11 September 2008

Overcast

I am irrationally glad that it’s overcast today.

That day, seven years ago, was such a clear and perfect September day – brilliant sunshine in a cloudless sky blue sky.

And then, our naivety stripped, the smoke plume arose from the crater where the tower fell, poisoning the air with its fetid opacity, a scar across the sky blue sky.

I was still home when the first plane hit the towers. We were getting ready for work with the television set idly on – both of us snapped to attention and watched the coverage. And watched, live, as the second plane hit.

I headed down to my office, near Union Square, where I climbed up out of the subway and turned to look downtown, towards the trade center. Both towers were still standing, and I could see a construction crane angled towards the tower. It looked almost like the extension ladder on a fire truck, reaching high in the air. But it was undoubtedly an optical illusion, a crane nowhere near the towers that just happened to be in the line of sight between me at Union Square and the downtown World Trade Center.

If there had been a tall tall ladder on a fire truck, could it have rescued even one person? Only in a fairy tale, or another universe.

It makes me heartsick.

18 comments:

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

So many stories . . .

Aunt Becky said...

It's raining here, too. And I'm pleased. It should be raining today.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe it has been seven years. It still feels so immediate, and yet I marvel at how little has been accomplished.

Candy said...

Everyone has a story about that day, and each is more poignant to the one before it. Thank you for sharing.

nonlineargirl said...

(hugs)

MamaGeek @ Works For Us said...

It is just STILL so haunting.

Mary said...

The weather here is exactly as it was that day, seven years ago, and it was all I could think about this morning as I drove past the lake with the mist rising from it, just as I had that morning. It was jarring, and it made me (uncharacteristically) long for bad weather.

I wonder - will it ever feel less raw?

flutter said...

Overcast is appropriate for today.

Anonymous said...

I will never forget the feelings I felt that day!

Janet said...

Overcast is entirely appropriate. I can't believe you were that close. My friend's old neighbour was living in Manhattan at the time. He died of lung cancer a year or two ago. In his twenties.

Girlplustwo said...

....what De said.

Zellmer said...

It was appropriately overcast here today, as well.

kathy a. said...

(o)

Anonymous said...

It leaves us all feeling empty because something so huge was taken away that day.

Mayberry said...

@ janet ... just this year my good friend lost a friend, 36 yrs old and the father of three. Lung cancer. He was a cop who spent months working at ground zero.

It freaks me out when it's sunny on the anniversary, too.

Suburban Correspondent said...

I agree with you about the weather. What I remember is how heartbreakingly beautiful those days were, blue skies (strangely silent), crisp air - but it was all reverberating with the suffering and the pain we were experiencing. Horrible.

Woman in a Window said...

I remember a lot about that day but in reading this I just remembered being outside, my hands around my steering wheel, and the urgnecy in them.

The Library Lady said...

It was brilliantly blue here outside DC.
I sat in my office that afternoon, clutching the baby doll I use for "Mother Goose Time" and listening to the local fire trucks heading to the Pentagon. And waiting to make sure all our loved ones in NY were okay.

The sky seemed even bluer the next day. But we could smell the smoke. We smelled it for a week....