my apartment that I could see the pilots’ faces.
A few days later, I went to the Pentagon City mall with some friends. We parked in the concrete parking garage that overlooked the Pentagon and just hugged each other and sobbed.
A couple of months later, my husband and I were married. He came over here to just be with me for a little bit, as his contract had ended, and we realized life was just too short to argue about the smaller things. We talked to a lawyer to discuss immigration options, told my family and his on a Sunday that we were being married on a Thursday, and did it, just us, roommate, Amanda from Indiana, who had temporarily moved in with us, and a justice of the peace.
The very next day we went up to New York. I had some work things to do, but that Saturday night, we went to Ground Zero, brought the workers coffee, spent about an hour there crying, comforting, being comforted by strangers. It was the strangest feeling of abject horror and uplifting humanity in that darkness.
We were set to leave New York that Monday, Veteran’s Day, two months after the attack, when the city was locked down. A plane had crashed and there were serious fears that it was another terror attack. I remember sitting in a hotel room, about ten of us, feeling like we were going through this all over again. And again being comforted by the presence of others.
9/11 changed so much in all of us. I wish all of you peace now, and always.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!
TG
Due to the sensitive nature of the event, I’ll continue this under the cut.
I’ve lived in the Washington, DC area since I came here to college. For many years I lived in Arlington and Alexandria, two close-in suburbs.
In August 2001, some friends and I planned a trip to California. I was working with two of the actors on a Daytime TV show, working on the staff of their fan clubs. A set tour of that show had been arranged, another favorite actor was doing a play, and one of the folks we worked with was in a musical as well. The timing was perfect to do a great deal of things in a short time.
The trip ended up being not as ideal as expected. From the sketchy hotel, which two of us had to move from …well, it was a lot of frustration.
The plays were fantastic, the set tour amazing, the actors great, but there were other factors that made parts of the trip incredibly annoying. We did, however, get to see a taping of Family Feud with a then-unknown Keith Urban, The Dixie Chicks, and Buck Owen against the Muppets. From a technical standpoint, it was so interesting. From a personal standpoint, I adored this blond Aussie. He came into the audience and he and I chit-chatted a bit. A few folks (a couple in my group) talked to the sisters from the Dixie Chicks, and really liked them.
Anyway…
On Sunday, 9/9, we were at a coffee shop across the street from our hotel when what felt like a truck rattled by. Everyone in line yelled “Quake” and there was a fair bit of nervousness. The quake was centered less than a quarter mile away and really rattled me. I remember talking with my then-fiancé, who was in Australia, and telling him how I just wanted to be home with my kitties, that parts of the trip had been great, but I was done traveling. I kept saying “at least when we get home, there will be nothing to worry about.” Meaning the quake. How wrong could I be?
We flew on American Airlines flight 76 from LAX to Washington, Dulles on 9/10/2001. Due to some snafus, when we got home, we were fairly wiped out. It was about 7 pm, and roommate and I had to decide if we wanted to get our cats from the borders or not. We opted to do so—smart idea.
We had a wonderful crew on the flight, and I remember asking one of the in-flight cabin crew members how to best extend my thanks, so that they might get recognition that would go in their file. She suggested writing to American directly, but took my comments on and gave me a beautiful smile. I later learned she (and some of the other flight crew) died at the Pentagon.
We were at this point living at a corner unit of an 8-floor high rise, southeastern exposure, gorgeous floor to ceiling windows. We were on the 7th floor. We means me…and the roommate, and the two cats. Roommate is a sweetheart, but she has Asperergers and doesn’t deal well with any chaos. At all. Some of the events of the trip, including her almost accidentally being dragged by a car had shaken her up deeply. As a result, I suggested she stay home from work the next day.
She declined.
At the time, I’d been working nights, though the combination of West Coast time, travel, getting the cats, getting settled back home, etc. had me pretty tired, and I crashed hard and early, from like 8Pm-midnight.
As I mentioned before, my then-fiancé was in Australia. After he finished his workday, mine would usually be winding down, so we’d use a voice over IP predecessor to Skype called Netmeeting to chat verbally over the net. For hours sometimes! He got online about 3am, and we chit chatted through his evening.
At about 7 am, the subject of where do we live came up. Again. He has four children, then teens, in Australia, and while I have a mom and stepdad here, I didn’t have as many ties. So the choice should have been easy, right? Wrong. He was contracting at the time, but the job market had tanked in early 2001 in Australia, and we were *very* concerned that he wouldn’t be able to get a well-paying job in his field. There was just nothing out there…
So we debated—bickered really—and by about 8:30 I said we ought to wind it down. Roommate was on her way to work, I was getting ready to go lie down for a few hours, and we might as well relax for a bit.
I’m very ADD and I can rarely do one thing at a time, so I flipped the TV on. I ended up on the Today show and was puttering around my small apartment, headset mic on a one-hundred foot cable. I made a snack and came back to the TV to see…
I was SURE it was a movie review. It was that time in the morning programs where they do their entertainment segments. I didn’t pay a lot of attention at first. Then something in the announcer’s voice, some thread, grabbed me over my fiancé’s voice and I asked him to be quiet. It was then we saw the aerial view of the second plane hitting. It was at a distance…but oh, you could tell it was a jet.
I managed to tell him what was going on and he turned on his TV, but of course there was nothing there. Yet. He was loading websites to see what could be found while I was piecing together that not one, but two, planes had hit the WTC, the same buildings I’d pointed out to him as landmarks when we drove past them on his trip to America a few months earlier.
We knew it was a terrorist attack, but had no idea what we should do. He was monitoring online feeds, I was seeing what the TV said. I was pacing back and forth in my apartment. At one point, I went into my bedroom and noticed a plane was flying very low over 395. My apartment complex was right off 395, which is a major highway into DC from Virginia.
Anyway, I made a mental note of it, thought it was strange, resumed pacing. About…maybe ten, fifteen minutes later, there was a sound in his voice, a sound I *never* hope to hear again. He told me to go into my bedroom. “Don’t scream, love. Just tell me what you see.”
I stood there in shock, tears pouring down my face, hugging one of my cats and trying not to scream into her fur, watching the Pentagon, a couple miles away, burning. It was the most horrifying moment of my life. If I hadn’t had him to anchor me, I have no idea what I would have done in that moment.
I never felt or heard the explosion, but other folks in my building did. I suppose with the TV and future DH’s voice in my ear, I just missed it. I’m so glad I did!
The rest of the day passed, parts of it in a blur, parts in too bright contrast. Phone service in DC was jammed, so future DH was tasked with calling my family and letting them know that I’d arrived home safely the night before. That was I shaken, but okay.
He also got in touch with roommate, who had no idea what had happened. She was the only English speaker at the time in her office, and only knew a few phrases in Vietnamese, not enough to piece together what was happening. She left for home at about ten am and actually arrived home at just before midnight. She ended up having to walk most of the fifteen mile route.
Future DH stayed with me all day. We watched the towers fall together from across the world, sobbing together. We opened up a chatroom that was a curious blend of science fiction authors from the BAEN bar (John Ringo and David Weber were there for a bit), soap opera fans, local friends, even future DH’s ex wife. We got the word out far and wide and people from all walks of life were there.
We all comforted each other, just by our presence together. Ideologically, and even physically, we were worlds apart, but in that moment, it didn’t matter. We were human, we were hurting together.
I’d keep wandering into the bedroom, watching the fire, wishing I could physically speak with friends and family. I watched the cars crawling past on 395, knowing those people wanted to be home with their loved ones. I worried about roommate, who didn’t have a cell phone, even though I know we couldn’t have reached her anyway.
I worried so much about friends in the Pentagon and WTC. Some were okay by miraculous means. Ani should have died in the Pentagon, but she was just late enough for work that she was on 395 when the plane hit. James’ son had a toothache and he was late to work at WTC1. Some folks were delayed because of the primary voting. Others…it was just fate.
And I lost some very dear friends in New York. I think about them a lot and know the world is a sadder place without them.
One of my most enduring memories of that day was chatting with three friends late that night (or possibly into the wee hours of 9/12). Kerri was a resident advisor at NYU. Amanda was a retail associate living in Indiana, and Brandy was a reporter in Houston. All three were just as terrified about what might come as I was. We were literally spread across the country and we all felt just as vulnerable.
Another enduring memory was me going onto the balcony that evening and looking out into the skies. The silence was astounding. No planes were overhead, though later we had fighter jet patrols. The airspace had been locked down. Then I heard the thump of helicopter rotors, many of them. They’d started the patrols around DC. Some of the copters hovered so close to my apartment that I could see the pilots’ faces.
A few days later, I went to the Pentagon City mall with some friends. We parked in the concrete parking garage that overlooked the Pentagon and just hugged each other and sobbed.
A couple of months later, my husband and I were married. He came over here to just be with me for a little bit, as his contract had ended, and we realized life was just too short to argue about the smaller things. We talked to a lawyer to discuss immigration options, told my family and his on a Sunday that we were being married on a Thursday, and did it, just us, roommate, Amanda from Indiana, who had temporarily moved in with us, and a justice of the peace.
The very next day we went up to New York. I had some work things to do, but that Saturday night, we went to Ground Zero, brought the workers coffee, spent about an hour there crying, comforting, being comforted by strangers. It was the strangest feeling of abject horror and uplifting humanity in that darkness.
We were set to leave New York that Monday, Veteran’s Day, two months after the attack, when the city was locked down. A plane had crashed and there were serious fears that it was another terror attack. I remember sitting in a hotel room, about ten of us, feeling like we were going through this all over again. And again being comforted by the presence of others.
9/11 changed so much in all of us. I wish all of you peace now, and always.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!
TG